Incoming - some Scottish Fellows!

 A quick general update on what's on the painting desk. I'M finishing off the the remainder of the Hannibal Barca Box set for Leo, the 28 skirmisher bases (each of 5 individual figures) and the command packs left to go this week then a final shipment to Arizona via FedEx. Door to door in 5 working days is a remarkable service and the big advantage of the Epics is that they pretty robust little things with very little weight (plastic bases etc). I do wrap each base in bubble wrap and pack in cat food pouch boxes within a shoe box outer carton for protection.

Once shipped I'll paint a couple more 20mm Strelsi units for Old John before returning to Epic ACW's for Noel as I'd like to get his ACW's completed by start of December. 

Meantime I have another Warlord Epic commission incoming, something interesting, Jacobite infantry for the '45 Rebellion. I offered to do a couple of sample strips first to see what can be done as I have not painted these before but the order is for 32 strips, 16 bases, 4 bases per 80 figure unit. The Clansmen utilise the figures from the previous Pike & Shotte release of Montrose's Highlanders (see Warlord Games image below) and the British Foot will utilise the new Revolution infantry sets, a very clever idea I think.

And of course, just to get me in the mood for the period I had to re watch the classic 1964 docu-drama in glorious black and white!

One Hour Skirmish (WW2) on the cheap (part1).

Right then, having painted some figures in 15mm (too small) and 28mm (too big) with the intention of putting together a small One Hour Skirmish Wargame set up I have settled on good old 20mm scale by way of a compromise! The plan here is simple, to put this project together on the cheap using as much scratch built terrain etc as possible  and utilising some of the skills I have learned from building 'Yaldbury' and indeed the wide range of 00 scale scenic accessories on the market to 'dress up' the battlefields which will use my trusty 2'6" x 2'6" folding card table which is covered in a suitable Geek Villain fleece mat.

We begin with some rather nice (and cheap) 3D printed buildings purchased on EBay for the grand sum of £4 each. I bought six of them to begin with and have so far painted the first three. They are nice and light weight being hollow and take the paint well and I added a touch of 'ivy' growing up the walls here and there. I might print a few small period posters. They are sold as 15mm  but work just as well with 20mm.

Figures: I must have looked at every 20mm range out there before settling on good old Irregular Miniatures - at least to begin with, At just 66p per figure they are the cheapest on the market and as I'm just looking to start with two squads of a dozen figures they are perfect for this project. German and US of course to begin with. The German squad is about done, NCO, MG42 (LMG) team, riflemen and a couple of assault rifles is enough for now. 

Trees: I like model trees, I won't lie, and for this I required some chunky models to suit the scale. Nice trees can be expensive of course so I decided to kind of make my own. A bag of Chinese 60mm trees wsa purchased via EBay for just £12.00 including postage, 50 of the things. I then grabbed a handful of plastic pipettes ( a few pence each) and cut them into two basic ' trunks'. Three of the Chinese trees were then bunched together and pushed into the the tube with a few drops of super glue. Once dry a couple more trees were cut down and added to build the height and again glued in. From the bag of 50 I managed to get 9 nice large bushy models in all. The plastic sleeves were then glued to 25mm MDF bases and covered generously in Vallejo texture before painting a suitable grey/brown. I have to say I'm rather pleased with the results. You could of course airbrush the foliage if you wish but I don't have one so these will do nicely.

Roads and rivers will be made using my Magnetic Printer paper method ( see video link below). I'm looking at making some hedge sections next, I purchased a bag of horsehair but the stuff is horrible, I don't like touching it even, so now looking at alternative foliage, possibly Woodland Scenics which cost a bit more but is very realistic.

That's it for now, I enjoy making stuff so this is a good fun little project for me.

More Ancient cavalry & mixed goods arrival at Yaldbury!

The 120 cavalry from the Hannibal Barca's Army Epic box set all completed for Leo. They consist of 8 bases of Liby/Phoenician cavalry, 4 bases of Celtic cavalry, 8 bases of Numidian skirmish cavalry and 4 bases of Spanish cavalry.  Just the foot skirmish bases and the command packs left for October.

 Goods arrival at Yaldbury.  I'm still enjoying working on Yaldbury my compact N Gauge shunting layout, adding the smaller details now but still a good bit to do. With the 'offstage' fiddle yard added the complete layout now measures up just short of 5'. The extra section simply bolts on via 2 wingnut bolts as required. I'm very pleased with how well things run, especially at low 'shunting' speeds, not an easy thing to achieve in this scale but I did spend a LOT of time on the trackwork and especially point work, attention to detail that has paid off.

I'm looking at how best to light the layout from above next which explains the poor focus on the arrival video!

Latest YouTube video.

 Lots of interesting feedback on this one. I have been trying to sound out other painters for the Napoleonic commission with most UK painters coming in around the £4 to £5 mark to paint AB infantry and around £6+ plus for Napoleonic cavalry. Fernando Enterprises have been suggested several times to me as they are most certainly much cheaper although shipping maybe an issue possibly given the weight? Anyway, I have passed all of this onto Mark but if anybody reading this does know of a quality painting service Uk based please do drop me a line or leave a comment here, Thank you.

Leo Barron's Epic Waterloo game!

 Leo Baron - for whom I am currently painting through the 'Hannibal Barcas Army' box set - sent me these photos of his superb Waterloo game using Epic miniatures in vast numbers so with his permission I share them here. I think they say it all about why the Warlord Games Epic concept has taken the hobby by storm, they look like real armies, big battalions, affordable models  and designed for ease of painting. Leo tells me there are even some of my figures in there somewhere, painted a few years ago now as I recall. 

At this stage of the game the Imperial Guard and Prussians were not on the table!

28mm British Airborne, 15mm WW2 French & more Epics!

I painted these 8 bases of 'Epic' Liby-Phoenician cavalry from the Hannibal Barca set for Leo in 2 daily sessions, 4 each day.  Once I had the paint scheme in my head I simply let go and enjoyed picking out the various colours of tunics, shields and horse flesh before final detailing. I worked on these by attaching the outer and middle figure to the Warlord bases, leaving the two inside figures mounted in the usual wine tops then glued in place once completed. It's why I really enjoy painting Epics, the fast style suits the way I like to paint figures, working up from black base to flat brown dry brush then going in picking out the horse shades then the figures. I'm going to paint through all 24 bases of cavalry -  different types - as a single batch, Celtic cavalry next up.

I'm spending today on basing, including the first two regiments of Union cavalry for Noel, 

I also painted the 6 Warlord 28mm Pars for myself over the weekend, Great little figures to assemble and paint. Going to show my neighbour who served in 3 Para in the Falklands and Northern Ireland.

Finally I decided to paint up the 15mm Peter Pig WW2 French infantry squad. I'm going to have a crack at a small 'One Hour Skirmish' set up in 15mm after all, basically I don't really want to go back to collecting everything in 28mm again much as I enjoyed painting the larger figures. I have a few bits on order so we shall see where this idea goes but small scale, small space works for me!

I don't like to let anyone down, but it was more than I could handle.

 I mentioned recently that I had hit a wall with my painting and I knew that I needed to do something to sort things out. Having completed the 60 odd large sci fi figures for David and posted them back to him I tried to turn my attention back to the 18mm Napoleonic commission for Mark. I knew that I had been struggling to paint these finely detailed castings for some time and had mentioned it in my YouTube videos with feedback from other painters so it was time to make a painful decision, I had to be honest with both myself and Mark and admit defeat. The project had completely overwhelmed me, painting them to the standard they deserve with the numbers involved was so demanding and tiring it was clearly impacting upon my mental health. I don't feel great about it, Mark has been understanding though obviously disappointed, but it had to be done. Everything is being packed up for return this week. I am very sorry.

Going forward I'm going to stick with painting Epics plus the 20mm's that I do for Old John of course. I have a well established method for painting the Epic strips now at a speed/quality ratio that is both enjoyable and keeps the costs down.

So, I'm still painting monthly batches for Noel, we are finishing off his vast Epic based ACW project with the cavalry, four 20 figure Union and four 20 figure Rebs plus dismounted and horse holder bases. This week I painted two regiments, 40 cavalry and they are a mix of Epic plastic and Peter Pig metals, a perfect match for  scale as you can see below. Photos show them pre varnish and flags etc. I'm back to Carthaginians this week for Leo!

I also painted 2 more units of 1/72nd scale Streltsi for Old John before I did the cavalry. We had a nice long chat on the phone this week, I have been painting for Jon for more than 15 years now!

Germans Little & Large!

 I mentioned recently that I intended to put together the required figures and terrain for 'One Hour Skirmish' rules and started by painting up some of the lovely Peter Pig 15mm Germans. It soon became clear to me that 15mm scale was not going to work, I think mainly for me because my foray into model railways, (Yaldbury is still work in progress), had given me a real taste for making terrain again. As the game only requires a 3'x 3' table it makes sense to put as much detail into it as possible and so I switched my plans to 28mm scale as there is so much potential to create realistic layouts. The plan now is to begin with German V British and more specifically Waffen SS v Paras. Obviously Bolt Action multi part sprues were the way to go for me and I have spent a nice relaxing couple of days putting together and painting the first 6 figures for the squad, an NCO, MG42 and 4 riflemen in camouflage smocks. I have used slightly larger bases (30mm) because I wanted to be able to dress them up a little more. The addition of a few flowers to the NCO and MG42 bases aids identification. Really pleased how they turned out and especially the representation of the 'Pine' pattern smocks. I should mention the service provided by Caliver books, the single sprue cost around £9 and arrived two days after ordering via eBay. Will be ordering more from them, first of the Paras next.

Edit: I apologise if you tried to leave a comment and was unable to recently, I had been playing around in settings to change the header colour and must have managed to change the comment settings as well! Now reset.

Lee.

An Ancient Blitz - a more upbeat post!

I have been taking time to think about my recent period of painting malaise (better than the term 'burn out' I think). I have had some useful feedback, especially on my YouTube channel where other painters have expressed going through similar experiences and it's impact. I think I understand the root causes now and so will be able to address them going forward.

That said I have been taking things easy over past weeks but I did manage to put in a solid nine days work on the batch of Warlord Epics you see below. It was a push but I think it did me good mentally to know that I can still do it! Alongside these I also pushed myself to finish off the last of the large sci fi figures for David which I was doing for the Battle Cry game exchange. As I said to David I had clearly hit the wall on these too but was determined to get them completed for the Summer. In the  same 8 day period I have thus painted the final figures, 4 more Space Marines, 15 Space cadets  and the last 4 Tyrranids. This completes the 60 odd figures and it feels really good to have cleared the decks a little more. David will have them by end of this week but I'll do a photo post of them all together before they go this week.

For the rest of August I'm taking things easy!

Warlord Epic figures painted for Leo - 12 bases (24 strips) of Libyan heavy infantry, decals applied to most shields as supplied by Warlord. A good 4 hours work in this alone as the decals need to be carefully lifted from the backing sheet in water and applied with a brush removing as much excess water as possible from the shield. When dry sealed with matt varnish. 4 elephants assembled and painted. 7 days painting, 1 day on the decals and 1 full day basing all in. It feels good, a sense of achievement that has given me a mental boost