Monday, 28 April 2025

A bit of military detective work!

 I was watching the latest video from of a group of Urban Explorers I follow on YouTube last night and in the cemetery of an abandoned church was an interesting memorial which had the battle honours of numerous Napoleonic and Crimean war battles upon it. There also seemed to be a Highland Bonnet above the Waterloo honour. I'm guessing it's possibly a brigade memorial? I would love to be able to give the guys a bit more information so can any of you guys help please?  Around the three minute mark you will get a close up of the memorial which fascinates me!

On a wider note these guys are very respectful of the abandoned sites they visit and never remove any property or enter anywhere by force. This fine old building shows clear signs of vandalism including stones through the lovely stained glass windows.



Saturday, 26 April 2025

Get your soldiers painted here!

Keeping busy here, finished the first batch of 18mm AB Napoleonics for Mark and painted more 'Epic' scale ACW's for Noel (including some Peter Pig limbers) and more Russian Streltsy for Old John. 

Difficult to photograph the Napoleonics with the glossy varnish under my lamp but here are quite a few anyway.













The 12 Peter Pig limber sets for Noel, plus a couple of Peter Pig Tepees included in the order!





More Streltsy for Old John plus some Turkish artillery, 1/72nd plastics. I make that 18 units each of 24 figures so far for John with more Russians to come!! I try to vary the coat shades as much as possible between units. Also a mounted Catalonian general.







Saturday, 19 April 2025

Easter update!

 A few latest photos to share, 18mm 'AB' Napoleonics for Mark, Warhammer Space Hulk figures for David and now back to more 1/72nds for Old John. I'm just happy painting away and really not doing anything more for myself now that my gaming days are over. 

Having gradually been putting bits together for the long planned model railway branch line terminus work has begun in earnest now and this will be my Summer project. 

I have also now secured another commission for 72 Epic strips (720 figures), mostly Celts, and I'm going to enjoy working on them over coming months as they are really nice little figures. This means I'm now fully booked up for months ahead!

Have a Good Easter Holiday.











Metcalf card kit, country station, thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of building this very detailed kit.


Latest video is also now up on YouTube and I have hit 953 subscribers towards my target of 1000, This one discussing the quality of the newer 1/72nd plastic sets.




Sunday, 6 April 2025

Lovely 'AB' Napoleonics & Chicken stuffing 'Tyrannids' !

 A more traditional 'photo' post this one starting with the first of the new 18mm 'AB' Peninsular Napoleonic commission for Mark. There will be a round 850 figures in all spread over the rest of this year and we are starting with some British Infantry and cavalry followed by some French cavalry and infantry. I wanted to capture a few close ups of the bare castings, they really are superb sculpts and are a joy to ring to life with some paint.  Marks request is for gloss varnish and flat green bases, no flock or static grass, I just use Vallejo earth texture to build up around the bases before painting them Flat Green.








Also still working though the Space Hulk figures for David (in exchange for Battle Cry) and here are a couple of shots of the first two 'Tyrannids' painted to match the Genestealers basic colour scheme. These guys are SCARY! I do like the contrast that the 'bone' parts bring I'm just needing to add a bit more in the photos, there will be six of these. David requested the weapons be 'Organic' and it took a couple of attempts before this which I'm rather pleased with as is David, it's certainly Organic looking and I said to David it looks like they are stuffing chickens! Plan is to have all 64 figures completed for the end of June and we are about half way through.



I have also added a dozen small damaged gun markers to my Battle Cry set up, placing one each time a battery is hit and removing on the third hit. These are made from Kallistra 12mm guns suitable 'blown up' on small rounded bases. In a Eureka moment I discover that my figure trays would actually fit into the large game box if I cut them down a little and the result is as you see, everything neat and tidy in the box, excellent!