6mm AWI Continental Line - Adler Miniatures

The beauty of 6mm miniatures is that you can pack a whole lot of them in to a small space, and create units that are actually close in number to their historical counterparts. Below are Adler Miniatures Continental Soldiers, in this case the majority of the 1st Maryland Regiment for the Southern Campaign. They don't have as much detail as the larger scales of course, but there is plenty to keep the painter busy and to please the eye at close range.

For realism I've included a fair amount of variation in "uniforms," a word that has to be used pretty loosely for the Continental Army. Some soldiers have mismatched outfits, some are completely out of uniform.

I also have not yet done much work at all on the bases, just giving them a simple coat of green as a temporary measure. I need a few thousand more of these, so the full base treatment will have to wait a while.

In addition to the march pose Adler offers two others for infantry: firing figures and advancing figures.

USS Constellation - GHQ 1:1200

Below are some photos of USS Constellation in 1:1200 scale, from GHQ. This is the famous 38 gun American frigate of the Napoleonic War/ War of 1812 period, and should not be confused with the ship which lives down in Baltimore now - that one is a later construction, from the 1850s if memory serves, and supposedly contains some of the timbers from the ship depicted below. Or at least it did at the time of its construction.

I really like the incredibly crisp hull sculptings from GHQ, and especially the fact that the waist of the ship is properly recessed. This model even has details of steps leading down in to the waist, and hatches with gratings down there, as you can see best in the last photo.

I've added Langton ratlines and sea base, and raised the hull up on plastic sheet to give it more bulk, so it will fit in a little bit better with Langton models, which tend to be over-sized in comparison. Other than that a pretty straight forward job.

I omitted installing ship's boats in the waist, just because I like to be able to see the detail down there. I like the depth it gives the model, and it suggests an interior.

Baltimore Clipper - GHQ 1:1200

 I've just finished working on another 1:1200 scale ship project, this time GHQ's "Baltimore Privateer". Sometimes referred to as Baltimore clippers, these very speedy little ships were built along the eastern seaboard of the United States, especially in Baltimore, and were popular with smugglers and privateers.

 Now, GHQ ships are a bit different from Langton's in a number of ways. They tend to be a little bit smaller than their Langton equivalents, and they usually sit lower in the water. On that point I think GHQ probably has the advantage in historical accuracy. GHQ's hulls also tend to be a little crisper in detail.

However, the most significant difference is in the masts and sails. Unlike Langton, GHQ offers no brass sails (or ratlines) and the sails are usually molded in one piece with the masts. The masts themselves are flimsier than Langton's which has definite effects on how one has to go about the rigging process.

I've mounted this model on a trimmed down piece of resin sea base (from Langton) and added davits to the rear from which to suspend the ship's boat.

USS Wasp - Langton 1:300

This is the USS Wasp, an American 20 gun (including the stern chasers) sloop of war, and a lovely 1/300 scale model from Langton. She still needs a fair amount of work - most importantly the weathering of the sails, which adds a lot of dramatic effect, but also the crew needs to be added, the anchors painted, anchor chains added, and flag and pennant, and some more blocks - but I wanted to post the model as a work in progress.

The water that the ships sits on is the resin offering from Langton, and then I've mounted the whole thing on an mdf base, which has a clear acrylic display cover that fits over it.

Langton Miniatures 1/300 Schooner

This is another 1/300 Langton ship model, this time an American schooner with a pivot gun, from the war of 1812. I modified it very slightly by removing the davits and ship's boat from the stern. Not to be wasteful, I added some rowers to the boat and positioned it on the base a bit ahead of the ship. I like what it does for the overall sense of scale.