28mm - Spanish House - Grand Manner

Here we have a building of a Spanish house and a wall.  Both of these were made in resin by Grand Manner.

I held off of painting these until I had done my 'Wellington Experience' trip to Spain and Portugal in September.  I was glad I did, as I took as many photos of older buildings whenever I could.  

It wasn't just the buildings either, I was snapping the general landscape, plants, rocks, soil and anything really which might have a future wargaming scenery bearing. 

The building and the wall were my last orders placed with Grand Manner before they shut up the shop.  These were bought as plain resin so it was for me to paint them up. I prefer to paint my own buildings up anyway and am always surprised how it takes far less time than I think it will.

MDF is great and is excellent for economy but resin still seems to have more character. Each stone has shape and the building can teem with raised detail.

I love the little sheltered store on the side with wine barrels, and storage jars and cobbles.  I can spend a long time just enjoying seeing all of the detail.

The wall is really detailed too and there are broken pantiles among the stone debris.  It was quite good fun trying to spot those among the stonework and pick those out with a brush.  I did have to go back over a few things, and I am sure I may have missed some among the debris.  I love the damaged sections, you can imagine the cannonballs slamming into it to cause that damage.

The detail inside the houses are really nice too. Not done to excess, as you might wish to put figures in there too...but just enough to add character.  I decided that mine was going to look lived in by someone living a very spartan lifestyle. Perhaps a small-holding farmer who has only recently left on hearing of Napoleons's army advancing.  Those barrels and pots are still unbroken so the infantry haven't got inside there yet!

I will miss receiving orders from Grand Manner. Every little loose item was carefully wrapped and bubble-wrapped and placed in such a way that it would not be damaged. The care and attention was a marvel and must have taken ages to prepare to send.  I bought as much as I realistically could before they closed up.

Here are some photos that I used to get inspiration for the stone and pantile colours.  This is actually in the street in Fuentos de Onoro which goes up to the Church, where some of the heaviest fighting raged.  Like so many Spanish buildings, these seem to have been largely left as they were before the occupants moved out.  In the below picture the loopholes can still be seen in the walls of houses.  It's quite difficult to imagine that the road going up where the tour member can be seen below was probably 3-deep in dead. Sobering thoughts.  I will post more pics up of my tour to the battlefields soon - I'm still labelling up the 750 photos!  I need to do this whilst I still remember where they were taken and what the significance of the photos were!

On the workbench currently is another Peninsular War treat, but as always with Napoleonics it is time consuming. I really feel like painting Arthurians/Saxons next as I have started reading the Bernard Cornwell trilogy relating to that period (I can't put the first book down!).

28mm - Napoleonic French Infantry - Peninsular War- Perry Miniatures

 

Followers of this blog might be particularly pleased to see that I have gone back to historical miniatures after a couple of posts of odd fantasy and Star Wars stuff!    And what a way to go back into historicals, but with Napoleonics!

This is the 69e Regiment de Ligne who were part of Foy's Division at the Battle of Salamanca.

I must admit that there is a reason why I decided to paint up a regiment of French Infantry for the Salamanca battle.  On Jan 1st this year I made the decision to take a battlefields tour to Spain and Portugal.  So in September I spent a superb 8 days in excellent company on a tour run by 'The Cultural Experience'.  This has led to renewed enthusiasm for the Napoleonic period for me.

I might yet do a post saying a lot more about the whole tour and share the best photos of the 750 that I took (thank goodness for digital cameras!).  

I'm still labelling up the photos and of course going back to work and the joy of being lost in the quagmire of running a department again has meant that I have barely paused for breath since.  I will say now though that for the wargamer who is interested in history, this has been another reminder of just how important it is to see the ground to get any really useful understanding of the battles.  

Books are good, but walking the field is incomparable.

One kind of photo that I found myself taking was of the ground of the battlefields. So many in Spain have not yet really changed at all, other than in minor details. There is so much that still remains as they appeared back 200 years ago.  I took a lot of photos of the ground around my feet. The colour of the soil, flora and rocks was something that I really wanted to take images of.  It's hard to beat the confidence it gives to then apply it to the bases of figures.  The photos above were taken at Salamanca. 

The flag is produced by the outstanding GMB Designs.

The Perry's figures are from the 1807-1814 plastic boxed set.  As usual from the Perry's the figures look wonderful and assembled really well.  I love the look of them and the many options that can be used for them.  I opted for the Grenadier bearskins but without adornments.

The Voltigeurs are wonderfully animated. I decided to base them for skirmishing, though there are sufficient in the box to have some marching figures in the column too.  Painting 36 figures for a Battalion is probably enough for me!

The photo above is another from Salamanca with a view of the battlefield behind.

The Greater Arapile above.

Above is a view of the Lesser Arapile from the French positions on the Greater Arapile.  It's easy and yet oddly difficult to imagine that this was the exact place where the Portuguese infantry advanced and then were beaten back with the French following up so aggressively that they did take the Lesser Arapile, until more British infantry defeated them and repelled them again.

A few more shots of the line companies.

Following the trip to Spain and Portugal, I purchased several boxes of 'Gamers Grass' Dry Tufts which seemed to me to give a good approximation of the grass shades I could see. I mixed these in with a few others on the bases to add interest.

I'm taking a pause from painting figures at the moment. I always feel relieved after finishing a unit of Napoleonics, as I do find it exhausting, if immensely satisfying.  I'm now painting Spanish scenery from Grand Manner (I managed to get some of his last castings before the owner closed the business up).

I should mention that the tour (in case anyone wishes to do it), visits a lot more than just Salamanca.  I'll finish labelling up my photos and probably will do a more detailed post in the near future.

28mm - Ewoks!

 

After the last posting of Games Workshop spikey things for Bloodbowl, I imagine that you logged in expecting to see a normal posting of scarlet tunics and ranks of figures with levelled Brown Bess muskets...well that's what I thought I would be doing too!

I was gifted a set of unpainted Ewoks by Jane, a dear friend of mine. She saw my Star Wars Legion figures, which I am organising to play Star Wars - Chain of Command with.  I think it was for my birthday a couple of years ago that she gave me the gift of Ewoks.  They have sat unpainted for a couple of years, but I kept them in the cupboard behind my painting desk.  Ewoks might be a quick 'win' so I thought. Perfect to paint after painting something complicated.  What could be hard to paint about furry teddy bear characters? Well, nothing really, but I did found myself doing Google searches of 'Ewok faces' and such like for the last two weeks to remind myself what the furry beasties look like!

The two figures above are wonderful. One appears to be shaman like, with a sheep-like skull on his head, and the other looking wizened has the double light-sabre of the Darth Maul style, so he must be a leader or a warrior of skills.   

I use different base edge colours for Chain of Command for rapid identification. Senior leaders (Officers and SNCO's) have a red brown base edge.  JNCO's have dragoon green bases edges.  The remainder have British uniform khaki edges.

I liked the Star Wars Legion figures from when I first saw them, but I was less keen on all the cards and paraphernalia needed to play it.  I liked Chain of Command from when I first saw it, and although it is primarily a WW2 set of rules, it is very versatile for skirmish gaming.   There is a Star Wars - Chain of Command group of Facebook which is where I came across the very helpful group and their useful folders of stats etc for converting CoC to play games set in that far away galaxy a long time ago.

I must admit that I don't know who made the Ewoks. I believe they are sold on Etsy and are 3d printed.  These are the first 3d prints I have ever painted. I am very impressed by the detail. There was only a couple of minor breakages, but I hope I have adapted these so they are note noticeable.  I do like the amount of detail that can be incorporated.  There are not many lead figures where the bow strings are cast on to bows, so the detail really is top notch.

I'm sure some of these Ewoks are characters with names and distinctive dress, but alas, I was just guided by watching the movie clips and Google imaging generic Ewoks. So choices of dress and kit colours has largely been my own.

    

I'm looking forward to getting all of these chaps on the field of battle soon and pitching them against the Imperial forces.  I imagine they will be good in woodland and ambushes etc, but part of the fun is going to be sending them in Ewok waves against stormtroopers, just for the fun of it!