BROADSIDE 2012!!!!!!!!!!

Quote from Clint on the "Anything But a One" blog:

"As a Show Broadside is still young, very young. As such we need all the help and support we can get. So when two of the three wargames magazines that you have bought advertising space in fail to deliver the advert for the show it's very disappointing."

So:

I can't go (wrong end of the country apart from anything else), but new (and newish) shows are important and need to be supported. Even Salute was a local show once. So, if yo can, get your lily white bottoms there and give the people your support.

O.K., stand easy.

It's that man again . . . .

This past month or so has been a hell of a maelstrom and much has had to take a temporary back seat. However, I've continued my desk clearing exercise and made slow, but steady progress. I really did intend to blast through the figures that've been hanging around for a while, but, time constraints aside, some of them are boring beyond belief and others belong to projects that stalled when Adam was a lad. So the revised the plan is to adapt Ockham's razor and cut the crap. I'm skipping the boring/redundant stuff and moving on to figures I'll actually use, which means a very mixed bag to come.

Naturally, as with all of my undertakings, I discovered I was approaching drought status with some of the colours I was using, so went off on a replenishment exercise. The need for some replacement paint leads me to this posting's rant: it's O.K., it's a minor one!

Bloody colour charts pasted all over the interweb are a complete waste of time!!! I accept that, with all the potential variations to do with reproduction and screens etc., there will always be some variation and I'm not naive enough to take these charts as gospel, but they might as well produce the in black and white. So, imagine my delight when the bottle of medium blue I thought I'd ordered arrived and turned out to be a vapid pale blue which is about as much use to me as putting an each way bet on a one legged man in an arse kicking contest. As I said, they're all bad and some are more badder than others(!), but, to be brutally honest, I've found good old Vallejo to be the worse of a pretty poor bunch. So, shape up!

Oh yeah, anybody see the brouhaha over the naughty Perry twins last month? They had the audacity to produce 3 ups of their forthcoming 'new project' and they didn't suit everybody! In part, it's the Twins' own fault for starting a hare running earlier in April by hinting very broadly about the new line of figures which they intended to preview at salute. So, wargamers being wargamers, there were wet dreams aplenty as excited men men huddled in groups or stood alone at bus stops, mumbling about what the new wonder figures could be. Sadly (unsurprisingly?) there were some disappointed fan boys, some of whom simply couldn't describe the depths of their despair at the future release of some 8^th Army troops and their Afrika Korps opponents. Others were incensed that anyone should see fit to criticise the Perrys. Good fun all round – for me anyway – and it just goes to show that, if you don't tell the kids what they're getting for their birthday, the fertilizer will hit the air-conditioning if they don't get what they thought they were going to. And then they buggered off to New Zealand on a jolly! Have these men to sense of responsibility?

Last week I sold a kidney and ordered the new Black Powder supplement “Pikeeeee and Shotteeeeeee” (why do they insist on trying to imitate the period even in the bloody book title?). It arrived yesterday, so I've only had a quick skim though it, but it's very much in keeping with the BP stable. They're not going to be everyone's cup of tea and they appear to have some unique approaches to dealing with the formations of the period, but they do look promising. Of course, they also have to potential to become complex, so it's up to the user(s) to put the brake on when they think they're reached capacity and are likely to kill off the playability element. However, nice eye candy, but at an eye watering price, though thirty quid for a set of rules seems to be the going rate these days. I bet Don featherstone's spitting blood!

Anyway, enough of that. I've posted some of the more interesting (to paint, anyway) figures. Again, the bases are as far as I go with decoration.

This first figure is an odd Yankee brigadier who’s a Perry metal on a Perry plastic ACW horse. Straightforward stuff.

This one is a front Rank Dutch cavalry officer who's now become a generic 'German' brigadier to cover off the smaller states in the Allied army. The uniform is purely conjectural.

This next chap is a Bavarian brigadier and that's a bout it. Pretty uninspiring as a figure, but I'm putting together a Bavarian brigade and he was needed.

All these figures appeared during my recent loft reorganisation when we were doing the electrics, but the best of all is the last figure, below. He's an old Foundry (possibly Guernsey Foundry vintage) from the days before the advent of the dreaded packs, when the figures were all sold loose. His several compatriots are doing service down in Kent now, so he's the only survivor, but has been elevated from a humble cavalry officer too brigadier of Louis XIV.

The little vignette below is a Calpe command set (no, not sure which one) I've done for a mate who's under the cosh to get about half a million figures done in just over five minutes. Nice enough little set, but the horses are a pig to rope tpgether. Personally I'd have nailed their hooved to the ground . . .

Finally, a base of some Germans (the Swabian Baden–Baden regiment). The point of interest is that they're and experiment, painted in what I'm going to call the Saxon Dog method: blocked in colours; Army Painter Strong Tone; highlight as you fancy. Definitely an assembly line method of painting, but, overall, much faster then the, say, Dallimore method and certainly comfortably good enough for the rank and file of an army.

Yesterday I was over at my mate's place road testing some 'back of an envelope' horse and musket rules – very much an old school approach. The game was a stylised refight of the southern end of the battle between the Prussians and the Austrians outside Prague in May 1757. Great game and certainly successful as a tester. Naturally, I lost (even being the Prussians!), but we had a great time of it. I've attached a sneak shot just for interest.

This may well turn into a campaign with its own blog (or whatever) so we can report on progress to various people and lie outrageously about our exploits and general bad luck and crappy dice.

This lad's not happy . . .

 

This must be something of a record, being the third consecutive entry about painting. That's a lie really as you'll see later. However, I've continued my desk clearing exercise and am actually achieving bits here and there. The photos below are of three odd (in the nicest possible way) command figures from my stalled 30 Years' War project of a couple of years ago. I've got more stalled projects than Soft Mick, but I'm now in control of my habit, despite what detractors may say.

Anyway, they're painted up as non descript generals that can be used as brigade commanders (should that be tercio?), but the point is (apart from the fact that I've forgotten to paint in the horses eyes) is that they were knocked off quite quickly, the real time saving being the reversion to the old fashioned 'oil paint wipe' technique for the horses. This means that, allowing for a short delay while the oil paint dries, you can knock off whole regiments of cavalry in a far less time than trying to paint and highlight with acrylics.

The bases are as far as I go with decoration. There's a (more or less) high angle view of each figure to give you a decent view of the base. It's an old truism that if you've got a decent figure, don't hide it on an over-done base and if you've got a pretty poor figure, use a highly decorated base to distract the viewer. It's true for a lot of things in life, painting leads is just one of them.

I've seen bases that are works of art, but with beautiful figures on them that you can't see properly or maybe barely notice at first. You'll know the sort of thing I mean. So, as I don't like the third general figure much, I thought I'd over-do his base to prove the point.Unfortunately, I only got so far and just couldn't be bothered. So much work for nowt really. The flowers on these bases are my only concession to the current fashion of basing figures so they look as if they're marching through a garden centre.

What to do with them? For a while they'll probably stand in as brigadiers for my embryonic War of the Spanish Succession project – you can never have too many command figures. After that they'll probably retire into obscurity rather than line the pockets of the eBay shareholders.

The figures are all Bicorne, from their ECW range, and paint up pretty easily. The range doesn't seem to have expanded for a while and that may be because the sculptor of the range, Nick Collier, now does work for The Assault Group (TAG). However, the figures from these two companies are compatible and the Bicorne ECW  range is pretty big anyway.

Now then, mobile phones. I've been with Virgin Mobile for a while now and never had any problems with them. I was contacted a couple of months ago and reminded that my contract was due up: did I want to upgrade? As it happens, my then current phone was a pain – a slide cover that took what seemed like ages to do anything on and, as my kids send texts all the time, it took me a lifetime to reply. So, I got myself a Blackberry Curve for thirty bob a month less than I was already paying and with a bigger chip than was standard. Well chuffed was I . . . until last week when, after only six weeks' use, the damned thing died on me. To cut a (not really) long story short, I've had the phone replace with a reconditioned one (because I'd had it for more than a fortnight!!!!) and the charger they sent with the replacement was broken. The replacement charger for the replacement charger arrived this morning and it's the wrong type. The good people at Virgin Mobile asked if I'd buy one myself and they'd credit my account. I wasn't too impressed with that suggestion – the second replacement arrives tomorrow.

Now, I can be a bit short tempered at times and I can certainly swear better than anybody I know (and I was in the navy too), but I was reasonable and as pleasant as anyone could be in the circumstances. However, I've still ended up with a second hand phone and an assortment of useless chargers. What I did discover during the course of the conversations with VM is that they use Blackberry's own people to repair the phones and they don't seem to have any proper control over them. The quality aspects of the equipment has been questionable for a while (yes, I know), but, it seems the quality of service is about the same level. VM weren't too happy when I called them again this morning.

I thought I'd share this with you to give you a snapshot of one incident in a market which is supposed to be saturated and in which companies are reportedly cutting each others' throats to get business and to retain custom. I've had a trawl around a few consumer forums (and the chat rooms of some mobile providers' sites) and, sadly, the situation seems to be the same all over.

See; I told you I'd lied about the painting . . .

More oil!

This is the second entry about painting – there are more on the blog, so I suppose I should say “for today”. In between domestic stuff, electrics and being a professional grandad, I've been was painting figures to clear the painting desk. It's not a desk as such, more a mobile scene of chaos, but there's a clutch of figures that've been hanging around for a while (absolute ages in some cases) which need to be killed off to allow progress with newer stuff to proceed with a clear conscience – and be able to find stuff! Just to give a clearer picture, this log jam of figures isn't that big really, but it's built up over a while because of a combination of insufficient time, idleness, a butterfly mind and an overactive imagination. Nevertheless, the upshot is about two hundred and odd figures primed and waiting to be painted. I must be crackers . . . .

Anyway, a few of these figures were part of an experiment with an idea from a fellow blogger: Olddorg – see Metal Mountain in the list of blogs on the left. He's got a very good method of preparing the figures for painting by (in a nutshell) undercoating in a light brown acrylic paint, which is then over-painted in burnt umber oil paint. This in turn is then wiped off to reveal what might be described as a pre shaded figures that shows all the detail and gives a great indication of the shades and highlights for painting. It's also a decent key for the subsequent paint. The figure is then finished off in the usual two or three (or more) layers of acrylics. Dead simple and really effective if, like me, your next stop is to skip the optician and buy the guide dog. So, do have a read of Metal Mountain and have a go yourself.

Now, I have to confess that I have a problem with Olddorg's method in that virtually all shadows are really grey, not brown, so I wanted to try alternatives to his scheme. I opted for two colour combinations to see if they made any difference: grey primer with ivory black oil paint and white primer with burnt umber oil paint. The white/brown scheme would give more contract than the light brown/brown scheme, while the grey/black combination would give (to me) proper dark shadows and be better for blues and greens etc. That was the theory anyway and it seems to have worked during the painting process. However, the end results are difficult to differentiate. Because you paint over most of the figure anyway, the brown option is really dark brown in the deep recesses, so looks more or less black anyway. However, I do tend to use thinner paint than most people and the black certainly did allow for the acrylics to show greater depth of shade. It's all a question of personal preference, so it's up to you.

O.K., now the evidence. I've uploaded two sets of figures; one for each scheme. The first three figures are done with the white/brown combination:

The nest two are done with the grey/black scheme:

Personally, I'm not bothered and I can happily live with both. I would use Olddorg's brown on brown, but I haven't got any brown enamel and I might as well continue the way I have. I've also got a couple of mounted figures on the go using this system for man and horse and I'll post them this week sometime. This 'oil wipe' method of painting horses is donkey's years old, dating back at least to the days of Peter Gilder, so for me, it's a step back in time because I used to do all my horses that way. However,I'm not just being nostalgic; it's also a very fast way of painting horses and, with a little practice, can produce good results in more realistic horse colours. Anyway, more of that another time.

Oils and such

 

This is the first of a couple of entries about painting – now there's a surprise eh? However, this is something I was pondering over while I was painting up a few figures to clear the painting desk of 'quick jobs' and experimenting with another idea from a fellow blogger. More of that anon, but I got to thinking about the lead pile and ways of getting it down other than by ditching it!

Years and years ago I used to use a variety of washes to add shading quickly. The sculpting wasn't anything like that standard of current figures, so fantastic detail wasn't all that important, especially as 25mm meant just that, before the 'herioc' 25's and now 28mm (which are really about 32mm) of today. Nevertheless, the part of figure painting most people seem to have varying degrees of difficulty with is the flesh and there's an easy solution. The answer is to give the figure a decent base coat of acrylic flesh colour and then over-wash with (very) thinned oil paint. There's no secret formula to this: any flesh or pale brown or sand colour will do for the basecoat and the best oils to use are sepia and burnt umber. There are only two things to bear in mind:

• the paler the darker the flesh colour used for the basecoat, then the darker the final skin tone:
• burnt umber gives a darker finish than sepia.

So, a Viking would need a pale basecoat with a sepia wash and so on. By the way, this is exactly the same principle as used on oil 'wash and wipe' horse painting. If yo want to add 'seven o'clock shadow', then give the appropriate are a wash with thinned paynes grey.

Now then, this is obviously suited to an assembly line approach because the oil wash will take longer to dry than acrylic ink, but the basecoat soaks up much of the oil and as the wash is thinned anyway, there isn't much oil to soak up anyway. However, I used to do a batch of about 50 figures at a sitting (not long at all) and then leave them for 24 hours. The actual drying time is much less than this, but it fitted in nicely with real life.

There are many variations to this method, the most obvious being to give the face some basic shading before the oil wash is applied and use it to pull it all together, so to speak. You can also add some highlights after the oil wash has dried to give more emphasis to the face – you're probably going to want to paint in the bottom lip anyway. Each variation gives its own 'look' to the figure , but I think the key thing to remember is that the oil wash is as flexible as you want it to be. It can be used by many styles of painter and can certainly cut down time otherwise spent slavishly trying to get that nicely shaded look. David Imrie uses a variation of this with Army Painter Strong Tone to cover the whole figures once he has blocked the colours in and then highlights over the top. Same principle; different medium.

I'l be using this for my squaddies from now on (unless I get bored again) , but I'll still have the freedom (and the time) to get fancy with command figures. In fact I'll probably take the David Imrie approach now and again for some units and get more involved with others. That's the kind of mentalist I am.

Anyway. I've uploaded some photos of heads from some Vietnam era Americans to show the effect:

Blimey, another year gone!

Some year eh?

Nothing of any consequence to report for the past three months as far as hobby related activity is concerned. Even managed to miss the three shows I'd planned to attend. However, new resolve for 2012.

Barely had time to read other blogs, but it seems that the thinned AP wash and highlights is becoming increasingly popular. It's a good and effective method. Those tanks I mentioned were a complete disaster. The Ronseal wash was far too dark and they ended up with more or less a complete repaint by the time I'd finished the salvage operation. Got some excellent decals from Dom Skelton (Dom's Decals) so I'll finish'em off and post them up here. They'll not be up to the Model Dads' standard, but they don't look three bad so far. This coming year I might even get round to using that airbrush I've had in the loft for six years or so . . .

I had an attack of common sense a few weeks back and decided to rationalise (a euphemism for “get rid of”) the lead mountain. This means I'll only retain those figures I'll actually use (and paint!) and ditch the rest. Thankfully, (apart from Frank's attempts to unload his lead pile!) I've been pretty sensible for the past few years and the eBay exercise is manageable. However, the upside of all this is that I've got things in sensible perspective and, apart from the occasional ambush by those damned sculptors, I'll be well in the way to completion by this time next year (he said . . . .). One good trait I've got is that if I'm not interested in the history then it doesn't matter how nice the figures are, I won't buy them cos they're of no use to me. I can also be interested in the history, but not inclined to game it. Lucky me, but it's not prevented that bloody lead mountain!

So, after all that, of the stuff I'll never use, what's caught my eye lately?

Certainly the Empress Miniatures' Zulu War range has had my attention for a long time, but the new charging lancers are superb.

The Perry late medieval figures and equipment are inspiring, but this is definitely a case of history yes, gaming no. Same for their Napoleonics which are exceptional, but I'll not be swapping my 15's for them.

Paul Hicks' Mutton Chop Miniatures have found their way into the mountain, but I'll never use them. However, they're certainly going to be painted and I'm not parting with them because I'm really taken with them.

Likely candidates for this corruption of my principles also come from Emil Harky's Bohemian War range, Stephan Huber's ProGloria figures and the Breugelburg figure from Lead Adventure Forum. All lovely figures and screaming form me to start another project. However, they'll have to wait a couple of years (unless I weaken!). Then again, a few here and there wouldn't do any harm, would they?

I think the only likely expansion for me would be to get some of the new Blue Moon15mm Napoleonics to fill out my already too large plans for the existing armies. They look pretty good for the most part and dead easy to paint quickly. They ought to lend themselves easily to the wash and brush up technique, so they ought to land on my door step sometime this year. My only crib is the strange release schedule which had led to plenty of infantry figures, but few commands. I can have huge battalions of Russians, but no command bases. So far only the French and the Austrians could field compete units and even then not for the whole range. This will change soon, but I'm puzzled why it happened in the first place.

Anyway, there you go. More frequent entires this coming year and plenty of painting. The rest of you keep up the blogging to keep me selfishly entertained and don't be put off by the Olympics or the Jubilee!

I found a piccie you haven't seen yet and it's a photographic masterpiece, beautifully out of focus with just a hint of blur. It's one of Frank's Minden Miniatures Prussians from the 41^st (Fusilier) Regt. Raised in Wurttemberg in 1716 and taken into Prussian service in 1741. Known as “Weid or 'Neuweid” during the 7 Years' War the regiment fought at Prague (1757), Kolin (1757), Kunersdorf (1759), Liegnitz (1760) and Torgau (1760).

Oh yeah, and a Happy New Year to one and all. Hopefully better than average for everyone!

Washing day!

 A recent short discussion on the Mongrel prompted me to put up some 15's that have been painted in slightly different methods (if you can paint in a method!)  to show the effect of the options for shading. Put very simply, you know the Army Painter stuff? Well for years and years I've had my own formula which is Ivory Black oil paint mixed with non yellowing gloss varnish and let down with while spirit. Mix it good and thin, splash it on the figure and it shows plenty of detail and shading. The details on the figures is pretty easy to pick out just like on a 28, but it take less time, but often aren't worth the bother. Field officers and commanders get a more refined treatment and are actually properly painted and shaded, but the rank and file get blocked in and washed. Course, this depends on the uniform colour as some need highlighting, but, generally, they're fast as lightning compared to 28's.

A lot also depends on the sculptor in question. AB are hardest to paint because of the temptation to go into fine detail on every figure, but they wash just as well as anybody else's. Probably the best examples of good figures for washing are the impending Napoleonic ranges from Blue Moon. Not as finely detailed as AB, but more deeply sculpted with exaggerated relief on cross belts and the like. I need to finish my Russian division and their early Russian types will do the job nicely - as well as being less than half the price of AB's range.

So, you can get as much detail as you feel you want/need on the figures and they look fine without having to paint in all the piping if you don't want to. My French have their lapel and turnback piping, but only the light infantry have collar piping. When I do the foreign regiments I've planned, only the ones with distinctive piping will get it. For example, the Swiss battalions will need piping because they had it in  pretty strong contrasting colours, whereas the French line don't get collars piped and some don't even get their cuffs piped. As an aside, hussars of any nationality are surprisingly easy to paint because of their frogging - an easy dry-brushing job.

Now then, I bought some Dark Tone Army Painter and it's pretty much like my own oil paint formula, except mine doesn't cost 17 quid. I've done some figures in this (but I let it down to minimise the staining on raised surfaces and improve its lining qualities) and some in my old stuff for comparison. posted below. I have to confess that  I sometimes do a little highlighting, but I tend to keep this to a minimum with units just to save time.

First off are some brigadiers who've been painted 'properly, without any washes The photos are a bit bright so you can't see all the shading properly :

These are all AB: the infantry brigadiers are just the ones from last time based.

 O.K., now some Saxon Infantry who've been essentially dry brushed over black undercoat with a few edges tidied up. They've had the 'oil paint wash' a, followed by matt varnish. They're actually some old French infantry I had knocking around, but who's to know the difference?

 Next an Austrian staff officer and an Austrian battery, both done as above, but the horse had a little dry brushing and the gunners did too here and there:

 And now, ladies and gentlemen, without the use of safety nets, some Examples from the French 1st Hussars. However, before reading on, decide which have been dome with the 'oil paint wash' and which with the thinned Army Shader Dark Tone. All the horses have been shaded to some extent beforehand, but nothing too drastic:

 The elite company troopers have the Army Shader on and the command group has the 'oil paint wash'. I can't see that there's much difference other than the elite company figures are about fifteen years younger (and a damn' site more expensive!) and so are better castings.

 

I've also bought some black wood stain (ebony, I think) and some mahogany wood stain and I'll do some figures in those too for comparison. When I've got the comparisons I'll bung them on here blog so people can see and decide for themselves which they prefer - unless I forget . . . .

Oh yeah, while I'm at it, I bought some Coat d'Arms supposedly 'dried earth' shade basetex stuff a couple of weeks ago and it was a disaster. Coverage is crap and it dries with a distinctly green hue. I had to over-paint the whole bloody lot - not impressed. You can get the original Basetex stuff from Trevor Holland at Coritani (nice bloke), but I think I'll stick to my tried and trusted sharp sand over PVA. It takes a little longer to finish the bases, but at least you can control the colours.