This last week has seen much progress on the basing front, with only a few units to finish off. It has helped that I have decided upon the finish that I want to use, it's pretty simple, coloured filler mix applied by knife and textured, a few stones added here and there, 6mm static grass mix, Vallejo Flat Earth over the bare areas and then a final highlight/drybrush with Buff. You can see it in the images below.
I have added two more mounted French officers this week, the chap with the bicorne being particularly pleasing to me. I don't normally blush up the cheeks but I did in these cases and I really like the impact it has on bringing out the faces. If it's old toy soldier style I don't mind one bit! I have a couple of French standard bearers and a drummer up next, after that I want to get stuck into a squadron of 8 British heavy dragoons with laced coats and bicornes.
40mm Sash & Sabre Peninsular Napoleonics - note only the mounted officers were painted by me, the infantry are part of the painted collection as purchased, I'm just basing them all up!
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| Figures have been given one coat of Vallejo satin varnish. |
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| More French infantry get the new basing treatment. |
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| Grenadiers. |
I am holding back on a post tentatively titled 'Thinking out loud' wherein I have tried to get some of the thoughts and ideas on how I plan to use these figures to game with out of my head and down on the blog. I hope to have it posted here by Sunday and hope it will prove thought provoking.
Finally for now, we were in 'Merca China' this week, one of those Chinese sells everything cheap kind of shops, actually buying decorated plant pots, and as usual I always keep an eye out for anything that might prove useful hobby related. Imagine my delight when I spotted large sheets of balsa wood, perfect for constructing scratch built Peninsular style buildings! Again this is something I have had in mind for some time but been searching for a base material. I plan to build 40mm scale houses but in slightly low relief and the balsa will form the basic shell of what I have in mind.
They look sooooo good Lee. The basing just sets off those infantry so well. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading your 'thinking out loud'.
Thank you again James. Next step is to decide how to use them in a wargame!
DeleteHi Lee
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you are planning a house building project. Jan did the same thing when we first arrived in Spain. We already had a collection of commercial buildings, but I wanted a range of Spanish and German style buildings for our campaign. We wanted thin balsa wood and thick card (similar to photography mounting card). We couldn't find anything here in Spain, and eventually bought it in Newcastle when we were on holiday. It became a regular summere project for Jan for quite a few years, and she now often comments that she misses it now. But you can only have so many buildings on the table. If you have a look at label 25 on our Napoleonic blog you will find some photos.
http://napoleonicwargaming.blogspot.com/
I look forward to follwoing your scratch building progress
Hello Paul,
DeleteI agree it's difficult to find modelling materials here in Spain, so the balsa sheets were a real find. I'll certainly take a good look at Jan's buildings, thank you. I'm planning low relief buildings otherwise they be massive in 40mm scale, in fact I will probably scale them down slightly to 30mm.
I notice that the link to my Napoleonic Wargame blog does not work
ReplyDeleteWill try again and hope that this one does
http://napoleonicwargaming.blogspot.com/
Paul - the link works fine! I must say I'm very impressed with Jan's buildings, the Spanish ones are just what I have in mind so I'll use these as a reference when I get started. Thirty odd years ago I made buildings from thick watercolour paper and coloured them with watercolour paints, this time it will be balsa shell and card detailing.
DeleteLovely troops,I look forward to your buildings!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain