It’s always satisfying to finish a ship project for Blood & Plunder! Check out this Brigantine model all painted and rigged up and ready to raid!

The Brigantine in Blood & Plunder

In Blood & Plunder, the Brigantine is pretty maneuverable, reasonably fast, is pretty tough, can can carry up to 6 units and 4 pairs of cannons.

For a discussion on the Brigantine in Blood & Plunder, you can check out our video overview:

Sails for the 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 Seamons’ Quality 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.

Rigging the Brigantine

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).

You can follow a simpler rigging patterern in this video guide:

Painting the Brigantine

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.

Additional Recommended Reading

• Brigantine Ship Overview Video
• Seamons’ Quality Sails page
• Brigantine Ship Overview Article
• Battle Report Featuring this Ship – New England Privateers vs. Dutch Navy