In this video, I walk through how I made some piling fortifications for my American Civil War naval wargame battlefields using resin support cast-offs from my 3D prints. Please leave any questions and comments below, and thank you for watching!

In this video, I walk through my method for making miniature flags from scratch for my 1/600 American Civil War ships and boats. I've used this method to decorate both land units and forts, among other small projects and across several scales. Please leave any questions and comments below, and thank you for watching!

Last month I talked about making small-scale trees for my riverine battlefield table. This month, I've added some hazards that I can add to the waterscape. When I first got into naval warfare, I had an assumption that waterscapes were largely featureless, at least in terms of wargaming. But the more I study ACW naval battles the more I found that to be untrue. Not only did the characteristics of the water impact the battle, but so too did the underlying terrain, such as rocks

When I set about to create some battle reports for Dawn of Iron, I realized quickly that I don't have a lot of terrain to use with 3-6mm scale miniatures. So I decided to correct this and start with some woods since they are generally ubiquitous for all North American riverine scenes. Supplies For this project, you'll need A pile of discarded supports from a 3D printer (without rafts) Sprue Cutters/Clippers Chocolate Brown Paint Medium Grey Paint Medium Paintbrush (for painti

One of the interesting little innovations of the US Navy during the Civil War was the mortar boats (sometimes called rafts). These were essentially small, unpowered platforms that could carry a single powerful13" mortar. These would be brought close to the action by towboats, lashed to the shore, and bombard rebel strongholds. They were particularly useful at places like Island No. 10, Fort Pillow, and Vicksburg, and many other similar sieges. They were only 60x25ft (18.5 x 7

A big part of my inspiration to finally make Lonely Cairn came from my little scratchbuild project to make HMS Erebus and Terror . After building the pair, I wanted to use them in a game. That, plus watching AMC's The Terror , pushed me over the edge. Above: After gathering some reference materials, including this awesome blog about building a near perfect replica of the Terror , I built the basic model using my normal processes for the hull and the masts. Above: I used me

When developing Dreadnought, I became fascinated by the concept of bracketing (marking a two splashes with the target between them) and reading splash results to correct gunnery. Furthermore, I found it obvious only after reading about it, that in doing so you very much didn't want someone else shooting at your target at the same time because you'd confuse the splashes. So in the end I spent a lot of time about those white pegs you find in a game of battleship and how import

Adding flags and banners is a big part of making ships or rank-and-file troops look the part on the battlefield. Not only do these add unique bits of color to the battlefield, but they are also a rare opportunity to model movement into your otherwise static models. For my scratchbuild projects, I wanted to settle on a solid and reliable method for making flags, especially for smaller scales such as 3mm in the case of my 1/600th scale ACW ships and troops. I also decided again

After the City-class ironclads, I moved on to the Ellet rams. These were a bit tricky to build. Owing to the civilian origins of Ellet's rams, there's no real plan views for these ships. So to make them I had to resort to drafting my own plans based on photos, etchings, and illustrations. I've made a PDF of the plans in case any readers out there might find them useful: Pook's Turtles and Ellet Rams Plans (1/600)... In the end, I drew up four versions of the Ellet rams. I

Today marks the last day in New Zealand's four-week Level 4 lockdown, which means it was 4 weeks ago when I started a new project: Ironclads. It all started when my daughter pulled a big "picture" book off the self for me to read to her. After insisting it was definitely the one she wanted to read, we sat down and started reading about the American Civil War River campaigns. She a nd I were especially drawn to this illustration about the Battle of Memphis in June 1862. After

2x Tankers, 2x Large Cargo Ships, 4x Small Cargo Ships After reading E. Keble Chatterton's The Sea Raiders , I found myself wanting to add some civilian merchant ships to my scratch-built navy. When I went looking for plans, I immediately encountered the edge of the Internet. The trouble seems to be that no plans of simple merchant ships from the early the 20th century really exist. So after some detective work and few guess-timations, I came up with my own. By taking the shi

One of the more difficult things about my Jutland project was knowing that the "Destroyer Problem" was lurking just under the surface like a tethered mine... Jellicoe's Grand Fleet had 46 Destroyers, Beatty's Battlecruisers had 27, for a total of 73 British destroyers. On the German side the High Seas Fleet had 31 and the Battlecruisers had 30 torpedo boats (roughly the equivalent to a British destroyer), for a total 61. Together these add up to 134 of these small ships! HMS

After posting my tutorial on building my 1:1500 scale ships, I got a request to quickly go over the tools that I use for my ship building project. Thinking about it, I really should have thought to include it in the tutorial, but there's enough here to get the conversation started! So here's the list... First up is the cutting mat. While essential for any modelling project, especially for cutting, I also found it helpful to have a flat surface to check that the hull bottoms a

I got a little distracted during my scratch-built Jutland project with the significantly more achievable build project based on the battles of the south Atlantic and Pacific in 1914. While Jutland had over 200 ships involved, the Battle of Coronel had 9 ships, and the Falklands had 13, six of which were also present at Coronel. So in total the goal to complete this project is 16 ships (not including a couple of auxiliaries that I might build later). British ships at Coronel i

Its probably a bad idea to keep experimenting with mast solutions still half-way through the Jutland project, but I just couldn't settle on a good one. I started by using light wire, but they were always too thick and bendy. I also tried plastic broom bristles. These were straight and not as rigid as the wire, but they were too easy crimped and bent over. They also had inconsistent diameters, so finding a good number for all 200 ships was going to be a problem. So I needed to

In a previous article, I went over how I scratch build ships for my Jutland project. Once they are built, it's time to throw some paint on them. But before I get into that, I need to reiterate something important to this project. Part of what makes this project achievable in my context is by sticking to a low fidelity art style. I've stuck to the simple designs found in Jane's Ships of World War I and this spirit of lo-fi, I've adjusted my expectations during the painting and

Right, so I've been busy building ships! There's a story for that, but I'll save it for later. For now I wanted to document my build process for my little scratch-built fleet of 1:1500 scale WWI-era dreadnoughts, cruisers, and more. Let's get stuck in... But before we get started, I've done another article going over the tools I use for this project. You can find that article linked at the bottom of this one. The first thing to determine is what scale to build in. Since I did