Knight with Banner

 This weekend, we got dumped on with snow. Of my 25 years living in southeast Tennessee, I have never encountered so much snow. About 10" of snow. The temperature in approaching zero degrees F didn't help. Houses around here are not build for this sort of weather. 

The wife and I watched a lot of TV, but you can only watch so much. So, I retreated to the "soldier room" as it is called by my kids. I did start working on some more ships, but I ended up painting some fantasy figures

My fantasy world is occupied by a number of holy orders. One of which is the Knights of the Holy Chalice. I wanted to make a pseudo-religious, icon-ish banner to lead the faithful into battle. Gemini AI to the rescue! 

Banner depicting Saints Kimberly and 
Angela receiving the holy chalice from on high

I played around with different poses and styles and settled on a sort of Bayeux tapestry look. I thought about giving the ladies halos, but I thought it might be too sacrilegious. I printed them off in various sizes on my school's color laser printer and later did a little touch up with paint to bring out some of the features like the cup and the faces. If I could do it again, I'd make the bottom a little longer below the feet.  I have to say that its not too shabby.

Ironclad Ram

 This is one of the fastest ships I've built so far. Normally, Friday nights are binge in front of the tv, but  because my wife is having to work late evenings for her company's annual "go live," I have free time.  At least this year, she gets to work at home. Last year, she had to go to the office and there were two nights where she was there until about 2 am! 

The ship is based loosely on the French ironclad barbette ship Marceau. 

Source: William Frederick Mitchell (1845–1914) - (1892).
 "France". The Naval Annual. Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co..

Before:

After painting:

I unintentionally exaggerated the size and length of the ram. It looks like the front of Greek trireme. I made it out of Green Stuff epoxy putty.  The funnel is taller than Marceau, but that was because it originally was very short on my model and was below that of the ship's boat platform. The reason being was that I was worried that the boat platform would be too low and bump into the side guns, so I over compensated and made them higher than need be. The Marceau lacks a crane, but I was not sure how it retrieved its boats. Also, the ship's boats on the Marceau stick way out over the side of the ship, past the port and starboard guns. I didn't want to hide the guns, so I reigned them in. 

I learned my lesson from the previous ships that had guns mounted in barbettes and used a thinner wire. The Marceau was armed with 17 138mm secondary guns! My ship is armed with 12 secondaries. I didn't want it to look like a pin cushion. 

The other major difference between my model and the actual ship is that like most, if not all, French warships of the time, it had a pronounced tumblehome shape. My ship does not. Archduke Piccolo has a good tutorial on how to build tumblehome hulls, but I punted. Maybe the next time, I will give tumblehomes a try. 

Once again, I got carried away with detail. 

New Ships for the New Year

 Two more battleships ready to be painted.