Keeping busy

Despite oppressive heat, today I pushed myself into doing something. Although it was a challenge, with paint drying on the palette, I had a go at the Contrast painted Egyptians.

A spot of drybrushing and touching up and they don't look too shabby. The good thing is that you can go back over with Contrast paints as a pinwash to restore shading.

Meanwhile, the French and Indian War obsession continues with the purchase of more reference material:

I've also dug out some that I already had. I know now that painting with Contrast paints should hurry things up.

Nostalgic butterfly or butterfly nostalgia?

Idly browsing eBay, some coincidental finds prompted some nostalgic reminisces and a diversion into a project from the 1980s.......

At some stage I became interested in gaming a childhood obsession - the French and Indian war or the Seven Year's War in North America. I remember a TV drama of "Last of the Mohicans" which stayed with me. I had borrowed the odd book; one I recall described Braddock's massacre with a French officer dressed like an Indian......I was hooked!

What clinched it was finding a copy of Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe" in a second hand bookshop for a bargain price at just the time I was looking for such a book. While dated by modern standards, it's a good read covering the whole war (despite the title).

My eBay browsing had revealed some old copies of Military Modelling; I'd had these but weeded them in a house move, they included one with a cover picture that has inspired others, notably Greg Horne at the Duchy of Alzheim:

http://mavisming.blogspot.com/2014/01/2014s-mystery-project-2.html

This coincided with the release of the Pax Britannica 30mm (now RSM miniatures) range as pictured on the cover...

I also came across some of the old Rafm Flint and Feather range at a very good price....

http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Flint_and_Feather_%28RAFM%29

I had started on a project using both ranges way back in the mid/late 1980s; a friend had British so I'd concentrated on the French and Native Americans. At some stage I'd become distracted and drifted into Europe, although did refight the Plains of Abraham unsuccessfully although with a historical outcome as well as some hypothetical engagements. My French line had spent more time in Germany than America....

My discoveries on eBay lead me to digging out the figures from the garage; I had remembered my painting as indifferent, but was pleasantly surprised to find they weren't that bad as I thought. The Rafm figures had been painted with washes which look very much like what would be achieved with Contrast paints........this got me thinking about how easy it would be to add some British infantry and American militia using Contrast paints......

Cue more digging into boxes in the garage for the unpainted figures I knew were lurking; I had vague ideas of what I had but was pleasantly surprised that I had some other bits. I also remembered I had a boardgame from around the same time.....

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17591/mohawk

I had forgotten how it resembled Soldier King in having point to point movement with battles being resolved on a separate "battle board" using the counters which represent roughly a battalion of 600 regulars or band of 500 indians; I'd been organising my figures into units of 12 or 10......obviously with a view to fighting a campaign......

Mohawk! Your time has come! It's only been waiting since 1982.......

Something different an ECW experiment

One of my future planned projects is ECW in 15mm.

My plan is to paint using some speed methods, such as black washes and Contrast paints.

I have experimented on my 20mm Arab-Israeli figures; my main reservation was the lack of a strong delineation between areas that you get with a black undercoat method.

So my experiment was to take 6 identical miniatures but prepare them differently.

Two each  were undercoated in white, grey and black. One each of the white and grey got a wash in a mix of Pledge Revive it (previously Klear), water and black ink. The black figures were drybrushed in white for one and grey for the other.

Step one undercoats

Step two flesh

Step three common basic colours

Step four all colours except coat and scarf - variations hat / trousers

Step five all basic colours variations in coat 3 blue, 3 red

The white undercoat gives brightest colours; all will benefit from normal acrylic white and some highlights and hair touched in. Still not decided which appeals the most. I'm coming to the conclusion Contrast paints are useful, but need extra work to look really good. They do speed up the basic colour blocking in and are produce less fatigue, as you are not concentrating as much.

Back in the black.....

After a short working week, back to the weekend workbench.....

Mood has improved, probably due to an improvement in the weather (I don't know if anyone else finds themselves impacted by grey cloudy skies or miserable weather, I seem to be more and more as I get older....), although the early part of the week I could tell I was really down and it was a bit of a struggle to concentrate or get motivated for work. My sincere thanks to those who commented with messages of support.

This weekend was in danger of slipping away. My intention was to undercoat the army of Waldow. I had bought the only can of black I could find which was for BBQs and was "heat resistant" . Nothing indicated it shouldn't be used on plastic, but not wishing to risk matters, I dug out some spare, partly broken Spencer Smith figures to test it on. By the time I had got organised, a breeze had got up. I tested the figures but decided to wait. No adverse effects and while I'd given up hope for the day, suddenly I noticed the wind had dropped. So late in the day, they were sprayed and finished off where the spray missed in the evening.

So, I now have two armies undercoated and waiting for paint. Which means I feel like I am rapidly approaching a conclusion or end point with the project. There are two small armies to do and I have decided Estavia needs a small expansion (4 line, 1 grenadier, 1 cavalry and 1 LI). To bolster the smaller armies, if they need to fight alone, I have been toying with creating some Imperial militia (4 line) and some civilian militia / rebels (the game allows for rebel provinces). Once those are done, then I only envisage further expansion as a result of a campaign (conquering provinces to gain extra resources for recruitment).

Of course there's still the small matter of terrain; lots of card houses and castles to build, trees to stick together or rejuvenate (Merit and Britains) and my old step hills to find and possibly repaint as well as all the other stuff like rivers and fortifications (have some old Bellona and new Amera vac-form plastic) and lets not mention the river craft / naval possible expansion........