Pages

Thursday 31 January 2013

Houstons Ships Part 5

After a lengthy hiatus, when I got distracted by the 'Ooh Shiny' new lead thing, I finally returned to my Houston's Ships. I got them based up some time ago with some plain white card I had lurking around, put some ratlines etc. on, and they sat there for ages. Now that Cancon and the Sui saga is finally over, I have been looking at the lead pile, and decided these would take minimal effort to finish, so why not?

First step..  a rough mix of Paynes Grey and Powder Blue. Not too well mixed, so applying a thick layer leaves streaks of the lighter blue. Hopefully you can see the effect in this picture.

Bases painted 'blue'
Next step is a thick 'slap' of thick acrylic gloss medium. It dries clear, but the picture below shows how it looks when first applied, being white in colour. Useful as you can actually see it to apply it, and you can work up bow waves and stern turbulence. In the background are the first two bases to be done, and you can see how it is already starting to dry clear.

Acrylic Gel applied
Once these are quite dry (about 2 days) - a simple drybrush of the wave peaks followed by gloss varnish, and these will look the business, as well as letting me tick off another line in the great lead 'to-do' list..  hurrah!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks Steve. The Houstons models seem to vary a lot in quality, some are really nice while others suffer from miscasts, but they do have a lot of character and paint up well.

    Not sure whether I wil get any more in the near future, but these will be enough for a scratch Victorian Navy of widely divergent ships!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mate these are gorgeous! I have been dithering about getting some surface ships to do battle under my Aeronefs and Zeppelins and now I'm sold.

    You've done a lovely job with these. Are you going to get an opposing fleet anytime soon?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Paul, thanks for the compliment. I have been dithering about an opponent. Traditionally, it should be the French, tempting.. Thomo has some but he is overseas, and I am going to try and persuade some of the locals to give them a go - rules are still up in the air though.

    ReplyDelete