French Capital Ships finished

Painting is done, these pictures where taken right before applying the final coat of varnish.

Now the "fun" part begins - identifying the ships and preparing the transparent bases using the label printer. And if I remember correctly there´s a large batch of light cruisers and destroyers waiting to be painted...  well... seeya in another 6 months or so...

Seriously, I don´t know how long until the next entry. I´m busy repainting my Taliban, preparing the British Army of the Rhine, will have to paint the next shipment of my own production miniatures soon enough and there´s still time to be spent on sculpting... all that is covered on my other blog (here) - so there´s probably be another gap between now and the next update. Unless the dreadnought fever strikes again ;)

Painting the French - Assembly Line Style

After a looooong break I´ve finally returned to the project with the memorial of the outbreak of WW1. My original plan was to be finished painting by the time, but things never work according to plan. Ever.

So I´m now finally back painting the French Navy that started collecting dust. I had primed them already, but now I finally found the motivation to start basecoating assembly-line style with my airbrush, the new shiny weapon in my arsenal.
 Basecoating them in grey was thus a quick affair and much less tedious than hand-painting them all as I only had to touch up small areas that I missed with the airbrush. 

The tan deck had to be painted the old-fashioned way using a brush. Now the ships are waiting to receive a wash and their final highlights.

After that they should look roughly like their elder brethren I finished in december.

And after that, the bad part is still waiting:  Identifying all the ships in order to prepare their bases...  I have no idea which ship is which class after all those months...

Transparent Basing - The final solution

Heya,

I know it´s become silent around here for quite some time, but I´ve been busy with other projects over at Rifles and Muskets. Nevertheless, I´ve silently pursued this project by obtaining a label printer and the right tape to print some white font on transparent labels. That has taken me some time, but today I finally tested if it was actually providing the desired result.

And yes, it works just fine! Clear font, just the right size after I figured out how to adjust the font size on the printer and no shaky handwritten names!

The only downside is that the label printer does not use the label efficiently. Every printed piece has about 100% unprinted label - 50% on either side - that could be used if the printer would just cut the tape closer to the printed area. Guess they want to sell more of their expenside tape :(

Label Printer!

Hello there,

I´m just adding a very small update today, some good news on the ship-front. My Mum has stumbled upon a cheap label printer compatible with white font on transparent basing. I´ll have to pick it up during my next visit home, which is still a two weeks away, and I´ll have to order the correct printing tape for the device. But having done that, I´ll be able to replace my handwritten ship designations with nice and uniform labels from a label printer!

Apart from this good news, there´s not much progression on the naval arms race as I´ve been focusing on sculpting lately. You can whitness the results on my other Blog, Rifles and Muskets (see blog lists on the right hand side).

The French Fleet has arrived and is primed, with some of the large cruisers already painted, but there´s some way to go. Fortunately, I still have some time left until August :)

If you´re lucky, I´ll be playing a game of Naval Thunder in roughly two weeks and I might take some pics and write a short report, but that is not yet decided....