Painting dreadfleet

I’m not quite finished painting large islands just yet. There is an island in the shape of the skeleton of a turtle, with a castle build on top. I wanted this castle to look different from the other, bigger castle. This castle I wanted to look like it was built with bricks. In previous projects I’ve been searching for a good “brick red” to paint walls, but I haven’t found one yet. This time I’ve used burnt red from Vallejo. The result is a nice dark red castle, but it’s not the colour of bricks.

For the planks on which the castle is build, I used old wood (Vallejo panzer aces). The poles on which the planks and castle rest are painted in chocolate brown. This colour came with a set of paints I bought from Vallejo named “Wood & Leather”. I’ll be trying out several other paints from this set painting shipwrecks, ships and other wooden parts. Next I used orange brown (also from this set) with much water added as a wash over the planks. Almost no effect. A chocolate brown wash than: better, but still not perfect. Eventually I took some black paint and painted the lines between the planks black with a fine brush. Finally the wooden parts received a dry brush with Japanese uniform WWII from Vallejo model color. Not a paint you’d expect in this project. It came with the Wood & leather set. When dry brushed over chocolate brown, it does give a wooden look.

For the castle I pin washed the recesses with black wash. The castle was then dry brushed with orange brown. I used this colour to ty it in with the wood, which received a wash with the same colour. The roof was painted black an then dry brushed blue blue pale from Vallejo.

The sea and rocks had already been painted following the methods described in earlier entries.

I didn’t expect to write about this ship again, as it seemed finished. After painting I sprayed matt varnish from The Army Painter on the ship. The result wasn’t quiet what I wanted. I should have thought about this beforehand: a ship painted completely in metallics shouldn’t be varnished with matt varnish. It doesn’t look right. To make it shinier, but not to shiny (because it’s old oxidized copper, not brand new copper), I’ve brushed satin varnish from Vallejo on the ship. The base and water dripping from the ship were left matt. Finally I brushed gloss varnish over the edges of the tips of the tentacles and the tip of the drill. This was done carefully over the edges only. It makes those tips look sharper.

Since I began this project I’ve wondered how to store and transport these miniatures ones they will all have been painted. Battle foam sells foam inserts that fit in the original box and can hold all the ships, terrain pieces, gaming aids, cards,… They call it ”sea fleet”: https://uk.battlefoam.com/game-box-sea-fleet-foam-kit/

This is what I bought for my miniatures. The foam arrived in less than a week after ordering from their website.

Alternative storage sollutions:

Battle foam makes another set for “sea fleet” that fit’s in the bags they sell to transport miniatures: https://uk.battlefoam.com/battle-foam-sea-fleet-foam-tray-kit-for-the-p-a-c-k-system-bags-bfl/

KR Multicase also has foam trays that fit in their boxes to store miniatures: https://www.krmulticase.com/product/traysets/WHBOX-DFL-A