Gun Boat!
Oh dear! I’ve been distracted from finishing off one project by the lure of something more interesting…..
I guess it’s a common occurrence and it explains why most of us in the hobby have a ‘lead mountain’ lurking around in a secret location. A bit like the Wife’s handbag and shoe collection…
Well, last year, at the Derby war games show I saw a lovely model of a naval gunboat and thought that it would make a nice addition to my collection. I justified buying it as I could use it in the Caribbean campaign that I will one day play. Having had the instant gratification of buying it and showing it off to my mate, once home it went up onto the shelf – ‘for later’.
Well, I was tidying around in the garage this wet bank holiday weekend and came across it. What a great little project to complete, I thought. It wont take long as the uniforms are pretty straight forward to paint and they use a similar colour scheme to the Prussians, so I might as well have ago at finishing it.
Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple. The figures weren’t quite as cleanly molded as I would like. Now I dont mind doing a bit of cleaning up, scraping down mold lines , getting rid of flash etc. – but these figures were just hard work! In fact, rather than cleaning up, it felt at times that I was re-sculpting them….Nevertheless, I persevered and I did make some progress. In fact, actually, the figures turned out to be quite nice and when put all together on the boat, do make a nice model. So the boat and the crew are finished. Just 5 marines and the ten oarsmen to go. So much for a quick project….
The full crew awaiting painting…