Ships, part 8

More bits and pieces have been added to the first iron dought in my shipyard:


The ship is pretty close to being at the end of the build phase now. I have yet to decide on whether to add the gunports or to decorate the stern. For the sake of simplicity the rigging will not be added. The masts need some adjusting - when the supports were glued in they appear to have pulled the masts a bit when the glue dried. A gentle application to a knife should fix that as the crooked masts just do not look right. Then it is off to be painted!

One more pic:


I think a different background is needed for these pics!

Ships, part 7

Another brief update:


I have added the rostrum and some more superstructure bits. The metal pieces are some 1/2400 scale ship's boats that I have hoarded for a long time. They are produced by CinC ( website ). 1/2400 might seem too small for this 1/1200 ship, but they match the original drawing almost perfectly; I suspect they are a bit too large for 1/2400 in the first place. But they look the part!

Hlutrgú, part 3

Here are a pair of work-in-progress pics of those pesky swamp dwelling Hlutrgú:

Shaman, drummer, and champions.

A few of the 'boys'.

They look a little rough yet; I am not quite finished so hopefully the end result will be better. In particular, the lightest colored ones gave me some problems. I think they received two base coats, and they still did not look right after an overall ink wash. So, they received yet another base coat of thinned paint, slightly darker than the original, and they seem to look much better.

I am also trying to decide on the colors for their weapons. So far, in 'My Tékumel' I have been using metallics for all weapons - not canon I realize but it looks OK to me (YTMV)*. Of course, all that I have painted so far have been Ever Present Glory troops! If I go with metal javelin tips for the Hlutrgú, I might go with a copper or bronze effect.


* - Your Tékumel May Vary


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Ships, part 6

More and more small steps on the way toward launch:


On my other blog, I wrote about purchasing some Xyston 1/600 ancient ships. Along with the ships, I bought some extra ship-board artillery, and after they arrived, I thought that some of them might make good lambasts for Half Continent ships.


Here is the basic hull and a sprue of ballista. They are a little large, but should work just fine. Also in this photo, one can just make out the deck planking - it will be much more apparent when painted.




And this is the hull with some extra parts for the deck fittings alongside. After looking again at the original artwork for this ship, I have made my mini with a greatly exaggerated vertical measurement - the hull is much taller than the scale. It is OK though, it does not look too bad and I like it! Even the piece with the hole drilled off-center...

Tékumel naval, part 1

The first order has arrived:


1/600 ancient ships, made by Xyston ( link to mfg's web site ). I ordered a variety of minis, just to see what they look like in person. I am quite surprised by their size - they are MUCH bigger than I thought and enormous compared to the 1/1200 ancient ships I have used in the past. Unfortunately, I was not able to get any Roman ships, and only one Carthaginian ship. The plan is to group the minis, mostly by their historical nationalities, into fleets for the Tékumel factions. One problem with the Xyston range is a shortage of smaller ships, so the one hemiolia mini - the smallest ship of the range - might be used for all of the human fleets, perhaps with some minor modifications.


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