Over the years I have made lots of bases used to display my painted miniatures and have always enjoyed the prospect of scratch building items to help bring the miniature to life and convey a narrative to the display.

Recently I got the Mproyec 1:32nd scale Barbarella, Lord of Mussels sculpted by the fantastic Raúl García Latorre and the choice of base was obvious, a section of Pirate Ship. One of the things I wanted to incorporate was some of the paraphernalia associated with pirate ships. A wheel, some rigging and some barrels; however, once I chose an appropriate plinth for the scene and size of the miniature, I soon discovered that I wouldn’t have the room for some of the items I planned for. So, I asked a few of my friends what items they associated with ships of this type and one the things they all agreed with was some barrels.

I could have bought some but I wanted this to be completely scratch build so the task was, how to accomplish this. I wanted a YouTube video of how barrels are actually made and quickly understood this method was going to be impossible to do in miniature so I had to bluff…