'Supreme Littleness' MDF buildings assembly and Commands & Colors nostalgia!

 As you may recall I wanted to see how these 3mm buildings would scale up alongside my 6mm Crimean war figures as representing larger villages and towns so ordered a few to try. I found some spare time to work on them on Sunday and enjoyed a couple of hours putting the tiny kits together and painting them. They ARE somewhat fiddly, I have to say, and require some patience but I think the results are worth the effort. Pushing tiny laser cut pieces from the 2mm MDF sheet requires a careful hand and I found my trusty tool (see pics) very useful for this, one broken section and the kit is ruined, but I managed to get everything out with no damage. 

It took me a while to figure out assembly - as no instruction sheet was provided - before I remembered that a link to a PDF for each model was contained within the confirmatory email, very handy. At first glance I could not make out what all of the arrow shaped pieces were for, until it suddenly dawned on me  that they were slices of roof sections! Rather clever as they are 'stepped' so that when put together they give a good tiled roof appearance. Care is required to line these sections up to get a neat finish, I'm aware that some of mine are less than perfect, but given the scale it's really not too bad. Overall, using PVA glue the kits go together well and once all of the roof slices are in place a robust little building results. The bases provided are a nice touch. 

I gave everything a coat of paint using basic shades. Cavalry brown seemed a good choice for the roofs which was later washed with black ink. I also found the Vallejo black ink wash the easy solution to painting in the numerous tiny windows by turning each building on it's side and dropping it in, the etched detail holding the ink in place as it quickly dries into the MDF.  The metal roof cap of the church was missing from my kit so I knocked up a replacement from green stuff for the time being, when I order more I will ask for a spare metal casting.

Scale wise I think they will work just fine with 6mm figures, the doors are about 5/6mm high and the wall sections around 4mm, I'll get a few photos of them alongside some figures in due course preferably on the terrain mat. The base texture is just tile grout painted and highlighted.

Overall I'm really glad I ordered these and I'll be ordering more from the range. I like the small footprint and the variety of building shapes and sizes. You do need to enjoy fiddly work to get the most out of these kits!

I also managed to finish the last two regiments of foot (Royalist) for Graham. As always the Peter Pig figures are a pleasure to paint. Graham informs me that there are more cavalry and artillery to go yet before the project is finished so that's good news. Meantime I'll be painting for Tony before returning to more for Old John for whom I have a drawerful of delights including a lovely horse drawn carriage with kettle drummer for later down the line so the painting service continues to tick over nicely.

On the 6mm project front I have more in the pipeline, Russian infantry, Turkish infantry, Russian heavy Dragoons and the battery of British horse artillery. I'm also planning a Commands & Colours style hex board marked up with 90mm hexes. I enjoyed a lengthy conversation with Tony ('Foy') the other week and we chatted about the game and why we enjoy playing it so much - it was Tony who introduced me to the game 10 years ago - and I just can't seem to tear myself away from it! This is a link to my very post here about C&C (May 2012!), I referred to it as a Eureka moment at the time.

Command & Colours Napoleonic - a Eureka moment!

And finally a shot from around that time - 2012 - of my first C&C table in my wargames room. The early version was a Citadel mat marked up in yellow dots to a 95mm hex grid (don't ask me why 95mm and not 100mm). Tony kindly gifted me the dice, the cards were printed half size and cut out by hand and I also printed the square trackers and playing sheets etc although I did subsequently purchase the game and expansions it was a good was to try it all out.

Have a relaxing and peaceful Easter.

Lee.

Fantasy troops based and varnished & Crimean Russian horse artillery.

The light was pretty good at the painting desk this evening with the sun shining through the window so took advantage to grab a few shots of this weeks output. Very pleased with Simon's Fantasy troops now they are based and ready to be returned to him on Monday. More will be heading my way I'm pleased to say. All units will be of 3 bases, the third halberdier and wolf rider bases were painting as part of the first test batch. Now it's back to what will be the last two regiments of foot towards Graham's Edgehill project, two more Royalist units. Tony's WSS horse regiments will follow these.

I have also added a battery of horse artillery to my Russian Crimean's denoted by the six horse limber team. So here are the full compliment of Russian guns completed so far along with the Russian camp scene that I actually finished last week and the command base for good measure!

 

A little touch of Fantasy colour!

I'm having a lot of fun with these 10mm Warmaster figures for Simon. Today I painted a unit of halberdiers, 36 figures in 6 strips to match those done before. Prepped up last night with matt black before a light dry brush of medium grey to bring out the details these 36 figures were painted over 3 short sessions broken up with cups of tea and lunch breaks - a total of about two and three quarter hours JBM! They still need matt varnishing and I'm looking out for some kind of device for the flags, possibly Renaissance inspired although I'm also going to look at Greek shield designs. I'll also be basing all of these as we go along with all units being of three bases. I still have more Wolf riding Goblins and hand gunners to go on this batch.

A few production shots with some timings.

Matt black base coat with gentle drybrush of medium grey.

Stage 1: 1 hour and 20 minutes, time for a cuppa!

Session 2:  Another 45 minutes and time for lunch, mackerel fillets on toast!

Session 3: About another 45 minutes painting.

And here's a couple of shots of the Knights, again just awaiting some decoration on the flags and banners before varnishing.

Painting 6mm Crimean War British infantry by Irregular Miniatures.

I usually post my 6mm videos on YouTube for the Facebook 6mm group pages but thought it might be a good idea to post this painting tutorial here as it's done in 4 parts and can be supported by a few still images showing the drybrush stage and the end result. After the Russian tutorial I made a little while back I had a few requests for this one so I hope that it does help to illustrate my method which has changed quite a bit recently as I have worked on this collection which is now approaching 2000 painted figures. Speed is of the essence and the British battalions of 36 figures come in around the 1hour mark.

Firstly the short introduction. Part 1.

https://youtu.be/ZfaQrmP4ims

Part 2 - the drybrush stage and scarlet highlights.

https://youtu.be/kt6EqSdzsho

Part 3. painting in more detail.

https://youtu.be/D2sOXODsczw

Part 4 - the final touches.

https://youtu.be/2s-p__6iMxI

The below images show the figures with initial drybrush shades applied and then with the complete battalion based along with a second unit ready for texturing.

Finished off another box for John and a 6mm Crimea Camp scene.

Today I finished off the second half of what we call 'John's previous box' (as there is another large box waiting to be opened!). The final 16 infantry were by Newline Designs, Ottoman Command pack, Engineers, Albanian Infantry and Anatolians, all very colourful and well animated metal 20mm figures. IN addition there are three units each of 12 figures of Russian Streltsi infantry with muskets (plastic - various makes but mostly Strelet), more Turkish Command figures from the plastic set by Mars and 8 mounted Portuguese Dragoons by Strelets.

Next up are Simons 10mm Fantasy Figures, starting with the mounted Knights, then I have a couple more 15mm ECW foot regiments for Graham followed by two more WSS cavalry units for Tony so all ticking over nicely - thanks guys for all your support.

I also put together this Crimean war camp scene for DBN - Supply wagons arrive at a British camp escorted by a detachment of Scots Greys as Turkish infantry look on in anticipation with tobacco to trade! All Irregular Miniatures bits and bobs, just waiting on a few more bell tents to finish the Russian camp.

Really must have another go at that paper flag, this was the third attempt!