Wide Brazilian Sky

Progress is slower than we hoped on the South American Imperial Skies project, but the next of the fleets to get a makeover is the largest of the countries, Brazil. It has a total of 12 different models in the fleet, including four brand new ones, ranging from the Timbira class Torpedo Sloop at the smaller end of the scale up to the imposing Rei Andreas class battleship.

The new ships are the aforementioned Rei Andreas and Timbira, the Amazonas Light Armoured Cruiser and the Japura destroyer. The Brazilians also get a second fleet pack and a torpedo flotilla pack. Most of the ships are metal, with the exception of the resin-hulled Sao Paolo and Rei Andreas.

I’ve experimented with the painting on these, both in choice of colours and paints. Rather than the usual white or grey superstructures, black hulls etc, I’ve used muted versions of the flag colours – so green superstructures and yellow turrets. These don’t look too outlandish, and almost create a sort of camouflage scheme from above. I also decided to try painting them with Citadel Contrast paints. Over a Grey Seer spray basecoat (white was too light) I painted the hulls Basilicanum grey, the turrets Nazdreg Yellow, Militarum Green for the superstructures and Skeleton Horde for the decks. Normal paints were used to finish off the guns, masts, windows and other bits. It’s given a good enough result for the tabletop and was fairly quick, although you still have to be quite neat and avoid painting over the wrong areas.

VANFP-801 – Brazilian Fleet Pack #1 – £21.50
VANFP-802 – Brazilian Fleet Pack #2 – £21.50
VANFP-811 – Brazilian Torpedo Flotilla – £5.50

VAN-801 – Sao Paulo Class Battlecruiser – £6.50
VAN-802 – Minas Gerais Class Heavy Cruiser – £3.50
VAN-803 – Gustavo Sampaio Class Light Cruiser – £2.00
VAN-804 – Barroso Class Patrol Sloop – £0.50
VAN-805 – Pernambuco class Frigate – £1.00
VAN-806 – Júlio de Noronha class Cruiser – £3.00
VAN-807 – Tamandare class Torpedo Cruiser – £2.00
VAN-808 – Paraná class Frigate – £1.00
VAN-809 – Rei Andreas class Battleship- £8.00
VAN-810 – Japura class Destroyer – £1.50
VAN-811 – Timbira class Torpedo Sloop- £0.50
VAN-812 – Amazonas class Light Armoured Cruiser- £2.50

Next will be the Argentine fleet – all of the production moulds are in place, we just have to paint up the samples for the website. Beyond that, Uruguay is looking good, there are a pair of rather cool looking pre-production battlecruisers on my painting desk…