Changing rooms & painting progress.

It's been a busy and interesting week here, and while I have been painting away on commission work I have enjoyed catching up on some old TV favourites courtesy of YouTube. I find that I can enjoy mostly listening to them, while glancing at the screen between brush strokes. Recently I have watched all of the Sharpe series again and I'm currently working through the Hornblower series as I missed it first time round and I'm really enjoying it. It's more than just background noise, I find it really helps when I'm painting.

Speaking of painting, about a week ago I decided to move myself out of the upstairs spare room where I have been painting for a good six months now and back downstairs into the dining room. To get the right feel in there we shuffled things around which meant moving the bookshelves - all of which had to emptied first! Result now is a comfortable place to sit and work where I don't feel so isolated ( trying to explain the situation to my wife resulted in a chorus of 'I've got cabin fever'), and I will be able to enjoy the garden again, if bloody Spring and Summer ever arrive. The house is quiet most weekday mornings anyway so it's just perfect now. All it takes is about 5 minutes to set up each morning.

'Gibbo' the cat (who oversees the packing department) has coped well with the move and has been provided with his own chair at my side, family consensus is that I make too much fuss of Gibbo, 'spoil him' in fact (how can you spoil a cat?), I uphold that I probably make 'too much fuss' of all four cats and the dog, which is as things should be.

I'm still enjoying playing Commands and Colors on the board, what I like is how quickly a game can be set up and played. About 15 minutes is all it takes. This game is a non scenario game I'm playing now, just 16 bases per side plus 3 commanders, deployed across the 3 sections with 6 cards per side for plenty of action on a terrain set up I just quickly laid down. The British must attempt to cross the river and seize the two villages - 5 VP's for a win. Both card hands are 'open' this time and simply trying the best for both sides. It's just such fun to play this game. I've added a few more bases recently including more French line battalions and another Portuguese line battalion. No sign of my Russians as yet, I really must get that sorted out as it's been a couple of weeks, most un Baccus like, so I fear they may have gone stray in the post.... I hope not.

Some more game pictures, plus a couple of shots of more of 'Old John's' wonderful Les Higgins castings that I'm painting on commission. This pic was just prior to this batch making the journey home.

20mm Les Higgins Marlburians painted by myself for the collection of 'Old John'.