Black Seas: Painting a British Brig

 

HMS Pelican from the War of 1812

June has been a bit of a slow month hobby-wise, but I have managed to finish another ship for Black Seas- this time a British Brig, the HMS Pelican. 

Painting

Deciding on using the yellow which many British ships in this period had made the painting a little more tricky than the US Brig had been- I wanted to spray paint black to save time with the cannons etc. But, as anyone who has painted yellow will know, yellow onto a black undercoat is not the easiest thing to do.

I ended up using 3 thin coats of Averland Sunset, followed by a wash of Seraphim Sepia. The yellow coverage wasn't quite as good as it could have been- so I might experiment with the process of painting this yellow on future ships.

The other elements of the ships were identical in painting to the US Brig I painted which made it nice and straight forward.

One thing I can't recommend enough when painting these ships is a painting handle of some sort, particularly a square piece of wood or something similar. Not only does this make it much easier to paint, but it gives you something solid to hold onto when doing the rigging- and allows you to tip the ship to help with the gluing of the sails. Making sure the sails are in the right place is much easier if you aren't having to worry about gravity hampering your efforts!

The ships have a helpfully flat bottom- so some double sided sticky is all that's needed to hold them in place!

Gluing the jib

The History- HMS Pelican

Launched in 1812, the Pelican carried 18 guns and so was designated a Cruiser-class Brig by the British Navy.

The Pelican saw a few small actions during the War of 1812, against both the American Navy and American privateers. Alongside some American Schooners, the Pelican also successfully captured the USS Argus, which had been disrupting British merchant vessels in the Atlantic.

Following the War of 1812, amazingly the Pelican remained in some form of service until 1865, just making it into the era of the Ironclad Warship- although the Pelican was only serving in the Coast Guard by this point.

That's all for HMS Pelican- I'm hoping to recreate the engagement between the USS Argus and HMS Pelican at some point over the summer, in addition to painting a few more ships.