Robur's Albatross is launched!

"From out of the clouds a long dark shape gradually emerged, and sank slowly into the overcast above the glittering Pacific; Nemo's Nautilus may have suffered under the combined bombardment of the Peruvian and Chilean Fleets, but now a strange ally had come to her aid.......The Albatross had arrived!"

Well, at least she has had a few coats of randomly applied paint smudged on by yours truly, so I thought I'd give a glimpse as to how she is progressing.

The colour scheme started off with red and white over a predominant black, but this made the vessel look more like a car ferry than a fantastic aeronautical wonder-craft, so I somewhat haphazardly added some accents in green, which at the time seemed like a good idea, but in retrospect does rather give her an unintended 'Italian' feel.....!

I'm quite pleased with the Robur coat of arms / sun symbol, but overall, for me this scheme is just not firing on all cylinders - it certainly says Victorian-era sky vessel, but somehow has lost all the menace and excitement you would expect of such an enigmatic craft with the Madman Robur at the helm.

The Albatross is also yet to be based, as although I'm intending to use rare earth magnets to match with standard plastic flight stands, I'm not sure whether to use one or two, given the weight of the mini; a top-heavy nose dive on the table could easily see her various protuberances smashed.

So although Nemo and his Allies could probably do with some aerial back-up (I'm currently working on re-inforcing the conventional Peruvian and Chilean navies), it may be that this prototype is launched, but is yet to be accepted into service.

So, whilst I think about how to improve things, I'm consoling myself with this web page describing various other preposterous craft:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-18-most-hilarious-modes-of-transport/

Well worth a look! (Warning -some adult humour is involved....)

Robur's Albatross Update

I thought I'd post a quick update outlining the small progress on Robur's Albatross - there has been far to much 'sand' and not enough 'steel' in my commitment to the Blog recently, so I wanted to show that at least some wargaming related stuff has been taking place!

As per the excellent suggestion of El Grego after a previous post, I have uprated the drive propulsion, with the addition of two further propellor booms at the rear - these I wanted to look as scientifically unfeasible as the rest of the flight apparatus, so came out rather long and spindly.

As you can see, therefore, I added a pair of canard wings forward, in order to balance things out a little visually. She's also of course had a matt black undercoat slapped on, which has helped to homogenise her previous rather Frankenstein's Monster appearance.

So then, we have gone from this:

To this:

I think she is coming together now, although of course the next, and perhaps most important phase is the colour scheme.

I would be comfortable enough doing a Pre-Dreadnought pastiche, I suppose, but I think Robur, being similar to Nemo in disdaining the conventional world and society of Man, would have something more distinctive.

Strong, dark colours might predominate; even black would be nice and threatening I suppose, but whatever it turns out to be, it has to be unique, I think - any suggestions welcome!

I have been very lucky in stumbling across an excellent Blog page that discusses the insignia of Robur, which is described by Verne in the books, so I think some part of the scheme should reflect the flaming sun of the protagonist's coat of arms:

http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2008/10/steampunk-pirates-2-robur-conquerors.html

The upper bow section is looking a likely contender for displaying this.

For some more conventional and contemporary views of the Albatross as originally conceived, some excellent illustrations can be found here:

http://jv.gilead.org.il/rpaul/Robur%20le%20conquérant/

Each is 'clickable' for an enlarged view - I particularly like the last frame showing the Albatross in conflict with the retrograde lighter than air 'Go Ahead' !

Aquanef: Robur, Master of the World, and the Albatross

Looking rather forlorn and sorry for itself, we see above the VAN-1402 Peruvian Aeronef, the Huascar from Brigade Models, which I had originally purchased with a view to converting it into a sea-going craft as seen in a previous Aquanef post.

The more I looked at it however, and mourned for the barbette guns that had broken off in transit, I realised that this model deserved more than relegation to the bits box, and should take a place alongside the other protagonists in the developing Nemo versus the Militarists project.

The natural progression, of course, would be to introduce it alongside a whole range of the readily available Aeronef miniatures, but I wanted to have something rather more unique.

We started off from the point of view of Nemo and his Allies interfering in the Pacific War between Peru, Chile and Bolivia, and then moved on to the introduction of Militarist super-weapons to challenge the superiority of Nemo's vessels. What could be more natural, then, than for this enigmatic genius to call on a further Ally in the shape of Robur, 'Master of the World', and his sky ship the 'Albatross' in reply.

Jules Verne wrote Robur the Conqueror in 1886, and followed it up with a sequel in 1904, concerning the adventures of an eccentric who prowled the stratosphere in a heavier than air craft, to mysterious ends, a character who has more than a whiff of the water-based Nemo about him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robur_the_Conqueror

I had always enjoyed these tales, and in particular Vincent Price's over-the-top portrayal of him in the 1961 movie:

http://www.1000misspenthours.com/reviews/reviewsh-m/masteroftheworld.htm

His fantastic flying vessel, the 'Albatross', has had a number of different incarnations, depending upon the illustrator, but to me I think the Aeronef Huascar would make a good starting point; I added on the tail section which comes with the model, and also some plastic bridging parts to act as bases for its means of propulsion at the rear:

Verne's vessel is characterised by a plethora of propellers, as can be seen in some of the excellent model versions showcased here:

http://steamnoir.webs.com/aircraft.htm

So after pinching out some discs of transparent plastic card and attaching them to steel stationery pins, we have the beginning of something rather special, I hope, as below:

To be frank, on close examination, there is a concern that these could look like so many parasols mounted on deck, rather than pulsing powerhouses of propulsion, but hopefully the surrounding paint job should help to bring the whole together. I also had to compromise on the number of propellers, solely for practical purposes, but hopefully it keeps to the spirit of the original:

There's obviously a lot more work to do on my version of the 'Alabatross' before it can take it's place alongside the forces of Nemo, but a decent start, anyway:

You can find a whole slew of of the illustrations from the two novels online, but one of the best collections can be seen here:

http://jv.gilead.org.il/rpaul/Robur%20le%20conquérant/

(All the pictures are 'clickable' for a larger view.)

Of course, I must also add that I'm not the first to think along these lines when approaching the depiction of Aeronef, one of the most interesting versions can be seen on the Brigade Models' site itself, in the shape of the Konigin Louisa:

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Frames/Galleries/VAN-10.html

Excellent work, that I can only hope to emulate as my own sky ship develops!