Goodbye 2015 - Hello 2016

It's that time of the year. I must say its not been a great year hobby wise, it started well but went downhill from Easter... But at least it gives plenty of improvement opportunity for 2016. More gaming is required in 2016 . I have booked into Hammerhead in March taking the cowboy game on the road again. Also booked in for a weekend in Warwick with AMG forum to run a Sudan game in June. The end of June will be at Scarborough hopefully where I want to have the Gangster game up and running, that will also be out at the new Stockton summer show in early July too . So hopefully will catch up with some of you around.... Perhaps even another Blog Con..

With a bit of luck the brushes will be twirling again shortly.

So here is wishing you all a very Happy , Healthy and Prosperous 2016!

Thank you Santa

Santa has delivered a wonderful collection once more this year.

First up my "Secret Santa" organised by Cath ..

A couple of sets of Copplestone gangsters, Street Toughs and Tommy Gunners. Nicely timed as the bad guys in Serenity City need some topping up. Plus a new decent set of needle files ..I seem to go through these quickly , especially when  soldering and cleaning up. A big thank you to Secret Santa from "down South!"

From the Mrs D:-
The new rule set by Gerry for his mega sized Napoleonic battles

I have been on a bit of a WWI naval reading lately. I also have family history interest in building the great ships as well. Fantastic background and wonderful photos of the leviathans of the seas being built.

Plus the new Max Hastings book .. I always find him very readable.

All told a great selection ... I am going to need some more bookshelves!

And maybe I shall get some paint on this lot shortly..

Merry Christmas 2015

 To all my friends out there in the blog-o-sphere have a wonderful Christmas. Here is hoping you get to spend precious time with those you love. I look forward to seeing what goodies Santa has delivered for you 

Right - time to find a mince pie , and a warming beverage..

Oh and remember 

Preparing for the winter painting season

With the start of 6th AHPC just being around the corner the man-cave has had a serious tidy up and work is progressing on preparation activty.

I still have a mountain of lead and plastic for the Sudan which is once more going to be the main focus.

I will also be working on some more Gangster/Pulp stuff to - i will need to spend some time doing the stock of buidling I have as i want to get a game of this on the table early in the coming year - thinking perhaps at Hammerhead.

The paint desk - all nice and tidy!

Battleground - Stockton on Tees 28th November

Just a few shots..

The Man With No Name surveys the town. We played a couple of games of our Bounty Hunter scenario - both went to the very wire with the final outcome decided just as the train left town - one the Bounty Hunter won... and the other he recieved a fatal wound on the very last shot! Great fun.

Had a good chat with a number of people - - and topped up on paints for the winter season.

Battleground - Stockton on Tees 28th November

I shall be taking the Old West collection out to run a participation game at Stockton this weekend, and am looking forward to it.

Queens Campus , Stockton On Tees , 10am til 3pm

We are game number 1 , opposite Graham from Crann Tara.

If you are there pop along and say hello . Or even better , join in .. Try your luck on the mean streets of "Serenity Flatts" 

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

It's that time of the year again, and Curt has announced the launch of annual madness that is the painting challenge - you mad fool you!

It seems we will have a large field of challengers both new and old..

I will be joining in, but a present have no idea on a potential point tally.. I just know it won't be of 4000 number of last year... 

Now Millsy tells me he can't stand the heat and is going for gentle totl. Good to see the old Millsgone is long lasting!

Something a bit bigger. Lord Lovat

As my paining mojo has been in hiding for a while , and I really did not fancy tackling a horde of 28mm figures I have been looking for something interesting to have a go at. While I was on a supplier website I came across a 100mm bust of Lord Lovat the commander of the 1st Special Service Brigade on D Day , and thought that might be fun and challenging.

I have spent a few hours today cleaning and assembling - still a bit to do with a rifle to add , but I will do that after most has been panted .

Yes that is a 28mm figure for comparison.

I have no idea how long this will take , but I am looking forward to it.

The casting is a limited edition run made by RP Models.

No words...just thoughts

Not Forgotten

Over the years I have visited many war cemeteries to pay respects - They are Not Forgotten. Freedom comes at great cost.

Secret Santa - Hints and tips..

Ian and Cath have come up trumps again this year with an expanded bloggers 'Secret Santa". I really enjoyed the choosing last year , and was also the lucky recipient of great choices last year.

Here are a few 'shiney' things currently peaking my interest.

Bootleggers/Gangsters

I have plenty of cops , so any Bob Murch Pulp Minatures Gangland Justice bad guys . Copplestone castings , street toughs, Tommy gunners.

Sudan

Always interested in baggage camels, civilians , traders etc. Britannia and Castaway Arts doing some interesting stuff

WW2
Got a bit of an interest on Commando's , so some 28mm figures might be nice

Tools

Needle files, cheap no2 size brushes .

But really .. I will be happy with whatever I get.

Getting back to it..

The blog has been a little neglected of late - the usual stuff - you know  how it goes , but things are coming back together. Anyway to freshen things up while I dig out the paint desk and fire up the brushes I thought it might be nice to revisIt some creations from a few years back - and these are among my favourites.

The squadron of Mamalukes is now completed. Great fun unit to do, lots of movement and colour

These are 28mm Bicorne Miniatures , each once individually converted and reworked with the soldering iron.

Wargamer Bloggers Quarterly

Welcome to  the latest edition from the team.

 Just click To get WBQ HERE

I've got a lovely bunch of....

Coconuts ...well Palm trees at least. It seems summer has turned up this weekend which allowed me the opportunity to work in the garden on some terrain items for the Sudan.

I picked up a few packs of 9cm and 13cm palm trees from e-bay for £21 about 100 pieces altogether. Not bad as sent from China too. I pinned and glued these to 2mm MDF bases from Warbases with a range of sizes on the bases , and the odd few I also cut down and extra cm or so to give variety. A bit of PVA and sand added , which is then given a light colour dry brush. Once all dry , I gave them a hit with some Matt varnish.

Next up I wanted to make some Acacia trees/bushes, that could be found across Sudan and were used to make Zaribas. A few years ago I had picked up a pile of Woodland Scenics tree armatures, so some of these were twisted into a rough shape, hot glued to bases, and sprayed a dark grey.  I then hot glued onto the branches some rubberised horsehair , and shaped and pulled it about , this was then sprayed dark grey too. Everything is then given a light colour drybrush. Neat PVA is painted onto the horsehair and I then added some brown leave scatter (I will do some more with green as well I think). Basing is straight PVA and sand again. One everything was dry I hit the foliage with some extra firm hold hairspray which will reduce any chance of it dropping off.

If you are interested , but can't find rubberised horsehair in your usual model outlets , try looking for upholstery suplliers. I picked up a sheet that was 6 foot by 4 , and an inch thick for £30. It will last me an age!

I have based these on hex bases to easily allow me to create differing shape collections of them . 

Overall a nice productive, and relaxing weekend.

The return of some hobby time

I have finally managed to get some time in the man cave today. It certainly seems to have been an age. I have managed to stock up the lead pile though , and it should keep me busy over the autumn and winter alright.

Also I have sourced some more terrain items for the Sudan - some rather fine city walls 

Gordon Pasha leads the way..

All together a grand total of 8 feet of walls and towers. These were completed by Andrew over at The Colonial Steamboat Company. I shall be getting a few more bits as well.

I also have the first large terrain cloth cut to size ready for working on. That is if we manage to have a dry weekend so I can do it outside.

Anyway, short and sweet, but I am back around and will be catching up with things

Out of here for a bit

It's pay back time for a productive winter. So apologies to the various bloggers I follow and interact with, I am only checking in infrequently. I shall continue the daily plate spinning activities over the summer period.

So normal blogging will be interrupted for a period.

Thanks to those who have enquired over my wellbeing.. It's appreciated!

But as Arnie said.. I'll be back.

Wargame Bloggers Quarterly #4

The very latest issue is now out. Filled of course with some fine eye-candy. Just click on the picture!

Salute 2015 - A grand day out.

Well a long day was had yesterday - out of the house at 5.30am , and back home at 11pm - all the public transport - trains ,tube,and DLR all worked with no problems. I had pre bought a ticket and breezed straight in at 10.20am to a hall full of wargames inspiration.

I did not have any targets for purchases in particular and managed to resist lots of new shiny - I know you might think whats to point of going! However the main aim for the day was to meet up with various friends.

So just a small amount of loot. A hard copy of Simon Millers "To The Strongest" (Our very own Millsy has done a cracking job on the design work I must say) , a new Red paint set as my old one is about worn out, and another stock up of terrain extras , sandbags etc from Andy and Jon at Ainsty. Some rather nice Victorian heroes and adventurer types from Wargames Foundy to do a few specials for the Sudan. Having resisted too much new "off plan" shiny stuff I will order a few other things over the next week or two.

A good chat with Mark from Wargames Holiday Centre around a mid summer play test/ photo session for the Sudan , and confirm of the first game date being the of October.

The blogger meet up took place at 1pm and there was a decent number of us - in fact I must add some more to my blog roll to keep up! It was fun to share some face to face time with the guys n girls whose virtual space we share. Clint you chocolate fudge went down very well on the train home - thanks

What is the collective noun for a group of bloggers? A "gossip" perhaps...Ray was heard asking who has a blog prize giveaway next as he has not won one for a few weeks..

The standard of games overall looked wonderful , some real work had gone into them  - really too many to photograph and do justice to I thought - so i gave up.


I met Mrs D back in London for a bite to eat , and we had a pleasant hour in the bar at the Rennaissance St Pancras hotel prior to getting our train home.

Altogether a grand day out

Salute 2015 - Blogger Meet Up - 1 o clock

Looking forward to catching up with fellow bloggers tomorrow - by the big red spot! 1 pm -

Sudan - Painting your horde

I have had a few people ask about how I painted my large number of Mahdist figures in a relatively short time. So here is a little walk through of how I did the 144 figures I did recently. I will say I am very accurate with a paint brush - I rarely ever need to "touch up" as I put it where its needed - just years of practice and good brushes

Rule number 1 - sort out your head - no seriously - you have to accept you are painting a host of figures and that painting each to the best standard you can  with multiple highlights washes etc is NOT going to achieve the objective - Quantity has a Quality all of its own.

Ok - now we have that bit done

Prepare you figures. In this case they are Perry plastics a mix of the early Beja and then some of the later Jibbah wearing troops which for this is I will call Ansar. As these figures are an irregular type troops i have based them up here after assembly , prior to any undercoat. There is a reasonable room between them - they are on a mix of 60x40 or 120 x 40 bases with differing numbers of figures on each. Mounted on Warbases 2mm MDF curved corner bases.

The first decision is to identify the predominate colour - for the Beja it is the dark skin tone, and for the Ansar it is the white of the Jibbah. This then decides the colours for the main undercoat - let this do a large amount of work for you.

In this case I used an enamel Humbrol 186 brown , and a matt white- both applied with the airbrush

  

All the acrylic paints used after this are thinned with Windsor and Newton acrylic flow enhancer - slows drying and allows them to spread and flow better from your brush. I use a plastic pipette to add it to the paint mix. It can also be used to wash figures as well

A walk through the Beja. - Working on all 62 together.

Undercoated

Add black to the hair and any metal areas of the weapons

  Wash the entire figue with a thin Vallejo Sepia wash - or thinned paint - any darker brown would do. Once dry give the "hair" a drybrush in mid brown colour to break up the all black.

Paint the "cloth" - this is done using 4 different colours from - Off White, Ivory, Iraqi sand, Desert sand etc -  pick a colour paint all the cloth on that figure with it. No two figures next to each other in the same colour if you can. Once dry do another thin wash of Sepia (you could also use Army Painter I guess here too.)

 Refer to rule 1.. no extra highlight

 Add some rock ot bases - paint spear shafts - a brown colour - scabbard - a leather colour. Rifles a suitable brown in this case a Vallejo Hull red

 Refer to rule 1.. no extra highlight

At this point I give everything a Matt Varnish spray - this helps to draw everything together and give you an idea what will require highlighting.  I added a highlight to the skin tone , muscle tops, noses, chins, cheeks , hands etc etc using Vallejo Flat Earth thinned to at least 50% with Windsor and Newton acrylic flow enhancer. Because its so thin it flows really well. Hit them with varnish again

 Add base texture , and paint the metallics - yes after varnish as it keeps them bright. add flags etc.In this case i used rough sand over PVA , once dry i gave it a drybrush in cream / offwhite colour and don't forget the base edges.  Add a few grass tufts.

DONE

At this point if you want to go back and highlight the top of the clothes etc you could do if you really want to , but refer to rule 1 first!

A walk through the Ansar - working on all 82 together

First step after the all white undercoat.  - add the skin tone  this is same enamel colour as the Beja a sort of dark terracotta - it can be mixed with a darker colour if it took your fancy - this is thinned and washed on

 all skin tone done

 Add the random patch designs to the Jibbah  - in Red, Blue, Yellow etc no two the same next to each other. Some Jibbahs have a dark edging pattern - do this in a dark blue or black - again to random number of figures

 Paint weapon metal black - and wooden parts of the weapons in browns

 Give everything a thin wash of Vallejo Sepia - or Raw umber - keep it thin though - better two coats than one thick one remove any pooling of the wash with a brush. Once dry hit them with Matt Varnish

Highlight skin tone with thinned Flat earth. Add base material - add flags - highlight bases material and re-varnish - add metallic colours and tufts

DONE

At this point if you want to go back and highlight the top of the clothes etc you could do if you really want to , but refer to rule 1 first! 

do the "what do they look like on the table from 6 feet away test" fix anything you are not happy with - funny you are unlikely to find anything..

 REPEAT!

These took just over a week to paint - with a few hours each day. They took almost as long to assesmble as they had to be cut of the sprue and assembled,

I have my final 120 of these to do later in the Spring..