Hobbywise last week was rather average. Although our preparations for Easter took a certain amount of time, I managed to finish my AWI Saratoga artillery piece. Anyway I haven't taken pictures until now so its presentation must wait a couple of days.
Meanwhile my trustful airbrush entered the stage again and I prepared a couple of horses for a kind of workshop I'll be visiting next weekend. A friend of mine asked me to come along to do some painting and he'll show me his way of painting horses. It has something to do with oil paints and sponges. Hopefully that helps me overcome my reluctance against painting horses. That would help me a lot since I'm a great fan of mounted troops...
However I'll keep you on the loop how it comes together. Until then enjoy the weekend and have a happy and blessed Easter!
Finally I posted all of my entries for Curt's painting challenge. This year really few figures only but at least I managed to achieve my goal of 250 points.
Nevertheless there's no time for idleness with a lead pile like mine to handle:
When the painting challenge started I had a look at the bonus rounds and all of a sudden an idea for the 'Risk Taker' theme stroke my mind. Who could be a better choice than daredevil who is bold enough to kick a hunk of junk hard enough to make the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs? Or the one who was stupid and daunting enough to pick a quarrel with a giant space slug supervillain?
As you see I chose Fantasy Flight Games' incarnation of this well-known scoundrel. It's a nice plastic miniature the company is making for their Star Wars skirmish game 'Imperial Assault'. The details are worked out crisp and clear and the casting quality is pretty good. Maybe not as good as we are used from top-notch miniature companies like Perry Miniatures, Warlord Games or maybe Games Workshop but nevertheless much better than one would expect from board game pieces. Probably the material limits the quality in a certain way. It's slightly softer than those historical hard plastic miniatures, bendable and thus more suitable for board games who might not necessarily be careful tabletop gamers as well. Altogether a nice piece and much better than those old soft plastic figures by Wizards of the Coast.
As usual I painted this chap with Vallejo colours and used Wargames Foundry for the skin tones. I kept the base pretty simple as with all my Imperial Assault figures: Just a dark grey base colour and three shades of drybrushing.
Well then... It's Saturday again and because we'll spend the afternoon at my parents' on my fathers birthday party I'm rather early with giving a view onto my workbench. As you see the projects are more or less the same as the week before but some of the figures are finished now. Namely my entry for the 'Risc Taker' bonus round of the painting challenge, Oberst Kurt 'Curtgeld' Steiner and his twin as well as two Royal Navy captains from Brigade Games wonderful range. Unfortunately I cannot present those figures now since they haven't been in the challenge until now but next week I'll feature them.
Then after the painting challenge I'll have to tackle some half-finished things. Two of them are on the picture as well: The AWI artillery of course and those more modern chaps near the grips. At least the first sqaud has to be finished and then maybe a sixpounder antitank-gun to keep things going. This actually is most difficult because there are so many ongoing projects on my workbench and upcoming temptations: North-West Frontier, War of the Roses, Late WW1, WW2 Paras, Desert Rats, Napoleonics, AWI... It seems I need a better structure... Or I should isolate myself more to avoid distraction...
Anyway meanwhile I started a new round of photography experiments. Actually most of the time I'm struggling with illuminating my workpieces well to take good pictures. No background looks disturbing, white background darkens the miniatures in front, gradual bluish print went missing weeks ago. Unfortunately I don't have space for a permanent photo box. So I tried a medium light blue sheet of cardboard from my daughter's craft stuff. To illuminate the scene properly I took two lamps with I covered with tracing paper to make the light more diffus.
The results were pretty much alright but you have to be patient for a couple of days since I only photographed the Navy captains yesterday. So this is my prieview for next week. Additionally of course the finished miniatures I mentioned above and maybe a report of my visit of the 'Maritime Museum' during our journey to Hamburg.
The painting challenge is on it's last days now and finally I managed to finished to miniatures to complete the first bunch of Napoleonic seamen:
When painting those gentlemen I always swayed between the Horatio Hornblower TV series and a recording of H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan. Although the play is set in a slightly later period these sturdy officers reminded me of sorely afflicted Captain Corcoran. Simultaneously especially the left chap has the strict but fair look of Robert Lindsay's wonderful recreation of Captain Pellew.
Don't miss part one with the splendid tables all the other clubs brought: Here.
Finally here are some pictures of the games we brought to Hamburg. Firstly a 28mm Napoleonic skirmish I had the pleasure to contribute some humble work and secondly the wonderful Squigghopper Dungeon our club fellow Georg designed and operated.
Let's go to Egypt to begin with. It was a skirmish game scenario my friend Bernhard designed. It was set in spring 1801 during the French campaign in Egypt and Syria. Here are his very own words heralding in the story:
It’s spring of 1801. Napoleon has left Egypt a long time ago. British troops have landed successfully and are marching on Kairo.
First skirmishes are taking place near Rahmanieh on the left bank of the Nile between the British expeditionary force, supported by Ottoman troops. In a coup-de-main the French occupy the small town of Disuq on the opposite river bank. The British react swiftly and strongly. With a tenfold superiority they attack the French. But what is the real objective of this fight off the main battle site? This skirmish scenario will give an adventurous answer.
Our table... Nearly completely set up for the game.
To set the stage we employed roughly 250 figures, two rowing boats, a couple of wonderful exciting terrain pieces and a bunch of palm trees, shrubbery and scenic bits like chests, bags and such. By far most of the stuff came from Bernhard's wonderful collection, but some other club fellows and me were able to contribute some small parts as well. Thus Holger made the terrain mats, Georg helped with the terrain board and I gladly added the market stand that Santa brought (look here) me as well as my unit of British tars (featured here and here).
For the 11th time now in Hamburg the Tactica wargaming show took place. Last weekend wargamers from more or less whole Europe gathered there and enjoyed the hobby we all have in common. A lot of clubs came by and presented some really exciting games. Wonderful table everywhere around and a couple of excellent traders who exposed alluring things for sale. And of course it was once again a perfect place to meat old friends and make some new. So I met Teemu a nice guy from Finnland who played our games at least during the last three years, made the wonderful acquaintance of Nick aka. Moiterei1984, met some fellows from Berlin and Antwerp which I knew from earlier shows and of course was able to chat with some jolly good chaps from England who made the jump over the channel again. Actually the chance to meat all those fellows makes Tactica so precious for me and is the real icing on the cake.
In a later post I'll cover the game we brought to Hamburg (a skirmish during the 1801 fightings in Egypt) but now let me start with a selection of those excellent table the other clubs brought:
After a longish absence I told myself to come back to blogging more regularly. last year one of the embosomed habits of mine was the regular contribution to the 'Paint Table Saturday' group. So what could be better than coming back to that again.
Currently there are a couple of different project on my workbench:
The two chaps in the foreground are captains from Brigade Games wonderful range of Napoleonic British seamen. For now they'll top my collection off. There are a couple of seamen and gun crew to be painted but since they aren't bought yet I'll leave it with fourteen figures for now.
Behind them you see my piece for the 'Risk Taker' bonus round of Curt's painting challenge. I don't want to give too many hints but most of you should recognise that smuggler anyway. Actually he's finished already but he needs some varnish now.
Besides those I (finally) decided to paint my AWI British 6pdr gun and crew. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to finish them in time for the challenge but however it's time to get those chaps ready for action since I painted the limbered version nearly a year ago. Remember? Here.
Last but not least a couple of twins:
It's Warlord Games's interpretation of Oberst Kurt Steiner which some of you might know from the classic war film 'The Eagle has landed'. In this movie Sir Michael Caine plays the German Fallschirmjäger colonel who gets the order to kidnap or kill Winston Churchill during a secret mission behind enemy lines. He and his fellow soldiers jump off over Britain and try to get hold of the Prime Minister while he's spending some time in the county.
Since a couple of fellows and me want to play this story as a Bolt Action scenario I wanted to have the figure for my own and since Curt asked to have a 'Risk Taker' miniature as entrance fee (aka. 'Curtgeld') I decided to paint a second one right away.
As one of my ridiculously small projects this winter I tackled some British seamen for the Napoleonic era. Six of them were my lousy output for January and some others had to follow until late February when Tactica wargaming show was scheduled. As you see it's late February now and I'm lucky to present more tars now:
Unit from both batches
Altogether there were eight more navymen that I finished during the last weeks. Actually once again lousily few figures but somehow my life hasn't hobby convenient lately. Anyway the following chaps are once again from Brigade Games's excellent range. The sculpts were from Paul Hicks and as usual they are full of character and detail. Although it seems his virtuosity with face increased since he made those figures they are absolutely brilliant and top notch among all other 28mm figures tackling this topic.
In detail those are the men I painted:
Rather a mixed bag of weapons as you would expect from a quickly assembled boarding or landing party. Once again I tried to break uniformity slightly with varying the colours of the trousers. I painted to of the dark blue and used different shades of beige for the other ones.
Anyway there were two very characterful figures I wanted to bring out:
The seasoned one armed veteran and the chap who is wearing a headscarf caught my eye since I started to clean the castings. Thus they acquired striped trousers. No piece of art but I hope you like the touch.
Altogether there are 14 finished sailors now 12 of which hit the board on Tactica wargaming show last weekend. But more on that in a couple of days...
