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...

Naval Arms Race

News from the Naval Arms Race!

I´ve been busy working on the Italian Navy and have finished major parts of it - three old cruisers and two old battleships as well as a Dreadnought + some Destroyers are still pending completion, but the majority of capital ships and cruisers are finished.

I´ve been basing most of the ships during the last few days, but there´s still some way to go. I´m leaving the bases blank for now, with handpainted names as an interim solution. As soon as I get my hands on a Label printer with white font on transparent labels for a decent price, I´ll scratch off the handpainted names, put the printed ones on and add silicone waves.

Here´s a wild mix of ships, some british and Italian cruisers where still in action while the pic was taken. Maybe I´ll upload another battlereport of this engagement soonish, but I don´t make promises any longer as I´ve the tendency not to keep them :D

Confronted by the Italian Fleet, the French have also decided to start their navy buildup:

This impressive armada is the entirety of the French Battleships and Cruisers - no destroyers on the sheet yet.  Not all of those ships, but the majority where stationed in the Mediterranean.

I´ve also glanced over the designs of the French Pre-Dreadnoughts after someone on TMP pointed out that the numbers alone are not conclusive regarding the fighting strengths of the navies. Indeed, most of the French Pre-Dreadnoughts are armed with 4x 12" Main Guns, whereas even the latest Italian Pre-Dreadnoughts where armed with just 2x 12" Main Guns, which is half the firepower on each ship, with better overall protection of about 10-12" armor on belt and turrets compared to Italian armor of 10" belt and 8" turrets on Regina Elena Class Pre-Dreadnoughts (worse for the older models).

Counting all the excess 12"-guns on the French Pre-Dreads the French Navy can easily make up for the initial slight inferiority in numbers of Dreadnoughts when compared to the combined Austro-Italian Fleets. Provided they can be brought to bear effectively...