I desperately need a Don Quixote figure…

I’ve been scratch building a Spanish windmill for 28mm skirmish gaming in the Peninsular War. Today I put together the wheel assembly, which was a major milestone. Now I need to figure out the nacelle, the roof peak, basing, and hopefully not completely ruin the entire model when I paint it.

The main body of the windmill is blue foam, cut at a slight taper using a Proxxion hot wire cutter, and crudely rendered with spackle. The blades, hub, doors, and window frames are all of various sorts of basswood. The roof is of plastic card, and was laboriously assembled with superglue, a paper form, and a prayer. That roof was a bear to figure out; I had to do MATH, y’all!

I figure this building will survive roughly 0.75 actual games before the blades are destroyed by hamfisted gamers (meaning myself, most likely).

Windmill! And the blades spin, too. Unfortunately I can’t post video to WordPress. There’s still a ton of work to do to this thing, but I’m glad the blades didn’t end up all cattywhampus. Don’t worry, I’m going to sand on the plaster render a bit, before painting.

I’m also posting the current state of my British and allied force, so that this post contains more than just a single picture of a half finished windmill.

A few boys (lads?) from the 52nd, a gun (9 pounder, maybe?) with RHA crew, and their friends from the 3rd Caçadores. I have some incredibly cool guerrillas on the painting deck.

 

A Place to Call Home

Apples and ale

Not too much progress on the hobby front over the past couple of weeks, but I did make up this deployment point vignette for Sharp Practice II. It’s carved out of polyiso rigid insulation, which is something of a new material for me to work with. This was a practice piece. I think my texture work needs some…work, and the paint job got away from me a bit. I wanted it to look like a weathered ruin, but it’s kind of a muddy mess.

I thought about adding some stacked muskets to the vignette for extra ambience, but left them out for the moment, leaving the piece is period-neutral.

Rubble filled stone wall.

The only figure I’ve painted since the last post is the colonel of the 1/52nd that you see in the pictures. It’s a Perry figure. He’s quite dashing, with his pelisse thrown carelessly over his shoulder, and bright orange mutton chops. I’ll call him Opie.

You’ll never fit through that door, Opie.

You’ll never fit through that door, Opie.

Rubble filled stone wall.

Apples and ale

 

Cacadores the 1st

1st Cacadores in line. No skirmishers.

With unparalleled swiftness (unparalleled by myself, anyway), I’ve completed another battalion for the Lasalle project. Ladies and gents, the 1st Cacadores. This is a four base unit (24 figures) with a couple of skirmish bases. Much like the 3rd Cacadores, they are very brown. And black. With a dash of light blue.

The 1st, with skirmishers out.

This battalion of Portuguese lights completes the core brigade of my Lasalle division. Well, sort of. I’m supposed to have two more battalions when on the offense, and support brigades can be added to flesh the division out.

My additional on-the-attack battalions will be red-coated regulars, if for no other reason than it will put more flags on the table. I may do a brigade of light dragoons for my first support force, but I’m also tempted to do a brigade of Portuguese regulars in their sweet barrentina headwear. Decisions, decisions.

In any case, here’s the infantry portion of the core brigade. The artillery is beyond the hills, still advancing into position.

From left to right…52nd Oxfordshire, 43rd Monmouthshire, 3rd Caçadores, 95th Rifles, 1st Caçadores.

Now with Photoshopped sky!

From left to right…52nd Oxfordshire, 43rd Monmouthshire, 3rd Caçadores, 95th Rifles, 1st Caçadores.

The 1st, with skirmishers out.

3rd Cacadores in line. No skirmishers.

‘Goons

Dra-goons, that is. This week’s work involved the painting of a handful of 28mm Dragoons for my Sharp Practice project.

Officer, and four Dragoons, painted up as the 1st.

Another view. I have zero expertise in French cavalry uniforms (don’t even own an Osprey on the subject!), but I THINK these are in a pre-1809 uniform.

Down the road…

Another five dismounted dragoons await the tender ministrations of my paint brush, and then I will have to order the mounted versions. Though it will hurt my wallet, particularly with the aforementioned mounted figures, I think I’m going to stay with metal miniatures for this entire project.

These figures are from Brigade Games’ Napoleonic line.In my opinion, (obviously, since I wrote it), Brigade’s figures are every bit the equal of Perry (which I also love). To forestall any confusion, I’m speaking of Brigade Games in the USA-I don’t think they have any affiliation with the UK company of the same name.

Until next time…

Rifling Through

Arise, arise, blog! Live!

95th Rifles on the Dusty Road. Some bossy fellow points the way.

 

Well, it’s been a minute or two, but I’ve been a-hobbying lately, and have managed to finish off the 95th Rifles for my long-suffering Lasalle Light Division project.

95th Rifles in Line, 43rd Monmothshire advances along the road. Bossy fellows abound.

With this regiment out of the way, I only have to paint up the 1st Cacadores, and I’ll have my core force completed. The 1st is mounted up on tongue suppressors, and ready for priming, so perhaps early September will see the completion of the first, core, stage of this project (there are additional supporting forces to be painted).

The astute observer will notice that I’ve knocked together a miniature terrain board for photographic staging. I used this exercise to try out some new-to-me techniques, including using sifted dirt and tile grout for a ground base. I think the ground work looks pretty fantastic. The finished product is a good representation of an arid area, and the ‘scale’ of the dirt works well with the figure scale. One thing is certain: you can’t beat the price and availability of dirt!

I’ve borrowed/stolen some techniques from Luke Towan’s excellent model railroad YouTube channel. His tutorials are well worth a watch, and are sure to inspire some new ideas, even if the techniques aren’t directly applicable, without modification, to the rigors of a wargaming table.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.

95th Rifles in Line, 43rd Monmothshire advances along the road. Bossy fellows abound.

95th Rifles on the Dusty Road. Some bossy fellow points the way.

 

 

 

6th Cacadores for Sharp Practice II

6th Cacadores – 8 troopers, an NCO and an officer.

 

Just a quick update. I’ve made a good start on a few Portuguese skirmishers from the 6th Cacadores. I should have twelve troopers for the standard Sharp Practice elements, so I need to purchase and paint four more. This is my way of avoiding painting 95th Rifles!

These figures are from Brigade Games, and I believe they were sculpted by Paul Hicks. They are wonderful sculpts-highly detailed, and pretty easy to paint. They’re easily on par with the Perry miniatures I’ve painted, and they’re produced here in the U.S..

The thumbnails below will take you to a full size image.

 

 

 

Legere and Barrels

All of zem.

I’ve been procrastinating on starting my 15mm 95th Rifles for Lasalle (although I did clean up all 50 casts, and mount them on craft sticks in preparation for priming!) by finishing up my 28mm French legere for Song of Drums and Shakos/Sharp Practice II. I also painted a couple of resin barrels, as you might
have gathered from the subtle title of this post.

A basic force in SD&S is a dozen figures, and, conveniently, it seems like skirmishers/light troops in Sharp II are assembled in groups of six.

Soon I will have to start purchasing mass quantities of 28mm figures for my Sharp Practice line infantry. I may go the plastics route, Then again, I REALLY hate assembling plastic figures, and this is a sort of slow going luxury project for me, so maybe I’ll go ahead and bite the (expensive) lead bullet.

All of zem.

More fun than a barrel of light infantry!

This will do as a force for Song of Drums and Shakos. Perry French light infantry painted up as the “Incomparable” 9th.

 

 

More French!

Recent production: three chasseurs, a drummer, and sappeur

My long-suffering Song of Drums and Shakos/Sharp Practice project has also seen a little progress this month. In fact, I now have enough figures to put on a French vs. Brunswicker game of Song of Drums and Shakos. I’m intrigued by the streamlined V2 of Sharp Practice that comes out next month-maybe I’ll ramp up 28mm production, and try to get something ready for that by this Fall.

The specialists. Sappers are intimidating fellows! There’s something incongruously brutal about that axe and apron in the middle of all the normal uniform finery.

Huzzah for Hussars!

1st KGL Hussars for Lasalle

I’ve completed another unit for my Lasalle project. This is the 1st KGL Hussars. My Osprey stated that the 1st KGL Hussars were mounted on horses of an “assortment” of colors and markings, and certainly they would have had a variety of horse colors while on campaign, but I kind of wish I’d gone with all one color, just the same.

Next up, I’ll be painting a bushel basket full of 95th Rifles. I’ll be happy to paint something dull, after the cornucopia of color and detail these Hussars had.

Sooooo many details to paint!

Sooooo many details to paint!

1st KGL Hussars for Lassalle

52nd Oxfordshire

The 52nd leads, 43rd in the middle, 3rd Cacadores in the rear.

For my first post of the new year, may I present to you the 52nd Oxfordshire? The 52nd is a large elite unit for the Lasalle project, consisting of 6 bases of close order infantry, and 3 bases of skirmishers.

 

Deployed in line.

In line, skirmish markers deployed.