Landships Ahoy!

Over the last few weeks, in tandem with my ongoing 40K Army, I've been tinkering with some 19th Century, alternate history units for a setting called War In South America - see the concept and original idea here at Sippin' On Paint Water.  This all has a slightly steampunk-esque feel to it, and unable to sculpt/scratch build the tanks (aka 'landships') like the originals, I've resorted to buying and converting my own.

All three vehicles, complete with an infantryman for scale

As well as being used for WISA, I'll also be double-hatting these vehicles for use in a pseudo-historical setting done by me and Headologist which has been in the concept stage for (literally) years - now finally coming to fruition!  Hence the rather cryptic-looking flags on most of the vehicles.  In the WISA setting however, these are part of the Imperial Russian Trans-Andean Expeditionary Brigade, sent by the Tsar to secure the fabled gold reserves of the lost days of the Conquistadors ...

The Chillean landship El Gigante one
of the original scratch-built items

Some of you may remember the original converted attempt, the Medvyed, posted way back.  This was converted from a historical Matilda tank from Warlord Games. During some random browsing, I came across some lovely vehicles from Ironclad Miniatures.  These looked great for the purpose so I brought Numbers 1 and 13 to give them a try.  After a week or so for delivery, they arrived and I got my hands on these gorgeous models.  There's not much scope for conversion as the models are sturdy one-piece resin affairs; there's a small bag of ancillaries which has things like the gun and funnel in metal separately - but the models are very easy to add on to as the crewman with revolver on the larger, WW1-German-style tank will attest to.  He's a Perry Miniatures ACW Cavalryman, chopped in half and with some 40K tank hatches.  The first landship (below) was painted in fairly standard OD colours.  I didn't change the original design much because it looks fairly madcap already.

However, with these new designs I wanted to go for something a bit less predictable.  In alternate history, the trick is to forget everything you know, and restart from scratch.  Imagine you're designing tanks again for the first time.  I did this and was drawn to the experimentations with dazzle camouflage.  These were haphazard geometric shapes painted onto ships during the First World War; rather than obscuring them in the modern sense, they were simply designed to confuse observers over a ship's range and direction.  I think that in the 19th Century, before a proper understanding of camouflage exists, they might try crazy experiments with these sorts of visual, trick-of-the-light schemes.  These were both done using masking tape and spray for the basic shapes, then heavy washes of inks to create the oily, 'used' feel.

Detail of the ink work around the funnel.  I simply washed the whole area
in water first, then hit it with a heavy ink wash afterwards to get a more even spread.

The second landship - the little brother.  I'm less pleased with how this one came out; it was smaller and a lot
harder to get the masking tape into place but overall it looks good.

My next update, hopefully Friday, will have another War In South America Update - and I'm also working on the latest collaborative project with Lord Gordon and continuing fluff efforts with Headologist.

Anyway, that's all we have time for today.  Thanks again for stopping by!