Sunday, February 19, 2017

Work in Progress and more

I've been getting together the miniatures I need for my Enfilade 2017 games. I'm starting off with the Figurehead 1/6000 scale ships for the Cold War naval game. I've got almost all the ships I need for the game (the rest are on order) and I thought I would start with some Soviet ships.

I decided to start with the bigger ships and picked out the Kiev class carriers (or heavy aviation cruisers) and Kirov class nuclear-powered cruisers. The Figurehead packs for these come with four ships in each pack and I decided to do them all, so that I don't have unpainted ships hanging around. I've got the basic colors for all the ships done, now I just need to do some touch-up work and do a light wash to bring out some details.
Four Kiev class, with the modified Baku (later Adm Gorshkov) in front
I think the decks on the Kiev class turned out okay. The lines aren't perfectly straight and there are places where the deck brown gets onto stuff that should be grey, but overall they should work. Especially considering each ship is only about 1 3/4" in length. You should be able to make out some of the aircraft on the deck too. Stuff like this makes me wish I was a little better at painted details, but my friends tell me that no one will be able to see (or notice) the details anyway.
Kirov class large cruisers
The Kirov class ships are much less interesting colorwise. They are just a basic medium grey with a deck brown deck. The miniatures are really well detailed though and you can make out the different missile hatches for on the forward launchers, which should really pop out after the wash.
Kiev and Kirov class for size comparison
Most of the remaining Soviet ships will be pretty boring from a visual aspect. But I have the other Soviet carriers to finish too, which will be a little more interesting to look at.

Over the weekend I stopped by the annual model show at the Museum of Flight. They usually have a good turnout and I always enjoy looking at the completed models that show up there. There is a fair share of aircraft, armored vehicles and cars, but there are usually a few ships and other interesting models. I grabbed some photos while I was there (none of these models are mine).
1/72 scale Gato Class submarine
A close-up view of the bridge
A P-8 Poseidon ASW plane with a target
A nice diorama of Tigercat converted for firefighting
A Kilo class sub
A nicely done model of the starship Enterprise with real lights
An interesting model of Robbie the Robot from the Forbidden Planet movie
I'm hoping to get into more of a flow with painting the 1/6000 scale ships, so I should be posting photos more regularly.