It doesn’t take much to distract me sometimes. In this case, whilst on an ‘enforced’ shopping trip at Lidl, I spotted that they were selling some Airfix ship kits for just £4.99. A bargain! But could that price be an excuse for me adding another kit to my stash? Well, one of the kits was the Mary Rose and as I am interested in the War of the Roses at the moment, the Mary Rose was close enough to the period to justify my interest – and it would look nice in the display cabinet. So the Mary Rose kit, along with the ‘Victory’ (‘might as well pick it up – it could work with Black Seas… and a tenner for two kits…you cant go wrong.!’) were added to the trolley.
The Mary Rose under construction
Despite the more pressing nature of finishing my WOTR army, I decided to break away and build the Mary Rose kit. I quite enjoyed the change from making Perry’s WOTR bow and bill men and it looks as though Airfix really have upped their game. The kit went together beautifully with the minimum and sanding and no filling. In fact, I became a bit over confident and did the usual bloke thing of straying from the instructions. As a result I missed out a couple of pieces but no matter, nobody will notice…
Mary Rose under coated
Once assembled, I sprayed the main hull with a Leather brown primer and the sails in Skeleton bone.
Mary Rose Sails
I then painted the decking or the deck covering with Vallejo ‘Old Wood’ and then painted the masts with Vallejo New wood. I should point out at this stage, that I had done no research regarding colour scheme, or for that matter, anything else. My only reference was the box art and the painting instructions supplied with the kit. I just fancied building a kit for a change! Incidentally, the kit does include paints, glue and a nice brush, so it’s a lovely little starter kit.
Mary Rose with decking painted.
It was at this point that I realised that I had a play test of ‘Never mind the Bill Hooks’ looming and I needed to finish off a couple of extra Archer units. So the Mary Rose was pushed to one side and it was back to the Archers!
More arrows please!
In fact I have completed two more units, making 4 Archer units for my army now.
Yet another bowman unit ready for battle!
The ‘red faction’ of my retinue!
So with a photo shoot of my army due, I’d better get on with the Billmen units. I will get back to the Mary Rose, it was fun to just to do something a little bit different during the Christmas break that didn’t require too much thought. But, I will finish the Mary Rose before I start another project – honest…..
Bill men on the work bench.
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available POST FREE from my shop here:
Perry’s WOTR plastic range are here:
Happy Modelling!