By
MoonglowMinis
So for awhile now I've had this goal, nay, this desire, nay, this primal compulsion to build a boat. It is not enough to have hand drawn maps, or 2D terrain tiles. I need a fully functioning 3D boat! Well, maybe not fully functioning. But I want to build a cool boat!
I've been working on a nautical campaign full of swashbuckling, sailing, and sea monsters for a few years now. It's my White Whale project. Always just on the horizon. It'll happen some day, but in the meantime, I have a million small projects to complete and extend the chase. One of which is my desire to build a few different sized ships to enliven any possible naval combat.
I actually attempted this about two years ago, just winging it and making some measurements and throwing them at some craft supplies. I wanted a cheap option that wasn't too difficult to repeat that way I wouldn't be discouraged from making multiple ships. So I limited it to cheap crafting materials like foamcore, wooden dials, popsicle sticks, and thumbtacks. And the result wasn't bad. Especially for my first attempt at any kind of terrain building.
It actually turned out rather nice! To my surprise. But I got hung up on mast and sail designs and never finished.
The wood on the deck had 2x1in grid carved into it for easier D&D use.
and the figurehead was designed to be modular.
However, overtime the boat collected dust and little scratches. I should have given it a coat of mod podge or sealant of some kind, but never did. And eventually it had an unfortunate run in with an injured owl that we took in for a night.
Here's the little devil himself.
Anyways, I put this project on the back burner for long enough and feel inspired to dive back in. Especially with a certain Bones ship on the Horizon that I'm still on the fence about getting. I was doing some browsing on the web and recently found this wonderful little blog complete with loose instructions and a plan from a now defunct wargamming site. The blog creator had found the old plan and adapted it to build something using most of the same materials I have already stockpiled.
There's a few choices that I like better than my first attempt so I think I'm going to use this as some inspiration as I give this boat thing another go.
My hold up now is still those darn masts. The original plan above used wood and required drilling out holes for the masts. The blogger use foam for his ship and found random bits of tubing to house his masts. I could try to find something random like that, but I was hoping to find something simpler for easy repetition. And I would also like to keep the masts loose so they can be removed for easy storage, or to swap out the sails. Any thoughts?
Any resources, tips, recommendations are very welcome! I'll post back here with any updates.
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