Welcome to a special Thursday blog post! I was excited to get the
Stygian Barge Add-On from the recent Bones 4 Kickstarter, and I was not disappointed in the model when it arrived. It is a truly beautiful and big ship.
However, I didn't necessarily want to use the barge in all its Stygian glory; it looked more like a Necromancer's fancy yacht than anything else. I wanted more of a plain everyday working barge. I figured a plain barge would have much more game use than one specifically decked out in death-related motifs. So, the first thing I set about doing was looking over the pieces to see just what removing all the skulls, etc. would involve. With a little effort it seems like it just might work
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| All the Barge pieces minus the figurehead pieces and the crew and passengers. |
The first thing I did was to glue the front middle and rear hull sections together using Gorilla Superglue Gel. I then used coffee stirrers and toothpicks to lay down a new deck and trim in the middle hull section to cover over the bone strewn deck that is molded onto the model.
I then cut off the two skull decorations on the front protrusions of the rear deck piece, and replaced them with two round wood beads. When they were dry, I glued the rear deck and front deck into place. I then painted the hold interior on the front deck with Ceramcoat "Black".
When the Black was dry I glued the hold cover over it, and then worked on putting together the rope and anchor assembly. I then glued the barrel assembly to the other side
After that, I worked on gluing in the rear deck bracers.
I then began trimming the vertebrate spines off of the rear deck roof, and trimming the skeletons off of the roof supports.
Next, I glued the rudder into place, and then the mast. I left the skull on the mast, figuring it looked like some kind of trophy or oddity the crew came across, rather than strictly saying "necromancer's boat".
When these ware dry, I glued the roof supports to the deck, setting the roof in place to keep them aligned while the glue set, but not actually gluing the roof. I don't want to permanently glue the roof until after I have painted the underside.
After the roof supports were dry, I worked on fixing where the skeletal mermaid figurehead was supposed to go. I used a bit of bamboo skewer to make a bowsprit, and a little nail in the center of the rope circle to make it look like it was actually hanging from something.
Lastly, I cut the skulls off of the ends of the railings, and once de-skulled, glued them into place
And here is the finished boat; ready for painting! I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and think it will look suitably like a regular workaday barge. Hopefully I will get it painted in time to use it in our June
Ghost Archipelago game.
