Monday, December 14, 2015

DANG 2015 - Manning the Ships (Part 2)

In my last post I added photos of some of the crew I had painted up for the Shores of Tripoli game and I mentioned that the Capitan Miniatures figures were not quite done. Well now they are (except for quick dull coat). So I wanted to put up a few photos and comparison shots. I am also testing out ways to attach sails to my ships and wanted to post a photo of that effort too (plus this photo will look better than the figures on other people's blog list).
A scratchbuilt gunboat with a lateen sail
The sail is just paper printed out and stiffened with a wire (I copied the pattern from the Thoroughbred Felucca sails). The wire is then looped over the end of the spar (the spar is temporarily mounted to the main mast). I think this looks pretty good and was easy to put together.

Now on to the figures. The Capitan Miniatures figures are listed as both as 15mm and 18mm in size (depending on where you look). While they are bigger than both the Thoroughbred and Minifigs miniatures, they don't seem out of proportion with those figures. The Capitan Miniatures figures look good, with nice round bases (that fit well in the square bases sold separately, but included in a gunboat crew package), and have a good amount of detail (maybe too much for my painting skills). The only negative is that the metal they are cast with seems to be very hard and brittle. So, it was harder to clean off the mold lines and a few of the figures I received were bent at the bases and when I tried to straighten them some of the figure's legs cracked or broke.

The Capitan Miniatures Barbary Corsairs line has 3 poses for sailors and 3 leader poses (one of my leaders broke at the base, so he doesn't show up in any photos).
Capitan Miniatures Barbary Corsairs
Here is a comparison with some Thoroughbred figures. You can see that the Capitan Miniatures are a little bigger.
From the left, the first, third, fifth, and seventh figures are Capitan and the others are Thoroughbred
 Capitan Miniatures has generic sailors and specific leaders and Marines for several nations, including the U.S., Great Britain, France, and Spain.
Capitan U.S. Marines, leaders, and a couple sailors
The leaders and sailors all fit in well with the Thoroughbred and Minifig figures. 
From the left, the first, third, and fifth figure are Capitan and the others are Thoroughbred
The Caiptan line has two Marine poses, along with a Sergeant and officer (the pack I got did not have the Sergeant), so it is very similar to what you would get from Thoroughbred.
From the left, the first, third, and fifth figure are Capitan and the others are Thoroughbred
The officer is nice, but overall I think I prefer the Thoroughbred Marines. 

I painted up around 200 figures for the game, which is a lot more than I've painted in a long time. That finishes up the figures and now it is on to finishing the ships and guns.
Barbary crew (almost) ready for action

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