The foot finished cont......

OK, I need to close out how I finished off basing the mini's.

I essentially just worked my way through the directions that came with the Baccus basing kit.

PVA glue and add sand - in retrospect I should have applied a line of brown paint to the base before I attached the mini's. From a top down view you can still see a bit of the wooden base between the stands.

I watered down the PVA a little. The beer bottle cap makes an excellent PVA pallete.


I normally use a small container when I'm doing sand and grass etc for bases. Because I couldn't find one I had to come up with another solution. The dust pan.



This is now my standard solution. It makes it extremely easy to pour the excess sand back in to the bag it came in.



All of the stands with sand. I let them dry for a good 24hours. I've made the mistake before of not letting sand try well enough before painting and trashed a couple of bases.



Painting the foundation wash onto the bases.



The progression of drybrushing.



The bases with the sand drybrushed and edges painted green.



All grassed. I was on a run and didn't take any photo's mid process. I used the watered down PVA and the dust pan again.



Flags added. Flags came with the Starter set, but you can buy them seperately. Cut them with a knife, PVA both sides and added them on. In retrospect I should have considered turning them 90 degrees so they were more visible from the front. Note the white lines on top of the flags. They're gone on the photo's below where I've painted them. The facing colour worked well on top of the regimental colours. Not sure if the black was the right approach for the King's colours, but not sure what else would have worked.


I shaped the flags using a pair of tweezers and doing a couple of diagonal folds. The PVA used to glue them helps them to hold their shape .



The finished mini's. Now they just need some artillery and cavalry support and a general and then an enemy. More to follow ........

The foot finished

Well it is a bit after midnight here and I have pretty much finished the foot.




I did this stand up this morning before I left for work.




Finished the other 9 stands this evening. Pretty happy with how they have turned out.
It's getting a bit late now for me. Too much time painting, not enough time blogging. More to follow.

The British Foot almost finished

Well Sunday night almost 11 and the foot are at the stage where they now just need to be based.

I worked my way through three stands on Friday and finished the rest tonight.

Painted the white straps and shako plumes.



Painted the red on the plumes, and the brass badge on the shako.



Painted the facings. 3 green, 3 blue, 3 yellow and one red. (Matched the flags that came with the set)



Then removed them from the painting sticks and attached to bases using PVA. Decided to have the front rank at the centre of the base so more room in front.






Next step is to finish up the bases. That'll start tomorrow night. With glue and ink etc drying I expect it will take a few days until they're finished. I'm really happy with how they've come together.

Once these are done, I'll do some more work on my 15mm woodland creatures from splintered light miniatures.

I'll also have to post what my outstanding projects are ... (that could take a while).

Naps update

Good progress made. Amazing the way that feeling an obligation to write a blog that no-one reads is a motivation for painting. Whatever gets the job done I suppose.

I need to give some credit for my painting methodology to MONKEY HANGAR's workbench article on the TMP page http://theminiaturespage.com/workbench/729939. I have used it as the basis for my painting technique. Colours have differed based on availability but sequence has been pretty much the same. Once I get to the basing stage I will transition to the Baccus basing set instructions.

The update photos....

All of the black bits painted - hats, packs and boots


The bases painted brown



And inked ...



My temporary painting station



I'm spending a fair bit of time away from home this year for work and away from my painting station so it's all a bit improvised.

My home painting station looks like this....






I miss it. It has taken a bunch of years to get it set up how I like it.

The best thing I have done is move the daylight lamp with me. It really makes a difference.

I'll be away for a couple of days so won't be any progress for a while.
Finishing bits now and then on to the basing.
The end is in sight for the foot. Then the cav and the artillery, or maybe one of the other projects I have on the significantly large backburner. I'll go through all of them in one of my next posts.
Out for now...

Painting Update

Well, like painting I find the actual difficulty with maintaining the blog is getting started. So maintain the momentum, maintain the momentum. There is a definite advantage of the blog in that it provides the impetus to paint so there is something to write about.

I've made some progress with the Napoleonics.

Pants - Grey



Weapons and Hair -Brown



Bayonets and Barrels - Silver
Hands and Faces - Flesh
Hats, Packs and Boots - Black


They're beginning to come together.
I am getting some belief that they will actually look good when I'm done.
I did have an element of doubt as to whether I could paint effectively at 6mm but I am starting to believe. It is all about the mass effect.

Why Popski?

I started using the name Popski for online gaming about 5 years ago after reading Popski's Private Army and it has stuck as my common alias online. Popski's real name was Vladamir Peniakoff who was born to Russian parents in Belgium. He was a French Artilleryman in WW1 and fought for the British during WW2. He commanded Popski's Private Army or number 1 Demoliton Squadron, PPA.

From the wikapedia entry on Popski (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popski%27s_Private_Army)

Specialising in behind-the-lines raids (but not quite in the same form as the SAS or LRDG), PPA caused problems to the enemy for a short while in North Africa and then mainly in Italy. They entered Italy at Taranto as part of the advance guard of the amphibious landings. By the end of the Second World War, PPA had destroyed several Axis aircraft and thousands of gallons of fuel, and had taken roughly 600 Italian prisoners. The value of their reconnaissance work is hard to assess, but considerable.

Popski's book is a great read.

Peniakoff, Vladimir (2004). Popski's Private Army. Cassell Military Paperbacks. ISBN 0-304-36143-7.

For those who are interested in a bit more on Popski check out (http://users.telenet.be/ppa/homepage.htm)

The beginning

Well, I thought I'd start a blog on my miniature painting hobby. I'm not really a wargamer. Mostly because I don't really game. I'm more of a serial painter of the bright and shiny, with a succession of armies that I haven't finished painting before the next Army takes over. I suspect that this is reasonably common and that there is a spectrum ranging from painters that rarely game through to gamers that rarely paint. My collection is reasonably eclectic, covering Games Workshop (Warhammer Dwarfs and Empire, Epic Space Marines and Eldar, Blood Bowl, Mordheim, & Inquisitor), Flames of War (DAK and Eight Army with a smattering of British and US Para's), some Splintered Light 15mm Woodlands creatures for HOTT and now my latest push is 6mm Napoleonics.

I've been painting mini's for a bit over 20 years now and think I am functionally adequate. I do OK. I'm particularly fortunate having a wife that not only supports my hobby but on occassion paints herself and has a pretty good Warhammer Orc and Goblin army, a Blood Bowl team and the lead elements of Easy Company in 15mm. Unfortunately, she has reprioritised her hobby time to building her 1:1 TK Armour for her future career as a stormtrooper. Such is life.

The only miniatures that we have really used in gaming are the Blood Bowl ones and that's just a natural consequence of both having busy jobs and Sean (2and1/4) not being up to painting or gaming just yet and demanding a lot of time in other areas. He will be a painter and gamer or a Jawa, that is still an issue we are working through. Maybe he can do it all, we'll see.

My latest project is 6mm Napoleonics. I have some really nice miniatures from Baccus Miniatures and have just started building the British Army from the starter Boxed Set - French vs British 1812-15. For anyone that's interested Peter Berry from Baccus has some good stuff to say on the advantages of 6mm as a scale. (www.baccus6mm.com) This pic shows 10 stands of British Foot that have been undercoated using GW white spray and tunics painted using Vallejo Red.


What I'm trying to achieve looks like the photo below from the Baccus page.



I'm still not sure if the white unercoat was the way to go or whether black would have worked better. Time will tell. I'll try black on the French force and get a feel for what works better. My last time painting 6mm was almost 20 years ago painting a Epic Blood Angels Army, so it's been a while.

Anyway that's the end of my first blogging post. More to follow with some more photo's and updates as I do some more work on the British Foot.