1:1200 Port Update

I finally got around to repairing the orientation error I made on the construction hulks. They are now positioned stern out.

I have also put a barracks building and flag pole in the fort.

Now I want to start populating the port with ships at anchor and loading with supplies.

1/1200 French Port

My latest winter project is a 1/1200 scale port for use with the Langton and GHQ fleets. I have been thinking about this for sometime now, ever since Miles at lairoftheubergeek.blogspot.com posted his port. I ordered some Langton buildings, dock, break water, fort, and slipway from Waterloo Minis. The service was excellent, as always. Then I was out in the shop one day and noticed some laminate flooring scrap, the kind that snaps together. I thought 'Wow, this could be great for snap together terrain modules. Each piece is 7.5 inches wide. So I cut two pieces 16 inches long and snapped them together to make rectangle 16"X15". I brought it back to the Hobby Room and painted it Navy Blue to see how it looked. Hmmm....not too bad! The next step was to break out the Langton stuff and start painting. As soon as the prelim coats were on I tried some layouts to see how it would look. I had an old foam 10 MM hill terrain pece I threw on for an island mockup for the fort.

Then I set in some ships to see how that looked.

Once somewhat satisfied, I broke out the hot knife and carved some side hills and the island.

Then the texturing with common houshold spackle

I set the dock and slipway in to make sure it still fit.

Because I chose to add the hill on both sides to simulate the mouth of a narrow valley (much of the south French coast is made up of narrow valleys opening onto the sea), I had to drop out some buildings and the cathedral. So I had to experiment some more with the town layout.

Now it was time to separate the two sections so I could work with them easier on the desk.

The Island and fort.

I decided to make some trees. I cut some pieces of strand wire, removed about half of the insulation then tightly twisted the strands. I then dipped them in PVA glue and let them dry. Then I removed the rest of the insulation and shaped the strands into limbs. I twisted the 'trunks' a bit to simulate the wind blowing constantly from the sea.

Next I painted the trees biege brown.

Next dab a little glue to the limbs and dip them in some flock.

Then I set the trees in and added a little detail to the water.

I set this section aside to dry and moved on to the town and dock section.

Setting the trees.

While that one was drying I painted the sea on the fort section with Gloss Mod Podge.

Then I glossed the town section. After they were dry I started adding some texture to the breakers using demensional silicone. Here are the results.

After all the details were done, I went over the water again with Americana Triple Thick Gloss Glaze. Then I snapped the two sections together. Here are some finished photos. Note I still have some unpainted ships setting in the harbor that I will get to later. The first will be a partially completed 74 in the pen next to the two ships on the slipways. Also some French flags flying over the fort and town. You will note that I ended with a simpler breakwater shape than I began with.

Small boat for the fort garrison.

I hope you enjoyed this and I would really appreciate any comments, critiques or suggestions. Thanks for looking.

I finished the nearly completed 74 next to the slipways.

GHQ's 1:1200 L' Ocean 120 Gun Ship of the Line

It's been a while since I've had any time for the hobby. But now it's winter and I have been able to finish GHQ's L' Ocean 120 gun ship I started last summer.  She started out as Etats de Bourgogne and was renamed many times: becoming Côte d'Or in January 1793, Montagne in October 1793, Peuple on 17 May 1795, and a matter of weeks later again renamed, to Océan. She served until 1855. 

The historical color scheme I found for the ship as Ocean was as follows:
Black hull, yellow stripes, red ports when open, inside bulwarks red.

The armament as Ocean was:
Lower gun deck 32 X 36 pounders
Middle gun deck 34 X 24 pounders
Upper gun deck 34 X 12 pounders
Forecastle 18 X 8 pounders and 6 X 36 pounder carronades

I had to make a few changes to this model. First off I cut away the bow sails from the flimsy bow sprit. I scratch built a new bow sprit, striker, and boom sail. Next, both fore and main mast with sails were exactly alike so I cut away the main mast from the sails and scratch built a new one with fighting tops and reattached the sails. Standing rigging is .008 Firewire and all running rigging is horse hair.

Here is a close up of the scratch built main mast and sails. Poor photo, I'm sorry.

I use round tooth picks that I size with a little sizing tool I made. I just start by pushing the tooth pick through the largest hole, then successively smaller holes until I have the right size. It's really quite easy and fast. And the wood makes it easy to simulate damage from cannon fire.