My first tranche of SYW generals - the Austrians + 1

The lighting has given the white horses an unusually blue tint but I assure you they are white.   Same with some of the white uniforms.  Natural light on a covered lanai on the north side of the house with a skylight.  Odd.

The second tranche will be the Prussians with the same mix.  CinC with three mounted figures, three wing commanders with two each and eleven individual brigadiers - the back four being marked as cavalry.  However, all of the brigadiers can be used as needed.  I should have one extra for each side above core needs.  These are game ready, seal coated yesterday afternoon - as are the jaegers from earlier, seal coated a few days back.

For the +1, I figure Caramel Sugar, the Regal Rascal deserves equal time with the black and white cat.  He is much less tolerant and has a habit of biting and scratching.  But he is quite the hunter.  Again, neighbors cat who visits my yard regularly.

Jaeger zu Fuss, or something like that

Been a while since I finished painting uniformed troops but I finally got some done today.  Here are a couple of quick shots of two units of 24 figures each of Prussian foot jaegers for the Seven Years War.

Note that the flocking is freshly applied over craft paint - almost immediately after putting, hopefully, the finishing touches on the figures.

As a way to easily tell the units apart since they have the same uniforms was to paint the barrels of the muskets a different color, silver for one copper for the other.

The figures are the Magnificent Little Soldier Company figures as sold by Old Glory 25s.  Once dry in the morning, I will tap off the excess flocking and then spray with a matte sealer and the figures will be ready to go for a game soon.  Well, I will do one last look-over for any last bits of touch ups before sealing, just in case.  

 

Exciting post? No. Progress post? Yes.

Prepare to be, maybe, unimpressed.  But, hey, progress is progress.

What you see above are two hundred (two boxes) of fender washers primed on the underside.  These will be bases for my Star Wars miniatures - well, about half of them, need just as many more.  Once I clean and prep figures they will be glued to the unprimed side and when the glue is dry, I will prime that side.

This shows the bases stacked for 'units', seven bases to a unit or 28 units worth of bases with some extras.  With two more boxes of washers I will have enough for 57 units since there are four left over bases from two boxes.  Some of my units will include integral heavy weapons with crew or maybe a grav-bike so need extra bases.  And will also need bases for the individually based Heroes and Villains, will need smaller bases for them..

Units will be in groups of 20 figures, six bases of 3, and one base of 2 command figures.  

I really need to decide how I will texture the bases as I get closer to working on painting figures.

And this little fur dude?  This is my buddy who goes by the impressive moniker of "Mister" Mellow Mooch-Master Meows-a-lot.  He keeps me company when I am working outside or in the garage.  I am not his human, his humans live in the house across the back fence of my neighbors.  So, I get the benefits of a feline friend without any of the responsibilities of being a pet owner.  I figure worth sharing because I read an article in the Electronic Newspaper (internet, duh) today about the scientific validation of the value of having a cat in your life.  Besides, he is just cool - "You want to pet me?  Well, okay, I will tolerate it for an hour or two, maybe three.  And I won't even give any thought to scratching you, neither.  Pet away.  I can take it!"

The Nautilus submarine of Jules Verne + Longhorns

While there are a variety of versions of submarines to represent the famous one posited by Jules Verne in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, many following Disneyesque inspiration, I decided to search for something more "realistic" or sensible enough to actually make transit underwater.

I'm hoping for something closer to what is described in the books and found this excellent site which I will use to inspire my variation:

Nautilus article

I really like the views of the submarine in the color images.

Of course, I plan to call my version the JVS Naughtylust to fit with my slightly warped sense of humor - but all in good fun.  Oh, the JVS stands for Jules Verne Ship.  Hmm, maybe that should be JVUS with the U being for Undersea? 

Having served in the US Navy, I think it only natural I would seek something rooted more in reality than fantasy. 

The following images have absolutely nothing to do with submarines, just some images of my longhorn cattle herds, 32 stands of 3 plus the six dead seen in the first image.  I tried to pull an image from the submarine article but it didn't work so I thought I'd post these up.  I think I posted some photos before of the full herd (not great images and maybe not on this blog) but I don't recall if I posted these before.  My paint jobs are never going to be art work but I think they are serviceable which works for me.

I made these two above larger images.  My method for texturing my sheet metal bases is to paint the primed base with an acrylic brown paint, swish in ground foam, wait for it to dry, and then knock of excess, and then seal with a matte spray.  For some eras, I also to some adding of grass tufts and other bits.  Probably most are just simple like these.  [Recently acquired a painted Seven Years War army already based on artist's style card that I will not rebase, just retexture, but otherwise I hope to have all my collections on sheet metal bases once completed.

Submarine Number One

Found the Revell USS Growler, 1:180 scale, to use as a starting point to create a mid-1930s American submarine.  Next item will be finding something for doing similar for a German submarine of the same era.  Here is a shot of the box, acquired on consignment at my local hobby shop for about half of on-line pricing.  

I know it is a little later model but, again, it is a place to start in creating a waterline model for gaming.  Box states it is 21" long and I'm going to see if I can't shorten it to closer to 14" to better fit a table top game.  Should prove to be an interesting challenge.

Seven Years War progress

With a busy weekend ahead, thought I'd get my weekly post up this morning.

Working on a Seven Years War collection I purchased already painted - but with issues on the base texturing, a mix of fine sand/ballast and some sort of odd green stuff that is 'shedding' like rain from the bases.  So I am removing as much of the old stuff as possible and will replace with some Woodland Scenics blended turf using acrylic paint as the adhesive to improve the overall look.  And once dry, giving it a good coat of a matte sealer.

Above is what some of the Austrian light troops look like prior to cleaning.

And after cleaning.

Here is the full unit.

One of the two units of Austrian grenadiers, the "blues" - before cleaning.

And ditto for the "reds".

And here is what the "blues" look like all cleaned off.

With a good dose of luck, I hope to have the full collection ready for gaming by early February to host a memorial game, in honor of the friend who owned this collection, on the date of his passing - or as close as will work.

Besides re-texturing the basing, need to do some work on the artillery pieces and the horses (may or may not get that part done by time of game but hopeful) and paint up generals (none in the collection) and some jaegers for the Prussians, neither of the last two included in what I purchased from the estate.  All the generals and jaegers ready for priming, today if weather permits.  Just Austrians and Prussians in the collection.  Also purchased a bunch of his 6 mm buildings that I will use with these figures, 10 mm in size.
 

And a New Year gets underway in the Blogosphere

Well, the new year is a week old today so I thought I'd post something just to meet that weekly posting goal.

Finished the year with 1,255 figures painted, a bit short of my goal of 1,500 but not bad.  Averaging 115 figures per month over 26 months is good.  Zebras are well underway, quagga are still getting textured before tufting. Hoping to get a good start, if not finish, my Seven Years War 10 mm generals and jaegers this month, prepped their bases today, in addition to finishing off the zebras.  Maybe more.

Besides trying to get at least one post per week, going to also try to include at least one photo per post.  In this case it is an image of a mat I acquired back in July at a convention in Clovis, California (for the benefit of veterans).  It is 'mouse pad' style mat at 4' x 6' or so.  Price was good, use was uncertain.  

Another project is to get my double-sided portable backdrop painted if weather permits.  Will use for photos which should improve getting photos put up here.

Get that backdrop done and I can do better photos than these "Grayrillas" - those fictionally violent gorilla-like beasts. These twelve come from Bluemoon, 9, Highlander Studios, 2, and Khurasan, 1 - think on the HS/K stuff, might be the other way around.  Will need to get some better lighting, too, obviously.

This is a view of my rearranged painting and modeling table - quite a mess at the moment but still workable.  All those containers with green cards are tubs of craft paint, 23 of them with a color group in each, like blacks and dark grays, or dark blues, etc.  The labelled containers above are tools.  And above that are hard to see tubs of various types of adhesives kept on hand.  The right top are figures waiting getting worked on, in this case Bluemoons 18 mm Musketeers.  On top of them is just some modelling stuff.  That mess to the top right is 10 mm miniatures, N scale craftsmen kits and other 'detritus' of a hobbyist - all needing to get cleaned off so I can work on my in-progress reworked model railroad layout.

Even in all that controlled chaos, I manage to get stuff done.  Get it cleaner and neater and I can get a LOT more done.