Galley Proofs

I realized that I haven't featured my 15mm Renaissance Galleys on the blog since I began it almost 5 years ago. That is in part because they haven't been out on the seas in far too long, and in considering potential games for 2016. it seemed to me it was high time they made a re-appearance. Here are the first two of them

The core of my Galley collection is a set of eight scratch built ships that I bought from Bill Abrams about 10 years ago; the whole set cost me less than $50 if I recall correctly. They were very cleverly designed and executed, being constructed out of wood and card, with removeable masts, sails, and oar banks.

The models were a bit plain. so I spruced them up considerably by painting the stern of each ship a distinctive color, and adding gold trim here and there. Old timers will remember Mr Abrams as the principal contributor to the "Sapper's Corner" feature of  The Courier.

I designed a generic crest to go with each ship, printed it out in various sizes, and glued it on to key portions of the ship for added decoration, carrying the same color scheme through the trim, etc of the ships. 

I also painted and dry brushed the wooden decks to bring out their wood texture and look better. We'll call this ship the "Saltire" from the design of its crest.

Here's the "Crescent". These two ships are bigger than the other six ones. In the Renaissance, these larger galleys were termed "Laternas", and often carried an Admiral or Squadron commander. 

I also added a canon to the bow of each ship, from those sold by Merrimack/Old Glory Shipyard. Most galleys of this era had 1-2 large guns mounted on the bow. 

The stern of each ship has a brass tube flag holder mounted on it. To date I haven't used these, but I should get some fine gauge brass rod to make flags for the sterns of the ships some day. 

The assorted figures on the ships are 15 mm size; more about them another time. These Laternas are 12' long, 3" wide at their widest, and 7" to the top of the mast. They make a very impressive sight on the table! The oar banks are detachable to indicate oars being sheared off.!