North American 15 mm Terrain | Hobby & Season of Scenery

Apologies to all my readers and the wonderful folks who leave comments on here and post on their own blogs. This has been perhaps one of the busiest times of my life since probably my university years. Sometimes it comes down to such little time that I have to pick between writing on the blog or even getting any of the hobbying done. I have managed to sneak in a few projects though, like this batch of terrain for Black Powder. I even got a game in, but that's for another post. 

Black Seas USS Essex | Hobby & Season of Scenery

The USS Essex has been languishing half finished for a few months now, so I decided to finally buckle down and just get her done. She's an American frigate who gained some notoriety for her daring raids in the Pacific during the War of 1812. Her career came to an end at the hands of the Royal Navy in Valparaiso, Chile.

Gaming | Advance! 2026

And just like that a whole 'nother year has passed and we're back at Advance!, the local wargaming convention put on by the San Diego Historical Miniatures Wargame Club (SDHMWC). Once again, while the focus is definitely historical, there are a ton of other genres to match whatever flavor you're looking for. I was able to stay a little longer this time around, so I got some more games in than last time plus I managed to enter some minis into the painting competition. 

Hobby | Black Seas HMS Indefatigable

It's been a wild time over at the Space Dino household, mostly because I actually own a house now. Lots of my time has been spent getting things moved over, but, for the first time in a very long time, I have an official hobby space and room to lay out my things. Which will make it a lot easier to access things in the future as I don't have to go looking for them in boxes. This has also been the reason I haven't been keeping up with everyone's blogs, but now that I don't have to spend every waking moment moving things and unpacking boxes and lifting furniture I have no business moving, things should get into a groove again. So, for the first post of the year, I have HMS Indefatigable, a ship famous for her duel against a much larger ship than herself. 

 

Hobby | Black Seas La Princesa

Uh what a whirlwind of a time it's been for me, I won't get into details, but I will say that it's been very busy here. I've finally gotten around to finishing La Princesa, a model I started way back in August after I wrapped up the Lake Erie project. Hopefully, the next thing I do won't take anywhere near as long. But back to the subject at hand. 

Project | Battle of Lake Erie (Part 6)

Well, that's it, I've done it. I started this whole thing back in March, and after a total of 6 posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5), the Battle of Lake Erie project is finished, at least from the hobby side of things. I haven't had the chance yet to play out the battle, which would require me to either find a pre-made scenario online or scrape together one myself. The version provided in the Hold Fast supplement is woefully inadequate. That may be the subject of a future post in this series, but for now lets get to some pretty pictures of boats in their natural habitat. 

Project | Battle of Lake Erie (Part 5)

Ordinarily, I'd get a little bit more done before posting about this project, but I wanted to share this little American on the 4th of July. This is a cutter, the second I've done for this project. She'll be used to model the Trippe, the smallest ship present at the battle. 

Project | Battle of Lake Erie (Part 4)

Large amounts of overtime work have kept me fairly busy and away from the hobby (one of them at least). To make sure stuff still gets done, I try to do at least one thing a night, even if it's rigging a single thread. It's paid off, even if it can be quite slow at times. I've got two more schooners done for the United States, and the last sloop-of-war for the British, which also happens to be the last square-rigged ship in this project. 

Hobby | Ye Olde Telegraph

Amazingly, somewhere in between Oblivion Remastered sessions and baby care, I've got some painting in. Not for the Battle of Lake Erie though; I've done so many schooners that I was in a mood to do something completely different. Something that's great about naval wargaming is that terrain isn't a necessity, other than an ocean mat. Staring at an empty ocean isn't all that fun either though. While I like what Warlord has on offer in terms of terrain, I've turned to Hagen Miniatures, a German company, for this particular venture. Their catalogue has a plethora of terrain, accessories, and even ships that are all in scale with the Warlord range. What we have here is a Chappe telegraph diorama. 

Project | Battle of Lake Erie (Part 3)

I've gone and painted perhaps the most famous participant of the whole battle, the brig Niagara. Depending on where you fall in the Ship of Theseus philosophical conundrum, she can still be found docked at the Erie Maritime Museum in Pennsylvania. That's the particular look I went with here, mostly because examples were readily available, and a small part because painting a black ship with white stripes gets repetitive after a time. Not to be completely forgotten, I also painted a schooner for the Royal Navy side of the conflict, and a little longboat, because you kinda need one if you're doing this battle. 

Gaming | Advance! 2025

It’s long been a goal of mine to attend a wargame convention. After a few false starts (thanks COVID), I’ve finally managed to get myself to one, and all it took was moving to a city that had one. A small one, but it counts. The San Diego Historical Miniature Wargamers Club (SDHMWC) put on the fourth annual Advance!, an ostensibly historical wargaming convention, but there’s room for other types of games of the more fictional bent. This was a one day event in a local community center, but there was still plenty to do. 

Tribal

Hobby | Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XV Wrap Up

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is done and dusted, and I was able to hit my goal with exclusively Black Seas models. Turns out you get a lot of points for submitting naval miniatures on account of all the extra stuff you have to do. For my last post, I took some glamor photos, and well I enjoyed them so much that I wanted them to be here on my own blog as well. 

Project | Battle of Lake Erie (Part 2)

Well, progress has been slower than I would like, on account of having a kid and all, but I've managed to steal away some minutes here and there. Mostly more Black Seas work, although the new skirmish game Port Royal from Firelock Games has piqued my group's interest, so I've been doing a smidgen of dabbling in 28 mm piracy. More on that in some future post. Back to the Battle of Lake Erie. In the last project post, I was firmly in the planning phase, but now I've got some fruit to show for my efforts. One completed ship, the Caledonia, and some major work done on the Niagara and Queen Charlotte. 

Hobby | Black Seas Bomb Ketch

Before diving further into my Lake Erie project, I need to wrap up the last model I haven't posted about on here from the Analogue Hobby Challenge. This is a Bomb Ketch, a ship made for launching mortar shells at land targets, although in game, you could try to target a ship. But good luck with that. 

Project | Battle of Lake Erie (Part 1)

As I'm sure you all can see, I've been obsessed with little ships lately. When it comes to painting, I've just been going along, painting an English ship, then a French, a Spanish, an American, and then a grab bag. Not that there's anything wrong with that style, per se, but I wanted to try something a little different. I took some inspiration from JJ over at JJ's Wargames, where he picks a particular battle, then gathers all of the ships involved, models and paints them, and finally creates a suitable scenario.

The last project he chose was the Battle of Camperdown, which is a sizable battle. I, however, am a simple minded man with not enough patience for that (yet). So I've decided to go small-er. Not so small as single ship actions, mind, because that's way too easy to do. Instead I'm taking a look at the War of 1812, specifically the Battle of Lake Erie.

Review | Warlord Games Black Seas USS Constitution

The one that started it all. Old Ironsides herself. Yes, I finally got around to the USS Constitution, my favorite ship in history, and fiction for that matter. This particular rendition is a resin and metal model from Warlord Games Black Seas. Let's see how the model holds up. 

Hobby | Black Seas Large Xebec

As I mentioned in the very first post of the year, I’m focusing on the various conflicts that the United States Navy fought in during the Age of Sail. While the War of 1812 is arguably the most famous naval conflict for the US during this period, the First and Second Barbary Wars were the first. This conflict was against the Barbary States in the Mediterranean, and as such there are some exotic ship types to cover. The first up is a large Xebec, a resin model from Warlord Games. 

Tutorial | Sloop-of-War Conversion

This post is a sort of part 2 to the Converting a Brigantine post I made not too long ago. But, in the interest of each post being a complete bit of content in case this is the first one that you encounter, there'll be some repeat photos. The beginning steps are the same as you produce hulls for each ship type. 

Hobby | USS Constellation (1854)

If you purchase one of the various starter fleet boxes for Black Seas, inside you'll find plenty of plastic ships along with some metal bits. These metal bits let you customize your frigates and 3rd rates into bespoke famous ships. The United States has 3 normal sized frigates in their box: Congress, Chesapeake, and Constellation. Interestingly, they provide 3 stern plates and 4 figureheads. Intrigued, I looked into it. The figureheads match the USS Constellation, but there were two of them: the first one of the original six frigates, and the second a sloop-of-war from the American Civil War era. The stern plate and the carved wood figurehead belong to the sloop-of-war, which now sits in Baltimore. The more ornate, angelic figurehead matches the original Constellation. I set that aside for now, and I decided to work on the 1854 version.

Tutorial | Converting a Large Cutter

I went really big, now back down to the really small, to the second smallest seagoing ship-type in the game: a large cutter. But unlike all of my other Black Seas ships so far, this is not a Warlord Games model. This is a cutter from Hagen Miniatures, a miniature company from Germany.