Ironclad Excuses

I've had some time this holiday to think about my projects and reflect on the progress that I've made, more or less, over the last six months. I set out way back in March with a firm plan to get more naval wargaming stuff done, as I felt that my air wargaming had been taking up most of my time and effort.

I then got sidetracked by What a Tanker!, which appeared out of nowhere and pushed a brief 1/700th scale modern fast attack project into the long grass. I really enjoyed the What a Tanker! modelling but it's not very nautical and meant that I had yet again lost the plot. To put myself back on track, I spent most of the summer holidays playing around with 1/2400 scale ironclads, which I thoroughly enjoyed especially as I actually played a few games of Broadside and Ram, which was great fun.

Since then, I haven't really done anything more with the French ironclads apart from some base coating of the sails and sea bases. To tell the truth, I'm a bit wary of the fiddly painting that I'll need to do on the rigging, masts, decks and details, which has meant that the ship's have been sitting on top of the workbench shelving instead of being finished. I've also been sidetracked (again) by the Alto Cenepa and Football War projects, which are far less daunting!

So, to cut a long story short, I'm determined to get back on course with the French and British ironclads when I get back from the holidays. This will mean biting the bullet and tackling the next stage of base coating before picking out and highlighting the details. I'm working on the French at the moment but need to shift them so that the Royal Navy get painted up by the end of the year too.

I think that I will just have to sit down and plough through it in one session over a long weekend, as I'm determined to get them finished rather than have another 'put it back in the box' result. I also want to clear the decks for more naval wargaming things in 2019, so I don't want this project hanging about into next year.