I am not an expert on anything naval, let alone how to paint model ships.
Our 345th anniversary game of the Battle of Sole Bay (see blog) raise a great deal of interest with several people asking how we went about painting the tiny 1:2400 scale ships.
This was a group project with each of us painting up a squadron or two using our own individual approaches.
I painted the French squadrons using a similar technique to how I paint 6mm figures. I placed the flags as if the ships are heading into the wind as this was the case at the start of the Battle of Sole Bay.
Dave Allen used a very different method for his English and Dutch squadrons.
Clicking on the photos below will link to a downloadable pdf for each method.