BFG: Escorts (scratchbuilt), my first project

[Curundil]

So I'm the new one.
I feel that after some reading and research, I should start my time in the clinic with a project log. Again, I apologize in advance for my sometimes crappy English, I am no native speaker.

Mangozac's splendid Zeus ships brought me here and lured me into the world of resin casting. So I thought it would be just fine to try something similar to begin with. I love Battlefleet Gothic, the rules are fine, the ships are fine, most players are nice guys. In my opinion, it's one of the games GW did really, really well. One thing I noticed when I started playing again a few months ago is that you cannot have enough escorts, while you usually have waaaay too much cruisers.

In particular, I was seriously missing some Sword frigates for my Imperial fleet (I have only three of the little weapons-battery-packed buggers), and some escort carriers for my Wolf Pack. In general, my Wolf Pack was a bit short of typical ramshackle escorts that don't look like neat recruits from the Imperial or Renegade dockyards.

So I decided to give it a try and make three things:
1 - a variant or equivalent of the Sword frigate, but with an older looking hull design and a Voss style prow
2 - an escort carrier
3 - a random escort piece with mixed weapons to fill in various roles ina Wolf Pack fleet

A big agenda for someone whose styrene craftmanship so far didn't produce anything else than a 40K Chimera-to-Salamander conversion, a few simple conversions and scratch-builds, and nothing at all in such a small scale like a BFG ship. Also, I have never cast resin before, nor made moulds for it.
Anyway, once I've sorted out how to best uplad pictures here, I'll try to keep this log up to date. If all falls apart, my bad. I'm confident that with all the advice and experienced addics around, I'll at least learn something in the process. And maybe get some useable results.

Now on to the design board (or rather the lousy sketchpad i keep in ma pocket), I'll try to sketch up what I want to do.

[mangozac]

Since I'm nearly finished an escort design () it will be interesting to see what you come up with! My tip is to buy a pack of assorted sizes of tiny strip styrene (microstrip - the pack I got was from . That's what I use for all of the detailing. I also have a massive collection of styrene rod and tube.

When I was first starting out I used to wonder how people had such a variety of styrene extrusions. But now I know that over time you just build it up gradually as you need it. It's handy that the local model shop sells Evergreen products (even if it is very expensive).

Duplicating BFG ships in resin isn't very hard. You just need to make sure that you design the master with the casting in mind.

Excited to see some pictures!

[Curundil]

What I'm aiming at for my Sword-like escort ship is somethig like this:



I did this sketch a couple of days ago, and then did a few doodles for the other escorts. Then I started glueing bits together in a pretty experimental way. What came out is this:



I think the best way to do this is as a four-bits sprue with the hull, prow and wing plates as separate parts. This is rather crude at the moment, just outlines and main parts, with all the fine detail still missing. In particular, the outside of the shield parts is still entirely unadorned. Assembled, using blotches of blu-tack, it looks like this:





The part at the bottom ist the first attempt at the hull of an escort carrier. I'm not yet sure which design I want for the prow section. As it's intended for use in a Wolf Pack fleet, I'll maybe give it a stripped-down variant of the Iconoclast prow (wedge shaped). What do you think?

Any suggestions, critique, and helpful comments are welcome.

[Commissar-Krad]

Images don't seem to be working for me. I am getting a 403 error.

[Curundil]

Crap. Sorry for that. Trying to fix the links...

EDIT: Can you see them now?

[Commissar-Krad]

Yes, I can. Looking good, man! I like what you've done so far the form is great, and nice sketch. I like the look of the escort and it's pretty cool with the large spaced wing panel. The only thing I am not too keen on is the thickness of the details on the vertical fins. You may want a little thinner strip styrene.

The escort carrier is looking like a good start too!

[mangozac]

Curundil this is fantastic work! There is no way you're just starting out! The only comments I had were regarding the level of detail and the lack of detail on the outside of the side fins, but you already mentioned that those are yet to come. The prow is a little too long for my tastes, but I don't mind it too much - in fact I quite enjoy a bit of variation in prow shapes!

Great work - at this rate you might beat me to completion!

[Seb]

Those are brilliant little ships, class work. What is you progress on them so far?

Seb