By Joseph Forster

I recently added a new brigantine to my fleet and wanted to share some pictures. I really didn’t know what I was doing when I got my first brigantine with the original Kickstarter back in early 2017, so it held the honor of being the ugliest ship in my fleet.

The Brigantine has always held the distinction of doing “everything decently” but not being great at any one thing. But I “heard a rumor” that this ship is getting a little buff with the release of the Raise the Black rulebook, so I figured it was a good time to build up a presentable Brigantine.

The thing I’m most excited about on this Brigantine is the sails! I’ve made and purchased several different kinds of sails over the years but I think I’m finally settled. These are Seamon’s Deluxe Sails, created by the an expert seamstress, no other that our own Guy Rheuark’s mother!

I’m going to do a full review of these sails soon so I won’t gush over them long here. But they are truly great!

These are 2 layers of cloth with a shapeable layer in the middle so they can be formed to look like sails filled with wind.

Compared to my white foam, painted foam, or paper sails, these look incredibly realistic.

I tried to up my rigging game on this ship as well, going well beyond the rigging instructions included in the kit.

I got some rigging schooling from Liam Taylor, and now I can correctly differentiate between a shroud and backstay. I’m very proud of myself. Rigging has never really been my thing but I’m decently proud of my efforts this time.

Look at all them “lines” (Liam will hate that).

I used a very simple paint scheme for this ship. It just a grubby pirate ship.

Looking through an Osprey book on pirate vessels, I saw their illustration of Vane’s Ranger and it was a very plain and “brown” brigantine so I went for that look.

For the wood I used Vallejo Old Wood and New Wood and Leather Brown, blended in some areas, and then drybrushed with the lightest Old Wood after an Agrax Earthshade wash.

For the blue I used Vallejo Prussian Blue, which is now my very favorite blue. GW blues always drove me a little crazy…

I used Vallejo Brass for the decorations, and Vallejo Metal Colors for the windows. Vallejo has the best metallics, hands down.

I tried using a Contrast Paint on the masts this time but they came out a littler darker than I wanted. This is the Snakebite Leather on all the masts.

I need to give that flag some shape!

I used the same base colors for the deck planking, but drybushed with one lighter shade and added some weather around the edges of the decks.

It was fun to build a ship again after not building for a good while. It’s inspired me to make a series of videos for our YouTube channel, so watch for those in the future if you want any tips and tricks for putting these models together.

That’s it! Thanks for reading. I’ll be wanting to play a game with this mediumist of ships soon, so watch for a brigantine battle report from us at some point

Thanks to Seamon’s Quality Sails for a quality product, and thanks to Liam Taylor for telling me my rigging sucked so I could get better.

Check out all our other ship reviews, painting guides, rigging guides and ship stats on our Ultimate Guide to Blood & Plunder Ships page.