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

 

‘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…

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.

 

 

 

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.

Messieurs avec Le Science

Apologies for the bad French.

Some small progress on miniatures this week. I’ve painted these two fellows up as scenario bait for my Napoleonic skirmish gaming project. They are sculpted by Paul Hicks, and are from the Brigade Games “Napoleon in Egypt” series. In that series, they are supposed to be a sampling of the savants that Napoleon took with him to that ancient country, but I think they’ll serve as spies, or other political operatives, in my games.

Of course, buying and painting these figures has put the notion in my mind that it would be REALLY awesome to do skirmish gaming around Napoleon in Egypt. The scenery would be fantastic, and the scenarios would write themselves!

Accompanied by Voltigeurs, our friends deliver a satchel of important papers to the Governor!

Full Frontal Frenchness

Baby got back.

In other news, I’m working on a very special project related to miniatures wargaming, but, at this stage, it’s nearly as big a secret as the papers these two gentlemen are carrying!

More Fronches

I’ve been making pathetically slow progress on my 28mm Napoleonic Skirmish project, but even pathetic progress is, after all, progress. Here are the fruits of my labor – three new Voltigeurs, including an NCO (on the larger base). These French troops take a looooong time to paint, or at least they do for me. I think I’ll have to resort to production-line style painting to ever finish the 15 or so figures I need to do. Which is a shame, because this is supposed to be my ‘paint for pleasure’ project. Woe is me! Comments and criticism, as always, are welcome.

Another shot. I think I need to invest in grass tufts. I’ve been drybrushing static grass, in lieu of tufts, and, well, life is too short for such things!

The original two test figures I did (with blue trousers) are in the back.

Ze enemy shall never see this view!

I’m basing these guys on zinc coated steel washers, and the paint keeps flaking off of the edges of the bases. I need to go back with a pva/paint mixture, and see if it will hold up better.

Back in Black

I suppose that title was a little obvious. My apologies for picking the low hanging fruit.

I finished up 11 privates, one sergeant (private on a larger base), one trumpeter, and an officer for my Black Brunswicker light infantry. That’s more than enough for a game of Song of Drums and Shakos. On deck are a baker’s dozen of French light infantry. And a cart with a horse!

Here are a few photos of my efforts. I really need to get another direct light, or two, onto my desktop. The shadows are out of control!

These guys are painted up with a multitude of shades of black, all subtly blended and carefully highlighted.

Really! I spent a lot of time on them!! 

Only to make the discovery that a protective coat of glosscote wipes out roughly 90% of that shading. I KNEW that varnish tends to dull colors, but on higher contrast figures (even my Confederates), it’s always been a good, or at worst neutral, thing. Turns out it’s _devastating_ for black figures. Still, I bet they’ll game well enough. I may go back and add a highlight of silver on the bayonets and sword. Too dull. Also, notice how I suck at painting the hunting horns on the shakos? Yes, those amorphous blobs are supposed to be french horns.

Despite my carping above, I’m pretty happy with these guys. I’m going to knock out my voltigeurs (I’ve been reading Incomparable, so they’ll be from the 9th Legere), so I’ll have enough figures for both sides of a game of SD&S, but then I’ve got to make some decisions about which way to head for Sharp Practice, with its larger figure count.

More complaining…

 

One frustrating thing about these Perry Brunswickers, is there don’t appear to be any NCOs in the command packs, and NCOs are pretty important for SP. One can improvise, like I have with the large-based figure on the left in these photos, but I’d much rather have a figure with a different pose, or an especially manly scowl on its face. Plus NCOs have a sash in this Brunswicker battalion. The poses are somewhat limited, too. There are the firing pack, which I’ve done two of, and then there are lights marching with muskets at the trail. I may keep going with the Brunswickers, and throw some Jaegers into the mix, or maybe I’ll switch to a mixture of Brit lights (52nd, perhaps) and the ubiquitous 95th rifles.

I’m open to suggestions.