Da Hogwasha - and other Orc Pirate Ships!

As requested - a how-to guide for the Hogwasha








Bitz:

*Orc models - Very Important!: have them to hand at every stage of building your ship, for scale and accessibility reference.
*Black foam-core card (this has a matt finish so the glue sticks better and is more forgiving at the black under-coat stage!)
*PVA Glue (AKA white glue or wood glue) don't get the cheap school stuff, it's rubbish. Get DIY wood glue grade.
*Hundreds of Coffee-shop stirrers (like very long, half-thickness ice-lolly sticks) The company I work for buys loads of coffee from a near-by coffee shop for meetings and we get a cup-full of these every week. But I don't encourage you to take a handfull every time you buy a coffee. At all. In any way.
*18x3/4 inch doweling (the mast) If I'd planned it better I would have made two masts.
*12x1/2 inch doweling (the yard-arm)
*2 screw-in metal hooks to attach the yard-arm to the mast
*Thick cotton thread (rope to tie up the sail)
*12" square piece of old cotton bed linen or similar (the sail)
*An "artists" paintbrush - about 12x3/4 inch and tapered (the bow-sprit)
*Some metal icons - I used the Boar's-head from the Boar Boyz Standard as a *figurehead and a Skull and Crossbones 40K Nob Banner pole for the stern.
*Plasticard (the metal teef around the Foc'sle)
*A wheel from a plastic Orc chariot or similar
*A few dozen Pins (to hold the foam-core together while the glue is drying)
*"Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Master and Commander" on DVD for erm…. research

Build:

Ship building is not a quick project. It will take most people a couple of months to complete so don't get disheartened if it's taking forever! Having a deadline helps but having three friends racing you to finish their ships helps a lot more! Every time one of them tells you the have got a stage further you will be spurred on towards your aim of nautical warfare!

The lower hull is not an oblong, it tapers toward the front to give at least the illusion that the thing could move through water!
I cut a simple "base" first - 12 inches long by 4 inches wide at the front and 6 inches wide at the back.

The sides of the hull where tricky. I took a while to decided what profile I wanted the ship to have: A low central deck (about an inch above "water-level"), a raised Foc'sle (about 2 inches) and a higher rear Poop-deck (about 4 inches). The Foc'sle and Poop-deck would be separate parts but the sides still had to have a cut-out for the central deck (allowing for the height of a model so an Orc on deck can see, shoot or fight over the sides). The front is at an angle forward but the rear is vertical.

I glued the sides to the base and pinned them in place then I could take measurements for the front and rear foam-core panels. This system of "build, measure, cut" suits my way of modelling much more than cutting all the pieces first then assembling (I always find I've cut them the wrong size and angle - math is not my thing).

The Foc'sle and Poop-deck are squares of foam-core (large enough to put war machines and crew on) with three-quarter-inch high stips fixed round three sides as the gunwhales (again, measure against an Orc model so the crew can see over them!). Both were made completely then attached to the hull. The central deck is supported by several stips of card that run across the width of the hull.

When everything is dry and sturdy (be patient!) mark where your mast will go by drawing round the dowel - mine is right against the front of the Poop-deck so the vertical surface helps suport the mast. Cut the hole inside the lines so it fairly tight fitting. I didn't fix the mast in place so it can be lifted out for easy transportation. If the hole is a bit too big don't panic: you can line it with wood afterwards to making it smaller. The same process applies to the bow-sprit, but the hole has to be a wierd shape so the bow-sprit points up slightly. AGain, line it with wood afterwards to make the angle and fit right.

Cover the entire thing in wood. Don't be too fussy: it's Orc workmanship after all. It still takes ages though. Allow about a month for this bit ! Leaving about a millimetre or less between each "plank" makes undercoating more fiddley but is worth it for how it looks when painted. Much better than the too-smooth look of planks butted-up together.

Take some time to add details like the ship's wheel, trap-doors, hatches, doors, ladders, bodged repairs, etc. Keep the decks flat and uncluttered but don't make them boring. The vertical surfaces can by as busy as you like! This is where the DVD's came in handy. I have no idea what things on ships look like but the nice film makers have done real research for me. I added "kite" shaped plasticard plates (with rivets made of sliced spear-shafts) in to the foc'sle as Orcy teef at this stage.

Screw one of the metal hooks into the mast a couple of inches below the top - make sure it ends up with the "open" side upwards (you might have to push something sharp and pointy into the mast first - watch your finger kids!). Do the same with the other hook into the centre of the yard-arm.

Lay the linen square for the sail on to a piece of polytheen - a plastic carrier bag will do - and paint watered-down PVA all over it. Turn it over and PVA the back as well. Use the thread to loosely bunch-up and tie each end and two other places, equally spaced along the sail. Put the sail by (on a clean bit of carrier bag) to dry for a couple of days. When it is dry it should be a wrinkled looking solid lump. Easy to paint and hard to damage. Hang the yard (and sail) on the mast and you are almost done!

Now paint you masterwork!

Great tutorial, I really enjoyed reading it!

Makes me want to build a ship like that right now...

Very very nice! Especially since I have been wanting to build a ship for my marauder warband for a long time now. Once I have finished that we should meet and play some capture the ship games.

Tell me if you do so, I'll see if I can join in

Damn you dude! that ship rocks! Yarr Orc pirates

Looks awesome, Kurgen! Many thanks for the run-through...

Rich

Very very nice! Thanks for the post!

Indeed! I always enjoy looking at WBK's work, and Da Hogwasha is truely a great piece or work. It served as some inspiration for me as well, and I have to post up some pictures of a middle sized ship called the Emporer's Dreadnaught. It is a medium sized ship that is our first attempt at building one...

But I digress! Nice to see the ship and to see some of the battles you have posted in your Sartosa Campaign, WBK. I am hoping (fingers crossed) that you and the lads can have another big ship battle someday. Even if it is between a couple ships, this is an exciting thing to see.

Good stuff!

Goomb

Please post some pictures of your ship, Goomb

Goomb wrote:

I am hoping (fingers crossed) that you and the lads can have another big ship battle someday. Even if it is between a couple ships, this is an exciting thing to see.

Goomb gets his wish!

Cool! Make sure you take lots of pics for us!

I have started building another boat (pics of that to follow soon!) and I was encouraged to scan my sketches over on Da Warpath, so I thought I'd share them here as well.

Ship ideas:


(It says Da Cleavamaw, but its a drawing of Da Ogresun )











Cutters:









Tattoos:




Buildings:








Fishmen!

awesome dude! real good work

Thanks Matt!

That was fun so I searched out some older notebooks:


The original ideas and plans for Hogwasha!









And another couple of Orcy buildings:

Excellent sketches WBK!

I also love the "Fishbone" tatoo Hilarious! You should definitely use that one, cos if you don't, I will

Thanks for sharing, I love looking at good concept artwork.

Admin Tom wrote:

I also love the "Fishbone" tatoo Hilarious! You should definitely use that one, cos if you don't, I will

(The design is actually stolen from my cat's water bowl! ) I have used it, but don't let that stop you!

You really rock! The ideas are so good, I really can't wait to see them worked out

Those pics are AWESOME!!! So much sweeet stuff in there. Very good sketches

The Red Cutter

(Don't think all this work was done today! It was started on Jan 7th, but I just hadn't got round to posting the photos here yet! )

A larger (and more Orcy) version of this:



It's big enough to carry either 10 Orcs or 20 Goblins ashore from the Hogwasha.

I'm also going to make a second one (the black cutter) so pretty much the whole crew can land at once. They may also serve as small attack-craft in large fleet actions (carrying boarding parties to the enemy so the Hogwasha can hold back and bombard the enemy from afar), or in river piracy games (attacking a larger boat from two sides).

The first one is still very work in progress at this stage:

The hull of the first cutter is done, the sails and masts were next.






A scale-shot with the latest WIP Pirate Orc (made from an Ork Biker body):

The lateen sail done - all the stiching took flippin' ages! I could only work on the rigging for a few minutes at a time because I was soaking everything in PVA glue as soon as each knot was tied. I had to wait for each one to dry before starting the next one. It's actually pretty easy to do, just VERY time consuming!

Front:



Back:



Top, detail:



Bottom, detail:



Scale-shoot with the same Orc as last time:

Finally, added the tiller:







Also added a GS stocking-cap to the scale-Orc crewman:





I'll be undercoating and painting it over the next couple of days.

Serious, you are making me sick these look so damn good
can you tell me where you got the hook and that body from ?

From the plastic Chaos Marauder banner! (there are two hooks on each one!)

ah great But the body where is that from ? because it is nicely sculpted