Shroud Mage Battleship

Well after a successful introduction to the world of The Uncharted Seas in The Battle of Foggy Bank Straits my bro decided he would take the plunge and get himself a fleet. With Orcs, Dwarves and Human fleets already well catered for (and an Elvish one if GordonY ever gets his act together and gets the Elves finished), bro decided he would go for those mysterious Shroud Mages and bought himself a starter fleet for that race.

Only problem, bro doesn't paint figures. So on the promise of him buying the new GW Tomb Kings army book for me (which has now arrived) I offered to paint them up for him.

The Shroud Mages are a race who do rely on steam power for their ship's propulsion but unlike their distant dwarven cousins are adept at the magical arts (which is reflected in the powers and abilities available to them in their deck of fleet cards). So no sails to paint, so that was a good starting point.

From the design of the ships, clearly metal is a major component but bro didn't want the ships looking too bright, so I would need to tone down the shine off the metallic paints that I would be using.

The starter fleet for the Shroud Mages, comprises 1 battleship, 3 cruisers and 6 Frigates (and that is a standard selection for all of the other starter fleets currently available). Each fleet comes in a nice colour box which provides a useful painting guide for those of us lacking inspiration for a colour scheme

So if the colour scheme was good enough for Spartan Games, it was good enough for me, so I decided to try and produce a colour scheme similar to the models shown on the box.

I decided that I would start on the Battleship being the biggest model in the fleet, although it is not a partcularly big model

After a wash with some warm water and detergent and being left to dry thoroughly, I pinned the 2 funnels as I figured the model would be handled a lot during a game, so the funnels would need all the support they could get. So using the tried and tested "put a dot of paint on the part to be pinned" method

I positioned the funnels in place, a quick drill with a pin drill on the funnel and the ship using the dot as my guide and then fixed a pin in place and stuck down the funnel. An undercoat of black spray paint and once dry I was ready to go.

The decking was painted with Vallejo Chocolate Brown and then given a wash with the trusty GW Devlan Mud.

The Armour was painted with Vallejo Gunmetal Grey and then washed with GW Armour Wash (yes folks I still have a bottle of that!). The large steam tank in the middle of the ship was painted with Vallejo Brass and then given several washes with Ogryn Flesh to dull it down. GW Tin Bitz was used for the various pipes and the paddles of the propulsion system. The cannons are painted with Humbrol Acrylic No.113 Rust. The Funnels were painted with Foundry Chainmail 35A

I'm not going to gunk this model with my watered down satin varnish solution as I think with all the pipework that it would pool too much, even when applying it with a brush, as I do normally, so I'll finish the model off with a spray of Dullcote.

I got this finished in a couple of hours (and that's quick for me) so hopefully I can get the rest of the Fleet finished before too long and he can get them into action (only to sink at the hands of my Dwarven Flagship, which is on the painting stocks awaiting it's launch!)