(Not-Battletech) Papercraft Fighting Sail

[Weirdo]

Some 18th-19th Century frigates. The masts are floral wire, the rigging is thread, and everything else is paper cardstock.







You can find the models by googling War Artisan. :)

[faithless]

That is amazing work.

[I am Belch II]

Those look great. Makes me want to get some in a 6mm so I can use in a Battletech game.

[Weirdo]

1/1200 comes out pretty close to hex map scale, and there are oodles of Age of Sail ships available in that scale. :)

(These are 1/600, for reference)

If you want minis scale, the same guy I got these from also sells stuff that comes out to 1/300 scale, which is close enough to Battletech minis. Most of those are smaller ships used on the Great Lakes, not full frigates or ships of the line.

[Saint]

WOW! Awesome  O0

[Nomad]

Those are fantastic! How long did it take to make the rigging on each one?

[Weirdo]

Maybe about 4-6 man-hours apiece. Hard to tell, they were always spread across multiple sittings. I found a tutorial that makes it a lot easier than it seems, and by now I've memorized the process. It's based around long pieces of thread leading from point to point instead of individual pieces for each line or stay. I think each ship actually only has thirteen individual pieces of thread, it's just that many of those threads go ask over the ship, with some of them getting upwards of three or four feet long.

[vidar]

So what the range and damage of a bronze canon in BT?

[Weirdo]

Honestly, I think you'd get the best representation of a frigate going up against modern units by house-ruling that motorized and mechanized SCUBA troops can use field guns at the expense of diving ability, and then loading a platoon with Light Rifle Cannons and decent body armor. For a Ship of the Line, run two such platoons in the same hex and give them Medium Rifles and heavy encumbering armor. You'll have to roleplay some of the aspects of sail movement and firing arcs, but that should get you the effects of something slow, packing a lot of firepower that's unsuited for piercing real armor, and tough while still totally unsuited to facing modern weapons.

But if you manage to catch an Elemental point in range...roll out the guns. >:D

[jimdigris]

These models are stunning. O0

[Hayden.]

Delightful models, very well done!

[Weirdo]

Finished another one recently. This is the 74-gun Ship of the Line Victoire, built for someone else as a Christmas present.

[Daryk]

Anyone on your Christmas list is very lucky...  :thumbsup:

[Valkerie]

That is quite the Christmas present! :thumbsup: 8)  Impressive work again sir.

How much time to finish this one up?  It looks very complex.

[Weirdo]

The hull itself is just the work of a few hours, the masts and sails one or two more. It's hard to judge actually, as I tend to assemble these things at work during off minutes. Pretty sure that if I had to do one all at once, I could likely manage it in an afternoon.

The rigging understandably takes longer, but once you get used to it, it's actually not near as complex as it looks. It's actually a total of 14 pieces of thread(including those for the flags), they're just very long. Each one starts at one part of the ship, then gets looped and glued around another part, then another, then another...you get the picture. The ship itself isn't very large(the base is 4" long), but some of those threads winding through her are close to 3 feet long.

The hardest part is easily the headsails, since they aren't actually touching any rigid structures. They're glued to one line of thread, then another line pulls them into the right orientation. If I'm lucky they might barely touch another line, and I can add a tiny bit of glue to give the whole mess a bit more rigidity.

[Valkerie]

Well, as easy as you make it sound, I still find it very impressive work.  Winding 3 feet of thread through masts and sails sounds like delicate work (relative to BattleMechs anyway).

I am also envious that you can put time into this stuff while at work. >:(

[Weirdo]

Another 74(this one's all mine, part of my long-term quest to build both fleets for the Battle of the Chesapeake), HMS Terrible.

[Weirdo]

At the other end of the scale is a Texan 18-gun Brig, the Wharton.

[Daemion]

I like that printing out the hulls means no painting or delicate features by hand.  It's a thing I've been doing with potential decals and building facades for pieces of wood.

I may give this a try at some point. Does he have a Black Pearl?

[Weirdo]

Real-world stuff only, and mostly navy. War Artisan does have a model for an East Indiaman though, and I think a could other merchanters. I'd have to research the actual stats of various pirate ships, he's got a set of 18-22 gun brigs and sloops that might work. As I understand, the vast majority of pirates used small and fast ships, armed well enough to threaten a merchant ship, but not an actual warship. They ran from naval forces when possible, loathe to risk the destruction of their extremely valuable vessel in a pitched battle.

If you check out his site, he's got a sample 1/900 64-gun SoL you can download for free, see if you like the process.

[Ruger]

Real-world stuff only, and mostly navy. War Artisan does have a model for an East Indiaman though, and I think a could other merchanters. I'd have to research the actual stats of various pirate ships, he's got a set of 18-22 gun brigs and sloops that might work. As I understand, the vast majority of pirates used small and fast ships, armed well enough to threaten a merchant ship, but not an actual warship. They ran from naval forces when possible, loathe to risk the destruction of their extremely valuable vessel in a pitched battle.

That is correct about pirates...most used ships like brigs, sloops, etc....ships that were small and had a shallow enough draft to get into coves and other hideaways that most navy ships could not...it was a rare pirate like Blackbeard that ran larger ships like the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was a fairly large merchantman at the time (at least larger than most pirate ships), and after being captured by the French, she was converted for duty as a light frigate as well, but still also used as a merchant...supposedly when Blackbeard captured her, he increased her guns to 40 (most pirate ships had far fewer), and used her to take several prizes over the course of less than a year...he ran her aground (some say on purpose), disbanded the larger portion of his "flotilla", transferred some supplies and crew from the QAR onto the smaller sloop, Adventure, and continued his pirating for a while until he accepted a pardon...he couldn't give up the life though, and was soon back at it, only to be killed by the Royal Navy...some say he took some killing though, with multiple sword strike (around 20) and bullets (about 5) put into him before he fell, and his head was taken...even after that though, it was said his body, after being tossed in the sea after the beheading, swam around the ship several times before sinking beneath the waves...

And to think, Blackbeard wasn't even the best pirate out there!

Edit: btw, fine job you've done on these...I don't believe I would have the patience or talent to do even a quarter as well...

Ruger

[ckosacranoid]

Hey Weido, those are very cool and neat to see 1/600 scale. I have a ton of the old uncharted seas stuff that is also that scale and a few thoughbread civil war ships in that scale. I realy need to get updating on painting a bunch of stuff that is sitting in my desk and on the porch in ships and then my battletech stuff.

[Sharpnel]

Doing the rigging on these ships would be the death of me. The frustration would kill me.

[avon1985]

WOW! thats some really awesome work! :thumbsup:

[Weirdo]

176 years ago today, the sloop Austin and brig Wharton of the Republic of Texas Navy set sail and engaged Mexican steam-powered ironclads loaded with brand-new explosive shells. By the time the battle was done, the Mexican ships were forced back to port, and would not set out again for the remainder of the campaign. It is the ONLY time in history that sail beat steam.

[Weirdo]

Behold, the original USS Enterprise!



Banana for scale:

[Charistoph]

Behold, the original USS Enterprise!

"It's been a long road, getting from there to here."

Banana for scale:

I was impressed when I thought they were bigger.  Seeing how small they are, I'm even MORE impressed.

[Daryk]

Indeed!  That would require some serious magnification for me to even attempt...  :thumbsup:

[Bedwyr]

This reminds me, I acquired a whole bunch of the Wizkids Pirates CSG pieces since we last talked tallship models. I also got the Master and Commander set from Black Seas. Many models will be going into a display case.

[Weirdo]

I picked up a fair amount of Pirates stuff as well, recently. :thumbsup: