Going down...

As a natural follow up from the torpedo and fire markers I made earlier, I created the probable consequences - these sinking ship markers, which I made more like vignettes. Top: Battleship. Middle: Light Cruiser. Bottom: Armoured Cruiser. I didn't bother making a Destroyer marker, since I assume they'll sink quickly, plus pre-Dreadnought destroyers are barely-there in 1/2400 scale anyway.

Blimey! What a carve-up! (© Sid James, Carry On Cleo).

The basis for these was a batch of resin miscasts from silicone molds taken from scratch-built ships, which I made to speed up production. The resin was old and reacted oddly with the catalyst, sometimes foaming up and making the castings honeycombed and brittle. Rather than throw them out with cries of disgust, I cut off those parts of the castings which were sound enough, like the bows and sterns, and filed them at an angle so they looked like they were rearing up before taking that final plunge to the sea bed. 

I opted to give the markers a generic look rather than paint them up as any one navy. A spray over with dark grey enamel paint undercoat was followed by a coat of battleship grey, red paint for the below waterline portion of the hull to represent the anti-barnacle coating, and lighter grey upper works. Masts were painted a basic white.

Cutting out discs of clear plastic, I glued the castings to them in a roughly off-centre position. Allowing the glue to dry, I smeared on a creamy mush made of tissue paper, spackle, and white craft paint to represent water foaming up as bubbles of air and steam escape the sinking hull. Once the mush dried, I gave the sea area a thin wash of blue acrylic ink and Future polish, before applying a thinner wash of blue over some of the white areas. A couple of streaks of cotton wool to represent escaping steam or sprays of water completed the vignettes. I decided not to add any debris or boats, since these would be virtually invisible at this scale.

Hopefully I'll get to try out the Quickfire rules over the weekend. In the meantime, since this blog has attracted the attention of a particularly annoying and prolific spammer, I'm afraid I'll have to moderate all comments from now on.