Saturday 5 January 2019

From StefanK: Cruel Seas - Armed Trawler (23 points)

The fleet boxes for Cruel Seas really provide a nice selection of models. The Royal Navy for example come with the mandarory Vospers, some Fairmile MTB and an Armed Trawler. After rushing through the Vospers and E-boats I took the trawler as a more special model and painted it during the last days:


It's a large ship (though 'large' in 1/300) that comes in resin with metal parts. Overall the parts fit very well. Only the masts needed some deeper holes to fit in the hull proberly. A really nice add-on is the metal crew. They come in strips of three seamen but can be cut into single crewmembers or pairs easily. Since there were more then enough seamen for the trawler I transfered two of them to one of my Vospers to man the bridge appropriately.

The flag is again from the generic Royal Navy flag sheet by Warlord Games. But this time I used the Red Ensign instead of the White Ensign. Although I know that the Red Ensign is appropriate for British merchantmen I didn't check it on historial material. I just followed Warlord Games example...


Anyway, the ship comes with two 3" guns and appears properly armed to scare some E-boats. The guns are nice metal pieces as well and have crew figures on them. Very nice little bits. I'd wish to see them available individually to have them available for the plastic boats. Making the guns available individually would - by the way - solve the problem with the missing 37mm gun in the German E-boat sprue...



As usual I used mostly my trustworthy Vallejo paints. Starting with a basecoat of Uniform Grey spray primer (by Armypainter) I applied VMC 70.924 Russian Uniform WWII. It's a rather light greyish green because I wanted to try a different colour scheme on the trawler. On some Warlord Games pictures their trawler looks slightly greenish so I chose this colour. Anyway the result looks even greener then desired but I'm happy with it anyway. After the colour was dry I applied some of the AK washes to get some shadows. Then drybrushing with VMC 70.821 German Camoflage Beige and VMC 70.884 Stone Grey. Finally some more AK washing for weathering especially on the lower parts of the hull.

That's it for now. I hope you like it.

Cheers
Stefan

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Beautiful work, Stefan. Right now I'm desperate for tankers and trawlers for Cruel Seas, so I'm looking on very enviously of your fine example here. I really like how crisp and clean your brushwork is, especially with the crewmen alongside the ship's rails and bridge - they , along with the subtle weathering, does such a great job of bringing the whole model to life. 

As to points, I'm going to put this trawler in the same realm as a 28mm vehicle, so 20 points, with a few extra added for the crew. Again, lovely stuff, Stefan. 


25 comments:

  1. Great looking boat and thanks for the colours, very helpful!

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  2. Looking good. It’s on the get hold of list ...

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  3. Lovely paintwork. Seeing a lot of Cruel Seas stuff recently and all of its good.

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  4. A great trawler, and really useful for all of us planning Cruel Seas fleets. Thanks, Stefan.

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  5. This is lovely stuff. Must resist temptation....

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  6. Lovely little trawler, looks every bit the part. I’m not vexillographer, but I think there are circumstances where the red ensign would be appropriate.

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  7. Lovely armed trawler! Really nice layering of paint.
    Best Iain

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  8. Very nice indeed, great painting work

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  9. Great stuff Stefan - I have one of these waiting for some attention also!

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  10. Lots of fun naval stuff so far this year, great job Stefan.

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  11. Thanks a lot for your kind feedback. I'm glad that you like it. And there's at least two other contributions about Cruel Seas from me. ;-)

    Cheers
    Stefan

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  12. Cracking work Stefan. The crew really add something!

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  13. Wonderful trawler here Stefan. So much Cruel seas this challenge, its a fab twist to the usual.

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  14. Really nice. The crew really make it extra awesome. Cheers

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  15. great little boat, ship, floating device Stefan!

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  16. Fantastic. Love how you have picked out the crew as well.

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