Painting And Casting

I have been trying to get some painting going but it has been very warm in the evenings so I only did  a little. First on my list is to finish some of the spare Prussians I have as I did complete half of them last year for Waterloo.

 Tonight however I decided to increase my numbers of Dutch and British prince august. They are very basic figures but have a 1970's charm about them that I like.

The casting area.

 First mistake - Clamps in the wrong place, second mistake is to forget lead is hot.

 The finished product -  4 line each and some standards.

As I only have a mold each its a slow process. I might add the Dutch to the Prussians tomorrow to get some of them done.

1/72 WW2 painting tests

In my teenage years I had tonnes of 1/72 WW2 figures  which unfortunately were mostly crushed when I was overseas (Big box places on little boxes). I did manage to salvage a lot but it has been a 10 year process of looking at them and ignoring them completely.

So in these rather blurry days I seem to be having I thought if I can slowly work through some I could at least have enough for some smaller games.The test vehicles below. 2 freshly made Italeri quick build Sherm,ans, a freshly made Airfix Chi-Ha and a 20 year old JgPzIV (plus some 20mm SHQ Japanese infantry to bolster my IJA).

 I undercoated the JgPz and then used black wash to get in all the cracks, hatches and divets. Once that was dry a quick touch of Dunkelgelb and I then did an initial bone colored highlight. This resulted in the below but I was not happy as I felt it needed some camouflage loaded on it (To also hide bad painting)

 Some dabbling of brushes and a highlight later below is the almost completed tank. Hopefully I can scrounge or hand paint some markings to make it look good. The final piece of the puzzle is then the running gear underneath that I ignored completely.

 So, at the best of my ability I quite like it and hope to tidy up some more survivors to someday field a small German force.

One WW2 Theater that I did take an interest in was the Pacific. So far I have several battalions of Japanese infantry, some guns but I was lacking a tank. So as a test I picked up a Chi-Ha and made it in one evening with the result below. Its another "test tank" but once I sort  out the pesky Airfix tracks and finish the thing off I think it will look quite good.

All I need to do is finish some US Marines, Australians  and  KNIL with a view to having some small CD games.

Not a lot happening

Unfortunately I am very busy at the moment and everything has gone on the backburner. Over the last month all I have done is paint about figures and a few Mantic Elves but not a lot of progress to be honest. When I have had free time I have not had the motivation to paint or even get things out so I have read a few books and made the odd map.

 Below are the Fantasy figures I have painted. Most are made by Dark Alliance in the Ukraine (I think) who show the typical Eastern European disregard for intellectual property as a lot of the figure poses are obviously modeled on the Lord of the Rings movies. The rest are a mix of Italeri, Caesar and Strelets.

I have also been seeing how my phone camera functions and I must say it can get a pretty good close up. So close though I think the figured look shabby so I firstly
i) Need to find the right distance and
ii) Get some decent lighting as I usually take photos at around 10pm.


Caesar Wizard (aka Gandalf)

 Italeri Crusaders (Man at Arms "types"

 Strelets Romans - A local Governer and his Bodyguard.

 I also got bored and watched a games workshop youtube clip on painting spare marines, so I found an old 2001 model and gave it a try.

So as free time is at a premium now I'm trying to find something to do, or game that does not take a massive investment of painting time (aka Waterloo) and can lead to some simply but enjoyable games.

I might use the above 1/72 for some simple hack and slash games on paper, as I have some drafting pads spare that can be used to draw dungeons and such.