Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Bug that bites you.

Painting figures and working on projects are hard work.  It takes money, time, dealing with a certain amount of tedium and the mental toughness to persevere a project through to completion.  I don't have all that.  I have to "walk away" from what I'm working on from time to time just keep moving forward on my painting goals--which is always to paint a lot.

 I promised myself no new projects.  I lied. Sort of.  One of the big deterrents to taking on new projects is cost.  I rattled on a couple of weeks ago about cog wars.  I truly believe I've found scratchbuilding, in this case, to be the antidote to the cost of taking on this project.  Deadline also broke my concentration on the AWI unit I was working on, and yesterday, my first day of not not working on the paper  in over a week, imbued me with enough energy to focus my attention on the mass production of English cogs for the Hundred Years War.

 Here is my improved prototype.  I've added a sternpost and a small bowsprit, as well as a crow's nest for the mast top.  The stern post is just a chunk of flat toothpick.  The bowsprit a bit of brass wire, and the crow's nest a simple bead.  Given the scale I think they all work.  The production models will be a bit different.  The forecastle will be smaller at Daveshoe's suggestion.  The mast will be the same height, but the yard will be raised higher and will be thicker-brass wire the same thickness as the bowsprit.  I'm at sea about sails (pun intended.)  I will probably try to determine if it is worth the effort. 


If I can retain some momentum on this I'd like to finish 15ish vessels this week to show off at Drumbeat on the 29th.  Dave and I are hosting at an Airwar C 21 game, and I've agreed to pull my Lewis and Clark project out of the box and host a game using the Brother Against Brother rules.

4 comments:

DeanM said...

They're looking good - although I'm no expect on cogs. I agree about scratch-building v. cost. As long the actual building materials don't exceed the cost of ready-made stuff it's worth it. Speaking of naval gaming, I'm thinking of going larger than 1/1200th for Ancients. Those Langton me and Adrian got from you are nicely sculpted, but seem tiny. The 1/300th Roman Seas stuff was nice, but hard to store. Regards, Dean

Kevin said...

Dunno if you've decided on a set of rules, but the Fire and Fury based rules are really fun.

Dave S. said...

I like the look of the cog. The bowsprit and sternpost do a good job of differentiating the bow and stern.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you've got done at Drumbeat.

Dave

David Manley said...

Looking good. It may be worth trying the forecasle the other way around. I've not seen any examples myself where the front of the castle is wider than the back.