“Another floating runway”

I’m posting this today (Friday) as I have to work from seven tomorrow morning, so I’ve been pulling out all the stops (well a bit at least) to get these finished early so you don’t have to wait till tomorrow evening (the varnish is still a little tacky as I take the photos). I spoil you lot, I really do!

Anyway like the big kid I am I’m finding it a little hard to get motivated at the moment as I’m waiting for the miniatures that will form the basis of the next silly diversion that will pull my attention away from all the stuff I should really be getting finished. Yes I’m led to believe that my He-man conversion fodder figures are in the post and winging their way across the pond from a larger than life land of fantasy and plastic heroes… no not Eternia , America!! (But if the cap fits). So in the meantime I’ve decided to dig out the first ship from my Spartan Games, Dystopian wars, Prussian Empire support flotilla, that I bought at Salute what seems like ages ago now. Anyway to compliment the Elba class fleet carrier I painted up eight weeks ago (really was it eight weeks ago!) I thought I’d add the Rhine class fleet carrier to my little naval force, the Rhine is a bit smaller than its two tiered brother being a still reasonable 145mm long and is in fact about 7mm wider than the Elba at 45mm wide. The design is much simpler though as it is basically just a low slung hull with a wooden runway along the top, a quartet of funnels at the rear and a central “bridge” that contains the bridge (if that makes sense). Having said all that I actually really like this little ship and have been looking forward to getting some paint on it since I bought it. In addition to the carrier I decided to finally paint up fifteen of the stands of tiny flyers and three of the movement trays they fit into when in use.

As usual with the Dystopian stuff I began with a little sanding of the bottoms of all the pieces, but as there are no metal weapon turrets to worry about this was a simple five minute job, then it was out to the back garden (yes it wasn’t raining!) where they received there undercoat of matt black. After this was dry they were touched up with more matt black on any of the bits the spray had missed, before the ship and the edges of the plane/movement tray bases were dry-brushed with chainmail. Next I added the copious amount of decking area on the carrier with a coat of chocolate brown that was then highlighted with leather brown. After this I dug out the deep bronze green that is the chosen colour for my aircraft, I had been a little concerned that this was a little simple after I completed the larger “Elba” carrier and that I should perhaps have added some “camo” stripes to them, well after painting up the forty nine (including the four on the carrier) I am so glad I didn’t! Well forty eight in bronze green and one in pink burgundy highlighted with bright red, as I am allowed in the rules to add one “ace” to one of my squadrons, so he just had to be red didn’t he? Next I added the cream lines to the wings and fuselages before finally touching up the chainmail that was left uncovered on the nose cones, wing guns (are these guns? I really don’t know) and cockpit areas. These were then left until I was ready to Quickshade everything.

Returning to the carrier I painted the under coat of the hull in my usual colour of dark grey, before adding the diagonal stripes in light grey and black using an almost dry-brush and then the dots were added in coffee. This just left the tops of the funnels and some detail bits to be done in bronze and the carrier’s basic painting was complete. While I had the bronze paint out I painted the air force insignia on the movement trays the plane bases slot into and once this was dry painted the top edges of the trays with porcelain blue (as this matches our “sea” coloured table cloth (see two weeks ago to see this in action), then once I’d touched up around the edges where the blue had crept over (messy bu**er), they were finished. Next the Carrier and planes were given a coat of Quickshade, and the next day once this was nice and dry the tops of the planes bases were painted in porcelain blue to match the movement trays (are you keeping up, I know this is more complicated than usual but I didn’t want the blue to be shaded you see), anyway more touching up ensued around the plane bases side (more messy me!) before finally they went out into the garage for their final coat of matt varnish. Not that many more left to do now, I think three more posting should just about cover the lot, though I am rather lacking in medium sized ships……

Cheers Roger