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Heroscape Navy - Empress ship, 2 hour project

Re: Heroscape Navy - Updated Jun 2013 -Figurehead

Absolutely! I could use all the help I can get.

Well my wife is going to kill me but I added 2 more ships to the fleet today...the Black Pearl and Vorgan Ice Fang. Both are incomplete. I will have to go through all the pieces and see what I am missing.

I have started with the Dread Eye's Phantom, I am in the process of removing all of the Lego connectors...all most done. This one is missing all of the masts, the skeleton throne thing, ship wheel, and grates to the lower deck. But I am planing on just having one deck so it is ok that I don't have the grates. As for the masts, I think I will try to use dowels.

Maybe we/I should make a mold for the undead skeleton ship wheel...

Anyways once my wife gets home this weekend with the camera I will get some pictures posted.
 
Re: Heroscape Navy - Updated Jun 2013 -Figurehead

Ok let me see

You got a Black Pearl and Vorgan Ice Fang

I do not have an Ice Fang but I do have a Man O War, and they both have the same hull, all that changes is the figurehead and the stern castle. I Might have some spare parts for you to make a stern castle ( Two story room in the rear of the ship). Just like a Man O War, but I think Ill keep mine at 1 story high.

I will upload templates for the Black Pearl in the next 3 days and upload them here ( Or send me your email via message here and Ill scan them in PDF and send them your way ).

I am working on 6 black pearls at the same time, I just drowned my phone by dropping it in a puddle of water, I have it in a bag of rice right now praying it works. It has a ton of pictures in it as I am trying to make a very simple guide for a quick Black Pearl conversion.

Nothing like the huge conversion I did on the Fools Errand but very nice all the same. ( Getting rid of the second deck)

I have one Black Pearl that's missing a few gun ports, I plan on making it into a Pirate Ship, cause some damage to the hull and the gun ports missing doors, Ill do a cheap repair by gluing some planks over it to look like hasty repairs after a bad battle.

Pictures soon!

I have a bunch of Black Pearl Parts ( except the pieces that hold the mast and yards together) The parts that hold the sails to the main mast.

Let me know what your missing.
I have some spare Man O War parts that should fit your Fang too.

I know the size of the dowel used for the mast. I have it at home. Although you can just take the part that fits the mast in the bottom with you to the store and do a quick test fit too. I think its 5/8ths but not sure I can tell you later today by calling my wife and having her check. (Ack I just remembered no phone!)

If you check the first page of this thread I took dowels and scraped them with a hack saw to give them a nice grainy look them lightly sanded them. I like how they look and they fit well with the original ones.


Check your Dread Eye's Phantom, they tend to be missing a corner piece of the deck that is supposed to fall off. I might have a spare part. Be careful when removing all the lego pegs because you might end up wanting to use a few to hold some stuff down. The Dread Eye mast are really cool they have a mast made of rib cages. The Skeleton Throne does not really matter as it is to big for heroscape, the ship wheel was too big any how, and the grates you will be covering them up with a deck. Ill have a template for that next week. I can give you my grates if you want them as I plan on doing a full deck for her.

I have seen your work on your awesome figures, I have no doubt you can make some great molds of the undead ships wheel. My only concern is that it has a lot of little holes and would it really be worth all the trouble of making when we only need 2 each?
 
Re: Heroscape Navy - Updated Jun 2013 -Figurehead

Here's the Black Fleet!!





The one in the far right is the Fools Errand, she should be leaving for her new port ( California I think it was) next week. I unpacked her because I noticed a few errors in her paint job in the pictures I posted and the OCD kicked in.

Her sister ship that took me a few hours to copy her since I had some left over parts still does not have a name. One of the Black ships I will turn into a pirate boat for my brothers Pathfinders game ( new pirate themed Pathfinder minis coming out soon)

The other 3 ships do not have a name or a home port. Any one have any ideas?

I'm curious, how much would a custom ship sell for you think? I am wondering if I should try ebaying one or waiting for the pathfinder minis to come out.
 
Re: Heroscape Navy - Updated Jun 2013 -Figurehead

I think you should e-bay it with a fairly long auction time so lots of people can find it and drool over the many pics you will have up. I'm sure some rich kids will go gaga for it, enter into a bidding war and drive up the price to a crazy amount that you did not think you could get normally. Then knock 20%-25% off the end price and that might be a good place to start as an asking price for one from friends and what not.

As far as timing goes, soon after Pathfinder launches their pirate expansion sounds like a good idea. Their is also a pirate themed tv show coming out on Starz/Showtime/HBO I believe. If that turns out to be pretty good and takes off on a level even half as good as Game of Thrones, it should lead to an increase in interest for some Pirate ships by gamers. You can even try to model one of your ships on a ship from the show to really bait the hook. That might be a long game though as it could take a year or more for the show to really catch on (after DVDs for season 1 are available).
 
Re: Heroscape Navy - Updated Jun 2013 -Figurehead

Thanks that's a good idea. I do know I will be giving one away here at the site. Not sure how yet but Ill figure that out once I have it completed.
 
Re: Heroscape Navy - Updated Jun 2013 -Figurehead

Ooh, you could do something like Gurei-Ornery did when he sold "raffle tickets" for chances to win some Gladiatrons and other rare stuff, then donate the money to Heroscapers.com
 
Re: Heroscape Navy - Updated Jun 2013 -Figurehead

I used the Weapons and Warriors Cannons from the game Pirate Battles.

Normally I could get a copy of the game with around 10 cannons or so for about $14 but for the future I will be buying the other cannons I mentioned a few pages ago that cost around $1 each.
 
Re: Heroscape Navy - Updated Jun 2013 -Figurehead

This weekend I could not do very much as I was stuck at work and I could not spray paint anything because it was pouring rain all weekend.


A few days ago I received in the mail a Mega Bloks Pirates of the Caribbean Empress ship. I think it cost me about $46 with the shipping. It's from 2006 and it can still be found often in ebay but for around that price or closer to $60 at times.

I ran out of things I could do with the pieces I brought to work from the Black fleet ( Crows nest, mast and sails) so I decided to give this ship a quick shot.

I like her colors and I plan on using her for Heroscape so I wanted to leave her as simple and fast as possible. Minimal painting if any and keep the decks clean.


She is a beautiful ship with really fancy sails, and is very small compared to the other ships like the Flying Dutchman or the Dread Eye's Phantom.





The Empress has 4 decks, with the first one not really having very much room. She has some minor decorations that I may skip all together. I like the little red railings and I will see if I can put those back in once the deck is done.

I did trim the bases of the mast a little bit. You see the part that touches the floor with 4 pegs on the bottom, I sawed that off to make more room on the deck. its a very thin piece of plastic and I could have just snipped it off with the clippers.



The middle deck has more room with a center mast smack in the middle. There is a neat golden grate that can hide things but I will cover that up and remove all the cannons and decorations and all the rats my wife added to the ship.




The stern part of the ship has 3 ladders leading up to the two higher decks. I want to see if I can fit heroscape ladders there or if it will be too snug or maybe not high enough to merit a ladder. The over sized ship wheel base will have to go but I might keep the large wheel itself but change the base it's attached too. Not very much room here on these decks for hexes.



From the top I remove the mast and decorations and try to figure out how I am going to lay out the deck, this one will be simple, there will be 4 segments and I will keep any modding the a minimum.



This overlay I made a while back helps me figure out how much room there is and if I had to move stuff around. Here I will just make the templates and try and lay out the hexes so the most will fit on this tiny ship.



First thing I do to start working on the ship is to cut off all the pegs, from the top view I can see what needs to stay ( The pegs that hold the 3 mast, connect decks together and railings) Since the ship is put together anything that is not for the mast can be cut off. I removed 264 pegs with my nearly dull games workshop clippers. I need a new pair. Took me about 20 minutes to do while I watched YouTube Videos. I did this outside as the pegs shoot all over the place.

There is one tiny part I had to cut off with a mini hacksaw but I could have done with my clippers. In between the golden grate and the forward deck there is a tiny 2 peg block that sticks out. I trimmed that down to keep the middle deck simple.




This next step took me about an hour and a half, I first made the templates with paper, trying to get them as snug as possible, then I transferred them to thick plastic card ( I used a large outside FOR SALE sign). I made 2 copies, one that I will glue my deck too and a second I keep as a template. You will be able to skip this step as I will upload the templates I made and all you have to do is print cut out and trim as needed.



Here is a test fit of all 4 decks with the space for the mast cut out too.



There is two ways to make the decks, my way way which takes time , makes a mess, and you need a lot of supplies for ( cutting out a plastic template, gluing coffee stirrers and trimming it, then wood staining it) ooooorrrr just take Filthy the Clowns advice, go to deviant art find a great wood template and print it out.

I found one from a link Filthy gave me and I will upload it with the templates as it was perfect size. I know there where better ones out there but I just wanted to give this a test run. From tabletop height it works great and is easy to do. Print out a sheet, glue to your template ( plastic card is best). and your done with your deck. I used my hex template to outline with pencil the hexes but you can do the exact same thing by using a glyph and tracing it in a straight line on your deck. Do this before your glue it into your ship.




Here is a low quality printed deck, took about 10 minutes to do. I will be making a wooden deck for this ship later on but for a quick 2 hour project this is super easy.




I did a sloppy job here because I was in a hurry but I traced out the hexes to see how they fit. Seems I can fit 20 hexes, and I will make some planks ( bridges ) later for fighting across ships. All those hexes that are partial along the railing will be used as anchor points for the bridges ( planks !)






If you take out the time I took to make the templates, and if I was to do it again with the templates ready it would take me about an hour and a half to get to this point. And that's taking my time and going very slowly. So far this is more than halfway done for this ship.





I test fitted everything and except for tiny bits and pieces, if I kept the printed deck I could glue these on and have a finished ship in under 2 hours tops. I will be making a wooden deck for her and I will only modify the ships wheel. Not sure if she should have an anchor too. Very easy mod to do. I will post pictures of her soon when she is completed. I want her to be an Einar ship so not sure where I will paint the logo.

Very easy and fast ship to customize. Pretty too.

 
QT here is the cannon info you asked for;

Here is the unpainted cannon from Pirate Battle ( Weapons and Warriors)

Cannons2_zps058d2216.jpg



And here are a few painted pics





It comes in 2 parts, I removed the barrel and spray painted them flat black then dry brushed a metalic color ( Think I used Vajello Armour)



I like the size, it seems to be close enough for what I wanted





Although I am not sure how it will fit in with heroscape, I like how the cannons look sticking out of the gun ports ( this was a early picture of the Fools Errand before I gave her a bunch of washes)




Just looks neat :)




Just for the Fool's lower deck I could fit 8 cannons easy.

 
Just bought a house 3 days ago, ( Not sure why we call it buy a house, I mean if I pay for a burger I just bought a burger, but here I just promised over half my salary to a bank for the next 30 years! )

Annnyy how, really stressed out these last few weeks and since I don't drink or smoke I been fooling around my hobby room to relax.

I finished the Fools Errand a week ago ( I still haven't mailed her even though she's boxed up, Grison is going to kill me).

I started the black fleet all at the same time ( that's 5 black pearls to convert), and I did the Empress. She took about 2 hours in my first round, to get her printed decks ready and another hour to make some new wooden decks and decorations for her.




This was an easy ship to do and I look forward to getting my hands on another one to convert.

I cant find any more $4 Safari Pacific octopus to convert to more sea monsters either.





Although a smaller deck its got enough room to place 2-3 full squads if you fill the entire deck





I need to mark the height on all decks.



I also added 6 ladders or so.

I really like the octopus, now I just need get a card for it.












The Empress is low enough in the water for taller figures be able to reach some characters on deck.







Fins / sails on the rear of the ship also function as a great LOS blocker to protect a main character.




The sails are easy to remove if you want easy access to the figures on the deck.








I didn't want to paint this ship as I liked the original colors and I might just give it a very light wash to make some of the details stand out.

On that side railing 3 shields go, I do not have them in as I was looking for Heroscape shields to put on it. Plus since I want this ship to be able to be stored easy I attached the decorations with magnets and small pieces of metal strip on glued on the deck.



Same thing for the ladders, they attach with magnets so I can remove them when not in use.



I still need to finish staining a few of the planks and touch up the ladders and give the ship some details with a wash.


 
Was wondering if any one would actually try to do a conversion of one of these ships?

I know QT is and I will scan the templates for him, but is any one else considering testing this out?

Was wondering if I should scan everything and post it or it would be un-needed.
 
Was wondering if any one would actually try to do a conversion of one of these ships?

I know QT is and I will scan the templates for him, but is any one else considering testing this out?

Was wondering if I should scan everything and post it or it would be un-needed.

If you post it, they will come.
 
I have the hulls for the Stormstalker and Phantom and can probably wrangle up the rest of the pieces from various toy bins, and I'll probably attempt some sort of conversion.
 
The hull is the only important part really. Everything else is very easy to replace. I'll start scanning and posting templates then. What parts are you missing that you know of?

Also I could probably do a conversion kit for a few of you. I could do the parts that need to be changed and mailed over and you would just need to assemble.

First I will finish the black fleet then I'm hitting my two storm stalker hulls.
 
My son has a Mega Blocks Skylanders ship. He doesn't really play with it, so I thought I might have to take a crack at converting that one. I know it is a lot smaller, but use what you have, right.

Thanks for posting all these pics and ideas. My wife is getting tired of me looking at your thread all the time.
 
The hull is the only important part really. Everything else is very easy to replace. I'll start scanning and posting templates then. What parts are you missing that you know of?

Also I could probably do a conversion kit for a few of you. I could do the parts that need to be changed and mailed over and you would just need to assemble.

First I will finish the black fleet then I'm hitting my two storm stalker hulls.

Yes please!
 
Congratulations on buying (with the bank's help) your house, Rocktroll. I really love your ships, they look wonderful and like a lot of fun to play with.
 
I think the Black Pearl can be converted with out modding anything, Let me give it a try first and I will let you know.

( Creating a deck that sits on top of the current one, having a longer mast that goes through the deck and that's about it)

Might look a lil funny but should work.

When I get to to work today Ill start scanning some templates down.
 
Oh and Photo bucket said my bandwidth was almost exceeded for this month and should reset in 8 days. I seem to have used 10gigs worth of bandwidth, that seems like a lot.
 
Great job on the Empress!

Can't wait for those templates so I can blaze through my Pearl conversion.

I have started my Dread Phantom conversion...you all can check it out on my blog.
 
Guys thanks for the kind words, knowing you guys are interested in these conversions keeps me coming back and posting step by step pictures.

QT I loved reading your blog, I didn't even know you had one. I enjoyed all 3 parts of your phantom conversion and I picked up something from reading your steps, more on that later.

I will be using your templates on my 2 ships for sure, and I want to see how you paint your deck to match the hull.

Going to try and start scanning right now. How do I post PDF's online? I have photobucket but not sure I can use that to post those.

I would love to scan a template, clean it up a little, maybe add some minor instructions ( This one goes here or you need to cut off X piece to get this to work) then use the same template and do it with a plank pattern for those who do not want to deck their ship in real wood, and then one with the printed deck + Hexes.

I am starting to learn some simple photoshop but I will start by just posting the templates then work on editing them slowly.

QT I see you deck in wood too, thanks for the tip of using tiny dots, I tend to spread it all over and a little squeezes up between the planks and that affects the staining effect ( Even if I sand it down some). Might not matter if I paint over it instead of stain.
 
Did a first rough scan of the templates, they are in PDF, where can I post those? Here in the download section?
 
Did a first rough scan of the templates, they are in PDF, where can I post those? Here in the download section?

I think that posting them here would be the easiest. I am not a site supporter so I can't upload things here, otherwise I would. I currently am using MediaFire to host my PDFs as blogger does not host files, just pictures.

Glad you liked my blog. It is a reboot of my old blog so I don't have everything re-released yet because I am constantly working on new things. Any feedback is appreciated.

Anyways it is late and I need to get to bed. Looking forward to those PDFs for the Pearl.
 
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