Early on in the Enemy Within campaign the adventurers travel on a river barge and most of the third leg takes place on the Reik. Therefore, I made a boat. The first of three in fact. Partly as a proof of concept, hopefully getting all the mistakes and learning out of the way, before tackling a larger vessel and a patrol boat.
As frustrating as the rigging was to tie, I am pleased with the results. The shadows of the sails, stays and ratlines should bring joy to the heart of any 28mm sailor. Same goes for the shine off the water in this picture. Water is a sheet of light fixtures diffuser painted (on the crinkly side/bottom) with shades of blue, blue-green, and grey spay paint.
Plenty of room on the deck for cargo, floggings, and shooting albatross. Future boats will have a shorter, less boxy cabin.
The sail was actually fun to make. I used coffee stained printer paper and followed a couple of tutorials I found on youtube. There is an insane amount of detail that can be added, but I chose to stop just before adding reef-points. Adding dozens of tiny strings hanging off the sail would've neither contributed to the beauty of the model, nor left me with time to blog about it!
Since a sail is more or less a blank canvas, I felt a big ol' John Blanche style Evil Sun would be rather handsome. I painted it by building up layers of washes, so the colors would be somewhat subdued. That said, the red was a bit of an adventure. I slowly built up the shading with a transparent orange and a woodgrain ink, before covering it all with a glaze mixed from transparent orange and flat red. I wasn't 100% sure the glaze would work, so there was some shivering of timbers at the end.
Any guesses what the sail on the next boat will feature?
