Ozark and Arkansas

A couple of photos from last weekend's painting efforts. The latest additions to the colection are another pair of civil war ironclads. For the Union we have the river monitor Ozark, a not-entirely-successful design and a fairly curious design, combining a turret with a superstructure and exposed guns.

The second is the Confederate ironclad ram, Arkansas. One of my favourite civil war vessels on account of her rather splendid showing against a vast Union fleet (described by her captain as "a forest of masts and smokestacks), through which she passed with nary a scratch.

Both models come from Bay Area Yards and are very finely cast. The photos were taken in a hurry using one of our "point and shoot" cameras out in the garden in bright sunshine, so they don't really do justice to the models.

Also completed this week were a couple of Thoroughbred mortar schooners. Completed as far as the paintwork is concerned, I'm currently thinking about whether to rig them or not.

Currently on the workbench - two riverboat rams and the CSS Patrick Henry. More on these over the weekend.

A New Arrival

I'm a naval wargamer at heart which is probably why I find the Sudan so appealing - gunboats and naval brigades all over the place :) One of my early jobs in this project was the constrction of a gunboat. Its generic in nature, although with a few (too many?) Melik influences. it is, however, supposed to be a fairly nondescript 1880s screw river boat with some impromptu armour and handy spots in which to mount the odd 7pdr or a Nordenfelt.

The hull is balsa, which allowed me to stain the deck. The rest is heavy duty card and paper, with thin balsa sheet offcuts to represent timber cladding. The ship is a "work in progress", and I hope to add to the general clutter on her decks as the months go on. I now have plans for a smaller, more "scruffy" sidewheeler, which should be on the stocks around about Christmas time.