Monday 4 July 2016

Boats!! - WIP

Hi all

from my last WIP post of the new Bushido board, I spoke about some boats I will be building to add to the harbour theme.  Now I'm not a competent model builder certainly not like Joe (Zabadaks ZombieWorld) is with his lovely pirate ships and so with that I apologise for anyone expecting a big Junk or other recognisebly oriental ship that's not going to happen - at least not yet! So I had to think a little smaller and went down the Sampan route.  These little boats should be a little easier to build.....

I saw these ones at Broadside, they are made by Ainsty Castings and I took a picture of them because I thought I might use them as a "blueprint" to build my own.



Now as always I want my board and terrain to be entirely playable so it's unlikely, although not impossible that I will add the canopy to the vessels and technically having researched a little online not strictly necessary anyway but the basic design is something I wanted to follow.

So I started with some 5mm foamboard and cut it to shape, then reached for the coffee stirrers and glued them to the top of the board


once it was dry i trimmed the planks to the shape of the boat and sanded down the edges


I then added the raised areas - fore and aft, with the aft raised slightly higher using matchsticks.

 
and then trimmed and sanded to shape


lastly I had used long stirrers to form the keel, with a little match stick step.


next i drilled a hole in the aft section and using a modified High Elf spear, which i chopped up I created an oarlock.  Once i'd superglued that in place I cut an oar from a wooden chip fork, add a drop of paint and we have...



that'll do for starters, i might add some more detail later but I doubt it, i like them as they are.

thats it for now folks,

hope you enjoy
dGG

26 comments:

  1. The start of the fleet, nice work!

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    1. I might get more ambitious as time goes by Fran, perhaps a Junk next?

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  2. Very nice, Andy. A straightforward and effective build. If you're looking for reasonably inexpensive Japanese scenery (or 'templates' to create your own), Sarissa Precision do a nice range of Oriental scenery, including a Sampan with arched canopy.

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    1. Yeah templates more than purchases Jez, but thanks mate, I have a few more ideas for terrain so I'll pop on over to Sarissa and have a mooch about. I'll think you'll like this week's posts buddy. The board is finished so the next couple of posts will draw it to a close....Then ideas for another.....

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  3. excellent work, they look really great

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    1. Thanks mate, the more I think about it the more I'm probably going to put canopies on them at some point. This idea was reinforced about an hour ago when i was looking at some Eastern artwork in a patients house, but for now I'm still really pleased with them

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    2. Think that will work nicely. What are you going to make them from, cloth always difficult. I would go for silk and pva or super sculpty

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    3. Not sure yet bud, will think on it over the week as I'm work and can't hobby anyway and crack on this weekend.

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  4. They look superb and saved you £13! Great job, the oarlock is inspired.

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    1. Thanks dude, money in my pocket as the water effect cost me a bit more than I was expecting.

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  5. Very, very good, Andy. Given the size of an average "Bushido" gaming board you certainly can't go too big with your sailing vessels. I'd certainly add a canopy to at least one of your sampans. And I'd like to see you make a junk next.

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    1. Thanks Bryan, a junk is definitely on the cards in the near future as is a canopy for the sampan(s) but a little bit of thought is required

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  6. A man after my own heart, stirrers, matchsticks and foamboard! (I would have used a bit of sprue though instead of an elf spear!)
    Great stuff dGG, they do look terrific and as junks come in all shapes and sizes I'm sure a smallish one is well within your capabilities and would make a gret centrepiece too.

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    1. Mate it was your lovely pirate ships that started this off!! So I thought I would get the basics done and work up from there. Something with sails and whatnot, I just need to think about the size and where it will go....

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  7. Nice, I need to make some like that.

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    1. Feel free buddy, I just made it up. As Joe above says Junks come in all sorts of sizes.

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  8. Great idea, simple and creative, and the final result was great! Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Thank you Luciano, I must admit it felt like cheating having "borrowed" the design from Ainsty's ;-)

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  9. Cracking posting Andy, and further evidence that you are the Baron of "Bushido" in the blogging world :-)

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    1. Thanks Simon, if you like these you will love the next couple of posts!

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  10. Hmmm, very interesting indeed. I went your route and have copied YOUR templates so I can borrow the idea myself for a little later in the year (it’s gone into the top ten next projects list). I was thinking I need more junks for my 6mm Chinese Boxers (and Chinese Christian factions/missionary converts), and although I have a long term love affair with Irregular Miniatures, even at 6mm, purchasing another half a dozen or so boats is quite an investment in lead (and postage costs). Your boats look spiffing, and have quite re-invigorated me to want to `have a go` myself at creating more scenics, to grace my river stations. Excellent work on yours Andy, dare I say it but I think your finished boats look every bit as good as Ainsty Castings... maybe better.

    Interesting comment made about not wanting them too big. It is very true, on a table top, especially houses (or boats) can look TOO big, surprisingly enough (I`m talking about larger scale full blown wargames, not skirmish scale).

    Buildings and boats often look better scaled down a bit. For example, if using 28mm miniatures, then 20mm houses actually look better on the table among the massed ranks of men. There was actually a big discussion about this very topic, is Yahoo`s Group “Society of Daisy” a while back.

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    1. Thank you Steve that's very kind of you to say.

      I agree smaller houses for large battles definitely as you are less interactive within the house - it's more abstract, yes there are 30 rifleman crammed into the building but you don't gave to represent them all, it would be impossible. In skirmish games your minis interact with terrain in a far more realistic manner and so I think the buildings need more detail. I definitely did not want the boats to be the dominant feature so they had to be scaled down

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