Over the last month I have been test printing and painting some of the beautiful models that are going to feature in my good friend, Iain Lovecraft’s Viking Saga Kickstarter. I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about painting and rigging the very accurate Viking Longboat, or Drakkar. Today we are looking at the Knarr or Viking Trading ship.
The Knarr has a broader beam and more air-board than the Drakkar, and features a raised platform at the bow and stern (presumably to keep the trade goods away from any water on the lower deck) The Knarr lacks oars, which is going to restrict how close it can travel into the wind, and it also does not have the characteristic carved dragon head of the raiding ships. It does however have many features in common, including the single square sail, shallow draught and steering oar.
I have rigged the Knarr in a similar way to the Drakkar using 1.5mm black elastic cord to represent fore and aft stays and shrouds. This is really just representative ‘wargames’ rigging… it’s a model for gaming rather than display so I did not want to much rigging getting in the way. You can check the previous article for the practical details.
One of the things that I wanted from these models was to be able to show them underway with sails up, or alongside with sails down. To facilitate this I drilled a small hole in top of mast and glued a small section of brass rod in place. I drilled a similar hole in the yard, so that it can be temporarily held in place with the pin. It is my intention, latter to 3D print a second set of yards and make some furled sails out of Japanese Tissue Paper. The miniatures in the photographs are 28mm Victrix Vikings to give a feel for scale.
Links to previous Viking Saga articles:
Viking Saga – The Village Grows (Buildings, Mine & Pier)
Viking Saga – Getting started with the terrain
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