Another week flown by and I have been mostly painting the Steel Fist ECW horse packs for Noel as well as adding a few more French to my AWI project and making a bit more terrain.
I painted the French command base and another infantry base, this one with blue facings which contrasts nicely with the white (Ivory) uniforms. As usual really great sculpts full of character and robust, designed to be played with (see my Steel Fist review below). I have a base of Hessian Grenadiers primed next and have another PP order due today which includes French Light infantry, these will be 8 per base.
Photos: French infantry and command base advancing across MDF ploughed fields (bad going).
Steel Fist English Civil War 15mm.
I have now painted 50 of the cavalry so far and have a couple of observations to offer on this range. Firstly they are very detailed and historically accurate in terms of clothing style and equipment. Each bag contains 12 figures and I don't think any two sculpts are the same which makes for nicely varied units. The horses are slim and quite 'leggy' and this leads me to my first slightly negative point, they are very easy to bend at the bases and I doubt they would take too much rough handling. The same can be said of the swords which are incredibly thin and bendy! With this in mind they are lovely figures to paint and being based in fives should be OK if handled with care.
Finally for now Rob has sent some photos from a game he played at the weekend with his beautiful Hinchliffe ECW's so these will be posted (with Rob's permission) in the next post as they deserve to be seen by more fellow enthusiast of vintage style soldiers.
It has recently struck me how few page views this old blog of mine gets these days, possibly because I post far too frequently with limited content but also possibly the blog has just had it's day when YouTube and Facebook hobby groups are so popular?
An typical post here has maybe 50 views on average, if I post in the FB DBN group then around a 100 views is typical and a short YouTube video of me mumbling into the phone camera will average up to 500 views after a couple of weeks, my record so far is 7.5 thousand on a video. But that said I like the blog because it keeps me in touch with that small group of dedicated fellow bloggers and followers and allows me to keep an easily searchable record of just about everything I have painted over the past 14 years. Yes, I know its completely different media, this is just a general observation and I have no intention of giving up on the blog after all these years. Maybe it's just personal ego but as a painter I do enjoy sharing my work and also the feedback and interaction that comes with it and with that said lets have some more photos of model soldiers!
Commission update.
I have just completed the latest batch for Old John now all varnished and packed. Below are the 5 units of Les Higgins cavalry, just 20 figures in total but certainly a colourful bunch. Also 3 mounted drummers of the 30 Years War marked 'paint as you like'.
Les Higgins cavalry. Designed mid to late 1960's I think?
Next I'm moving onto some Steel Fist ECW Horse, first time I have seen these in the flesh and they are superb little sculpts although the swords are very thin and require careful bending back into shape. These are for Noel to add to his Epic Pike and Shott collection that I have painted for him over the last 8 months or so. Oddly enough I was expecting the usual 18mm scale of most new ranges these days but these are true 15mm and as such they are a great match to the slightly chunky Epic plastic cavalry. I'm going to enjoy starting these today and I think I have 6 x 10 figure units of horse plus a dozen or so mounted generals to paint and base. After that Noel tells me it's back to Epic ACW's again!
Steel Fist ECW 15mm (left) and Warlord Epic 13.5mm!
I also have more 2mm bases for Geoff to paint. I have to feel in the correct mood for working on these tiny figures as they can be very challenging on the old eyes so it can take me a while to get going on them but they will be painted.
The Pony Wars commission is on hold for a bit as I have now completed all the figures that I have here and are waiting for the arrival of the final 'Grey Horse' troop of 7th cavalry plus all of the dismounted cavalry which have been specially sculpted by Andrew Stadden. Unfortunately Mark has out of action for a while due to an incident involving a hobby knife cut that became seriously infected and resulted in a stay in hospital. Wishing you well Mark and I hope to see these new sculpts in due course.
New customer Stephen tells me that he is very happy with the initial four regiments of Epic French Napoleonic infantry (32 strips or 320 Epic figures) and that another 8 regiments are on the way so I'm pretty well booked going forward again.
AWI project.
I'm enjoying playing around with terrain now! Making roads and rivers, hills and woods etc. for the card table. The latest video from 'Gruff Mumbling Productions' is now on YouTube where I describe my use of magnetic printer paper as well as the fleece covered foamboard contoured hills, link below.
I continue to add the odd base of Peter Pig figures, starting next on some French and Hessians. So all in all I'm pretty well engrossed in the hobby at the moment and it's all keeping me very busy and engaged in my 'retirement'.
Coming along nicely now.
The first of the French crossing some broken ground in the form of ploughed fields.
It's always a pleasure to be painting vintage castings for John as well as modern high quality plastic sets. This week has seen me paint through mostly Les Higgins figures - Papal States infantry and cavalry - as well as several individual mounted drummers and three superbly detailed plastic cavalry. The reference sheets are always provided which really helps me.
I have four more Papal Cavalry to paint this morning before I give all the horses a highlight followed by a satin varnish. I then have 3 Estonian cavalry and 3 30 Years War cavalry to complete this current batch.
In addition I'm continuing to make more 15mm scale terrain for the card table AWI. One tip on the magnetic road/rivers is to texture the black magnetic side as I find it adheres better. One dry it's nice and flat but still flexible and the vallejo texture does not crack when you bend it. Rivers coming soon along with more windy road sections!
Also made some hills from contoured foamboard covered with fleece mat same as the table. I'm not a fan of freestanding round hills, especially for this small table so prefer hills to flow on from the edges or corners, Quick and simple to make using 5mm foamboard and the gentle slopes mean bases can stand on them while the 'summit' is clearly defined.
I'm putting together some terrain now and once again I turn to magnetic printing paper as a source material for making roads and river sections. It's thin, it can be cut with scissors and fully textured but does not warp. It's also cheap at around £5.00 for two A4 sheets, I can get a lot of roads/rivers from a sheet and also wood templates etc. It takes my Vallejo earth Texture very well and can then be edged with flock/stones etc as required and still lays perfectly flat.
The old wooden card table is covered with some fleece mat which nicely matches the basing I think.
