The Voyages of the ‘Fluffy Bunny’

A small update this week , in fact didn’t think there would be one, but did manage some hobby after a big midweek House tidy.

I’d been doing odd bits on my box of Pirates of Legend, I’d finished Anne Boney last week, and had started 3 of the others, I added Black Ceaser, as I wanted a character for my Pirate Force, for Blackbeard of Black Alice.

So here are :

As I was finishing those  I started and finished two Enemies of Alice from my Black Scorpion purchases, An Assassins Creed type figure, hired by the Spanish to hunt down and Kill our fiesty Lady  and  a British Seasoned Royal Naval Captain the renowned Captain Pobie, ( happy to be on a mission away from his ‘Beloved’ wife Ramona’).

Short update this week, having completed my Royal Navy initial force I have carried on with another bunch of Royal Marines/38th Foot   based on this picture off Google images .

Compared to all the problems I had with the Grenediers these were a fairly easy paint.

1) Wraithbone rattle can base spray from GW.

2) An overall thin coat of GW contrast Apothocary White  for a bit of base shading.

3) Tunics and Trousers done in GW Gryph Hound Orange. I have found this is one of the best Contrasts, and gives a nice scarlett base colour.

4) Hats , shoes and Scabbards are done in Basilicum Grey. I rarely use any of the blacks these days , and find it easier to darken up this contrast, than highlight down.

5) Belts and ammo pouch are given a very thinned out coat of GW Skeleton Horde. If I need to tidy up later or lighten smears I used Vallejo Panzer Aces Afrika Korps Tank Crew.

6) Muskets are given allover coat of GW Agaris Dunes. This I find gives a nice wood colour, better than many of other Brown’s  worked well in Hulls of Sloops.

7) Facings were one of the new Speed Paints , in this case Zealot, yellow, which works well for picking out the detail around the buttons.

8) Barrels and Ram Rods on Muskets done again with Speed Paint one of the latest Metallics Enchanted Steel.

9) Bayonets, Sword hilts and tunic buttonswere done I  Speed paints Silvered Steel.

10) musket plates , ramrod slides and general Brass work were done in Speedpaint  Golden Armour.

11) faces and hands are initially given a thinned coat of Gulliman flesh, I then pick out facial lines with Fireslayer Flesh , and lightened with a combination of Army Painter Barbarian and Wilding Flesh.

The officer is a Black Scorpion Royal Navy officer  who was Generic enough to be used as my Marine Officer.

The only real addition to the Line Troops was the of Speed Paint Aztec Gold for his Lace.

I still have 6 more Soldiers to do, which I intend to use the floppy hat for. Although this is the period before the addition of Light Company’s ( I think) I will use them as that, plus they will add a bit more variety to my Marine Force.

I don’t know if you  are like me, but quite often when you buy starter sets , the one side doesn’t get touched ,or gets left for new shiny,  this was quite possibly going to be the case with my Black Scorpion purchases but… I have done it painted all the Starter set.

I’m well chuffed.

I may have boo booed with name. Aeneus, was a Trojon Hero from the Siege of Troy. I picked it based on my scratch built figurehead for the 2nd Sloop in the starter box to differentiate from the Mermaid on the Pirate Sloop.

I was looking for something not to long ad a name, and either easy to paint or cut out the letters from decals I had and hadn’t thought of how it could be bastardised  until I rembered most of navy crews couldn’t pronounce many of the Greek names that was popular on RN, and thought bugger that are to call her the Anus! ( or for polite Americans Butthole) so have a feeling HMS Butthole will stick particularly with the Pirates.

The a aforementioned Figurehad was made from parts from the Frostgrave Knights set, which contains a late medieval helm which was often used on paintings of classical Greek Heroes in the Renaissance period.

The rest of the ship was painted using Contrasts as had the 1st, main changes were red upper works and Basilium grey for lower Hull

One of the other changes was I remembered I might have some Filligary from left over decals from Imperial Knights and after some phaffing put them on the upper works

Well having done some Royal Marines thought it was time for the ships crew, starting with the 2nd box of sailors from the Raise the Black Starter box.

Now the initial boarding party figures I wanted a more Uniform look, so went for more Navy Blue in the form of GW Levidian Blue, thinned out in their attire.

It was only post completing these that I obtained Ospreys Golden Age of Pirates that I found that at the time naval boarding parties wore predominantly red!

So the 2nd batch I did predominantly Blood Tearers Red( I wanted a colour that differred from My marines Scarlett . As for the mistake , the Blue works!

The completion of above marked another little milestone  , I had completed my initial Royal Navy Force.

Having done a starter Pirate force, it was time for the Forces of the Crown.

And I started with my Royal Marine/Army force , painting up Grenedierss.

I wont go into the process of painting them…. lets say things went wrong,right for get go with everything I tried and I ended up going back to the old tried and trusted if labourious, careful highlighting and shading.

Having realised that at this time Marines tended to have various facing colours, possibly at the whim of their Ship Captains, plus the fact most of the illustrations of Marines I had googled at the time, showed Marines with Yellow Facings. This was fine by me as they could double up as  my local Regiment the South Staffs or 38th foot of the Napoleonic period had Yellow facings. reformed in 1705 as Luke Lillingstone’s Regiment of Foot .

Now the B&P  soldiers being generic , dont have quite right mitre cap, but its close enough and I amended it slightly anyway, as the royal symbol was white, but reckoned it wouldnt show up  on 32mm figures so went for Black .

Depsite the poblems look ok, curently sorting out an officer , one of the Black Scorpion Royal Navy officers without a hat will be done to go with both this the Grenedier company and the later line company.

Well with the 1st half of the starter box painted, plus some Black Scorpion additions .I have my initial force of Pirates of 100pts with some extras for variation as in Black Beard ,or an other Pirate Captain, 2 units of Sea Men etc with various wpns and some characters to man the Fluffy Bunny .

During the painting, of the Pirates some characters were also painted, that being the Firelock Plastic Blackbeard    a Generic Pirate Captain and 1st Mate.

The Base were a slight cock up on my part. I only had enough of the Decking Firelock bases for the figures from the Starter set and odd boxes of extra figures.

At the moment official Firelock stock in the UK is nearly impossible to get hold of

So I didn’t have enough for all the extra Black  Scorpion figures which in theory needed slotta bases . not only that a lot had wide stances that wouldn’t fit on the Firelock bases , So  I went for round 25mm which when someone else  mentioned on the forum and it was thought they may effect unit cohesion. Mentioned it to Gerry and he reckons it wouldn’t be a problem for that, but would reduce the number of wee men you can get on the ship models. I could have got 20mm round bases but I hadnt checked the firelock base sizes before I’d based most of the initial batch of about 24 figures. I’ll have to live with it. Most of the games I run will be with my figures anyway.

The bases themselves are simply vallejo textured paint , with some lines painted in GW Wychwood contrast to represent deck lines.  All then dry brushed GW Ushanti bone. My ideas being that the deck would be a bit rough in appearance during combat as it was Royal Naval practice to throw down sawdust to soak up blood and  stop slipping on the blood.

Then I did 1st of Royal Navy starting with Maynard Himself.