Never a foul ref

So i've spent the last couple of days preparing my 3 officials to go with my vbcw football team. Again there perry's miniatures. I'm really pleased with the results and now just need to add a team captain and flag bearer to complete the 5 man command squad.

Referee

First Linesman 

Second Linesman

The linesman's (mens?) flags are the mortar arms from the perry set cut down with paper flags attached. I think they work fairly well though the poses are a bit more rigid than I would have liked.

In other news I've very kindly been sent the Liebster award again and very much like Michael over at 28mm Victorian Warfare I had planned to quietly ignore this this year. But that seemed a tad churlish and self centered.

With that said having considered who I would have sent it on to I can see that they have already been "Liebstered" so I wont double up. Instead I will say that if you have not already you should check out this very good blog, which I was only recently directed to. http://verytinywars.blogspot.co.uk/

Currently I'm painting up some Zombies, having been reinfected with the bug myself recently. I'm also currently awaiting delivery of more WW2 6mm from Heroic and Ros to continue that project.

Heavily armed centre forwards

So i've spent the last few days working on the other half of my latest vbcw squad. Finished the last five this morning, I'm pretty happy with the results though had a bit of a cock up with the black wash I use as shading. I used it "too close" to the bottom of the pot and it must have been really concentrated or something because some of the shadows dried kind of shiny. Still its not to noticeable and you live and learn.

The full team, my first squad in the colours of Southend Football club. 

I've got my three officials, and the team captain on the painting table, just need to come up with a flag carrier for the command squad. My intention is to come up with a second squad (possibly in away colours) and then a third made up of supporters, with an HMG made up of grounds staff or something.

In other news my zombies from Studio Miniatures came, they look great but as I don't usually use the big slota bases designed for those recessed resin basis I'm not quite sure how to base them.

Also ordered more for my 6mm version of the 51st Highland Division, should get enough to complete another two Battalions so I'll have two of the three Brigades completed.

Five a side

So I'm pleased to say I think I might have finally broken the 28mm malaise that has been afflicting me for the last year or so. After yesterday's zombie I finally fancied painting my perry's salute loot. 

These five figures represent half (or there about's) of the figures I am painting in Southend Football clubs colours for VBCW. I've used a newish technique and I'me proper chuffed with the results, particularly after such a long break from painting more than one or two VBCW figures. 

Sorry for the picture spam. I've got the rest of the team and my 3 officials undercoated and ready to paint, hope to get them done during the day tomorrow or at least started. I'm still intending to continue with my 6mm projects, but i'm pleased that my general drought seems to be over.  

Partizan 2013

This weekend was Partizan in Newark, as per usual Panzerkaput and myself came up with and put on a VBCW game. It was a busy year with about 10 of the guys of the Very British Civil Forum turning up to game the demo in the end ,which made for a frantic but very fun game.

The game itself was set on the very edge of Leicester with Royalist/BUF forces attacking the city through the Village of Evington aiming to capture the General Hospital (the large building in the background of the picture above) As far as I am concerned the game was a roaring success we seemed to attract a fair bit of interest from the public and I spoke to lots of people about the game and terrain etc.

I was particularly pleased with how well my Hospital and terraced housing looked on the table as I had built both in relative isolation and was worried pretty much right up until the moment people started gaming that they would look too big or not right etc.

 This was our "period" display at the end of the table, Art and background on the battle by Panzerkaput with period weapons and equipment provided on the day by our forum member Captain Bigglesmay, who also spent the whole day in WW1 British uniform with webbing. Given that I was wearing jeans and a Shirt and today my back is killing me, I shudder to think how sore he must of been by the end of the day!

 Picture of my Hospital on the edge of Leicester, I was so pleased with how it looked on the table!

 More of the table with buildings brought along by a number of our forum members. Tym off the forum built the wonderful allotment squares seen in the bottom complete with greenhouse!

Another shot of my Hospital and my terraced housing which I used to edge the board.

Arty shot looking down the road towards the Hospital (just visible) I was really pleased with how "full" the table looked.

More arty farty picture taking, again I am chuffed with how nice our game looked.

Shot of forum member Burnin' Coals Mower Bomber, words cannot explain how fantastic this looks in the flesh, there are more pictures of this over on the Forum and it really is a work of art.

And what with spending money, chatting, and minding our own game I completely forgot to photograph any of the other lovely games which were there. However I did take this snap of my personal favourite which was this WW2 Desert Scrap which was on the table behind ours. The figures and terrain looked amazing and there where some great entrenchments which had been built into the terrain boards so they were actually below ground level.

Loot wise I picked up loads of ECW figures for my Scots army and some Warbases 2p multibases so I can have the figures for skirmish or bigger battles. I got some Highlanders from Warlords which are nice sculpts but I think I may now be a devotee of the Perrys. I have not previously looked at their ECW range in the flesh (as it were) but had a look at them on Sunday and bought a load of their Scots straight away. Nice simple, but detailed, clean sculpts and lovely casting, I think I was paying something like £6 for 6 figures so it was great value as well.

The question of what to do to top this years game is immediately at the front of my mind (being the sad git that I am) and I do have a probably over the top, difficult idea which I will probably start planning quite soon.

Thanks to everyone who came and said hello and looked at our table, Partizan felt very busy this year (which was great) and I had a top weekend.

Sand Table

This is the little project I have been working on for the last couple of days, this is for this years game at Partizan and (sad as it is) is a tiny version of this years table layout!

This is supposed to represent the senior Royalist/BUF officers preparing their assault on Leicester and it roughly matches the local map. With the village of Evington in the corner nearest the officer in the red top, North Evington Infirmary is the large building in the middle (see my earlier "Hospital Build" terrain posts) and the outskirts of Leicester itself at the end of the table in the foreground.  Its a silly little thing but I like it and it came out pretty well, all things considered. Obviously its not been made to scale or anything but I think it looks okay and works well as the officers sand table.

Top down view of the map

The camera has done something a bit weird with the colours so the red looks much glossier than it is.

Royalist Officer

Following on from the earlier post regarding the BUF adviser I have this evening bashed through and finished painting up this Artizan figure as a Royalist officer to match my existing force. Its a really simple figure to paint (which again I have painted previously but decided to strip and re-use). I'm pleased although he's not as neatly painted as the other figure as I am in a bit of a rush to try and finish this and other things.

BUF Advisor

I haven't painted a figure in awhile so I thought I would post his up this afternoon. Painted up in about 4 hours (give or take) whilst watching films online. I've painted this figure which is a Paul Hicks available from Empress. I have previously painted the figure but was not really happy with the finish so I stripped it and decided to re-paint it.

I'm really happy with the repaint which is supposed to represented a BUF Officer or Advisor.

Its going to be used in a small Diorama I am building to go with this years Partizan game. Hopefully I will get the piece finished before June!

The other reason I have been so quiet over the last few days is because the project which is taking up most of my hobby time is my entry for this years Trash Bash 2013 (details of the comp are here Trash Bash 2013)
This years competition is to take a computer mouse and use it as the basis for a deep strike type vehicle. We have been asked not to post WIP threads of our entries until after the winner is drawn, so I can't say much more about my entry. But I am pretty pleased with it so far and just hope I can get it painted in time before June 1st which is the closing date!

In case you haven't noticed I really have managed to put myself under pressure to get about 3 things ready all by June!

R.E.C (Rear Echelon Chaps)

I've pretty much finished my little VBCW style Diorama thing for my forum entry. Still might add some little bits like labels to the crates, but in the main this is finished. I will probably take some more pics of it as well, as I noticed the red ball looks much shinier in the pics than it is in reality (probably light shining off it or something when I took the pictures).

Anyway for what it is I present the R.E.C (Rear Echelon Chaps). Having unloaded the supplies these two decided the next most important thing to do was to crack out the croquet set and have a quick game. The war will wait after all.

I'm pleased with how this turned out, mainly because it gave me a use for these figures who would otherwise have languished in the lead pile for ages or been painted and never made it out of the cupboard. I will be popping these down with my supply vehicles and the like at future games, and most certainly at Partizan in June (which I'm quite looking forward to now).

Mr Brown, another pin stripe fellow

I some how managed to paint this figure up in just 3 hours 45 minutes this evening, given the short time it took me to paint I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. He will be accompanying the figure in the black pin stripe on my VBCW diorama thingy.

I'm glad I managed to get this out of the way today as I'm pretty busy for the next couple of weeks and didn't think after today I would have much time to paint him up.

Here's both figures together.

Thanks for looking, and sorry the pictures are a bit poor I wanted to get this uploaded tonight as I'm busy tomorrow.

Pin Stripe Chap

Just finished painting this figure as part of a small vignette for a friendly competition we are running over on the Very British Civil Forum. I'm quite pleased with the result of the pin stripe, although typically my pictures don't seem to do my paint job justice.

The figure is from Artizan and would usually have an umbrella in his hand, but I have cut it away so I can use him as a player in a popular (sort of) British game.

Picture of the mocked up Vigenette below,

The croque stick on the ground will be in the hand of the figure I have just painted. More about this on the Very British Civil Forum if you are interested.

Painted Attack Shed! (patent pending)

I spent this evening painting up my VBCW camouflaged attack shed (the Mk II variety). I have to say I am very pleased with how this turned out. From the air this will obviously look just like granddads shed and be completely ignored by the enemy, who hopefully wont notice the bit of Rolls Royce engine at the front.

I see this as a mobile command centre for the budding VBCW commander, or a highly camouflaged top secret pill box. Obviously the fact that it has to turn sideways to open fire is a slight design flaw, but I'm sure that will be worked out in the Mk III variety. Whats that, oh funding's been pulled, oh well I guess its back to the best of British broadsides then!




More pics below

The LMG is nicely concealed by the window box shrubbery, that's tactics don't you know.

Attack Shed!

Those of you who follow my meandering blog will recall that some time ago, September 2011 to be precise, I created a shed like vehicle for VBCW. If you wish to refresh your memory, or didn't see that vehicle here's a handy link Shed Tank .

Got that, great.

Now my problem with the first iteration was that the only wheels I had to hand were from 1:35 scale modelling kits and I forgot to drop the shed down to compensate for that. The result is that despite the pictures my first shed is actually bloody massive, although still sort of works in 28mm.

Anyway it has always bugged the hell out of me because I like the idea, and my paint job, but the oversized look hacked me off something rotten. So I had always planned to remake the shed more to scale but had never gotten around to it. Well I was sitting around this evening and had an old battered diecast on the desk which I decided would be perfect to remake my shed with!

I have built the shed mostly out of balsa and I added a window on the side with window boxes (once painted to be filled with foliage, thus camouflaging the weapon) The bit above the drivers seat will also be filled with foliage like a big window box. But for the moment that is just blue tacked together as I want to undercoat and paint most of it before fitting the bit over the drivers seat.

Entry is at the back and will be a drawbridge style door so I will be adding some little chains or ropes to that to give it a bit more detail.

The best part, the wheels still work so I can literally push it around the table! :)

All in all I am rather happy with how this turned out and now just have to hope and pray that the undercoating and painting process does not bugger it up.

Farmer Giles

I've been a bit quiet of late, I was struck down with the flu a few weeks back and then had a whole load of work to catch up on as a result, so have not had much leisure time. However I had some time to spare yesterday evening and painted up this figure from Artizan Designs.

I wanted all the colours to mesh nicely with each other and I'm pleased with my colour choices, the tweed on the flat cap could have been better, but you can't win em all.

Now I am a big fan of Artizans figures, my display cabinet, and cupboards are bulging with untold numbers of their figures. However I was a bit disappointed with the casting on this figure. The face seemed a little miscast and the detail was lighter than is usual with Artizans stuff. The bigger moan though is the shotgun which the figure is carrying. The barrel is very thin and bends really easily (as is evident in the picture). This was a bit of a departure from the norm with Artizans figures as I usually have nothing but praise for them.

It is still a nice figure its just let down by just two relatively minor points which were a touch irritating.

In other news my Ginger Tom Loki was unusually compliant last night and not only let me take a picture of him, but endured having my scarf draped around him in a dapper fashion!