Cardinal's Guard

The latest addition to the collection from our man in Budapest.  This is a 1/16 Cardinals Guard from Mini Art and very lovely it is too. I remember being quite confused as a young adult when I finally read Dumas unabridged and discovered that D'Artagnan and Cardinal Richelieu end the novel as not quite enemies and almost allies. 

The richness of the red in the tabard is really something. 

As always, our man's faces are excellent. This fellow is definitely not someone to be trifled with.  I'm always amazed by the character he manages to impart to a relatively humble plastic kit. This chap will be taking over guard duties on one of my bookshelves.  One thing I've noticed is that these larger figures can get quite dusty after a while.  A feather duster doesn't seem to be the way to go, but I'm sure there's a way of keeping them bright without damaging them. 

Of course, I think everyone of my age who took an interest in Dumas came across him here.  I am happy to announce that this is proving a real hit with the Kinchlets.  One thing that struck me about the programme is actually how demanding it is of its viewers. The Kinchlets like the music and colours, but something that completely passed me by when I watched it originally is that it actually tells a reasonably close version of the three musketeers story in something like thirty plus installments. 

It really surprised me to see a children's television programme that believed its audience would be able to keep up. 

"What are you up to Daddy?"

The Kinchlets continue to be a joy albeit a tiring one.  Girl Kinchlet is crawling now and suddenly Sir Harry Flashman VC is leading a new and very exciting existence that mainly involves sleeping out of reach and keeping his tail where he can see it. 

Lifeguard Trumpeter

I've had my hands full recently, but I'm hoping to get a little painting done over the Christmas season. I'm torn between some Mahdists, which I have helpfully got based and primed or some 1/72 Zvesda Pikemen and Musketeers for Pikeman's Lament. 

In the meantime, I can spare the time to appreciate the really fine work our man in Budapest has done on this Lifeguards Trumpeter. 

The pictures here don't do this chap justice.  He's 1/16 scale and is currently guarding one of my bookshelves. An old Airfix figure, he towers over almost anything else in my collection. 

Mr. Tibi has done a very fine job on this chap. 

I particularly like the subtle tonal shifts in the red.  Painting red or white are a pain in the neck at the best of times, but he's has done it very well. 

There's been a lot on for the last few months, but hopefully we'll get back into something approximately a decent routine shortly. 

A Dragoon of the Second Empire

"I bring word, I bring word from Napoleon ze thurd" 

The latest addition to the Kinch bookshelf is this rather dapper Second Empire Dragoon. This chap is a metal figure with surprising heft for such a dapper fellow.   I love his white gloves and the insouciant tilt of the chin. Our man in Budapest has done a really cracking job. The blending on the uniform stands out as very well done. 

Bloody stuff stuck on with glue

One of the reasons that there hasn't been a rush of wargaming is that there has been quite a bit of 1:1 scale terrain making going on.  I've been scraping old wallpaper which was stuck on with glue and took an absolute age to get off. Fortunately, it's finished now and the Cats Bedroom is looking barer, but ready to progress that little bit further. 

"'Grog's ready!' came from below. Bunching myself for the descent I found to my astonishment that all trace of litter had miraculously vanished, and a cosy neatness reigned. Glasses and lemons were on the table, and a fragrant smell of punch had deadened previous odours. I showed little emotion at these amenities, but enough to give intense relief to Davies, who delightedly showed me his devices for storage, praising the 'roominess' of his floating den. 'There's your stove, you see,' he ended; 'I've chucked the old one overboard.' It was a weakness of his, I should say here, to rejoice in throwing things overboard on the flimsiest pretexts. I afterwards suspected that the new stove had not been 'really necessary' any more than the rigging-screws, but was an excuse for gratifying this curious taste."

The Riddle of the Sands, Erskine Childers. 

I have been indulging a similar taste of late. I think Childers may have had the right idea. There is something gratifying about it and the shed is now clear. What ever shall we do with all this space?

Christmas Holidays & a touch of Dutch.

Mrs. Kinch really did an excellent job didn't she?

On the 20th, I handed in my last two essays and began two weeks of glorious time off from school. I will be working over Christmas, but to be honest, only working one job is going to be a wonderful relief. All the better, on the 21st we had the annual gathering of friends of the Kinchs. Mrs. Kinch did a wonderful job making sure everything was ready and it was great to see everyone.  It was just a wonderful convivial time and the company were in such good spirits. It was the best. 

A picture stolen from the Internet. Much like my bicycle.

I indulged in some unmanly winging in my last blog post - something of which I am too often guilty, but I was well and truly browned off having had my debit card and my bicycle stolen.  I managed to cancel the card, though whoever ended up with it attempted to use it some hours later. Just goes to show that there is no harm in taking that sort of action quickly. 

I was particularly miffed about my bike, mainly as I'd had some work done on it the week before and had some parts replaced. But lo and behold, I was in the library the following day polishing off my Constitutional Law essay when I saw a young fellow pushing a bike down the street. I looked a second time and then realised that it was very familiar. 

I think he realised he was for it when I let out a roar of anger and he took to his heels, dropping the bike, I'm lucky he didn't mount it or he'd have smoked me completely. So one escaped miscreant, but I got my bicycle back which was a huge relief. Cost me the price of a new lock, but on the whole, I count myself very lucky. 

You may remember this fellow from 2012, when I warned Alan that he would progress with glacial slowness. I was not wrong it would appear. This is a 17th century Dutch musketeer and a very fine fellow he is.  I despaired of ever finishing him and when Krisztian offered the services of a friend of his with an interest in large scale figures, I jumped at the chance. 

I must say Krisztian's pal has done a bang up job, really fantastic and certainly miles better than I would have done. Harry Pearson in "Achtung Schwinehundt" makes an argument that toy soldier collectors are a different breed to wargamers and he is no doubt right.  I am definitely a wargamer, but every so often I have a hankering for a beautiful thing for it's own sake and this Dutchman is the fruits of the hankering. 

The builder, I'm ashamed to say I don't know his name, has altered the model somewhat, but I think it makes it all the better. The animation of the face and the naturalness of the pose are just breath taking. 

 It is a bit silly that a material thing can bring me so much pleasure, but that it does so is inarguable. I'm still debating where I shall put him when I finally take delivery, but he really is fine. His brother, a trooper of the Lifeguards, sits on my desk and is very pleasant to look at. 

I think he may live on my desk as well or possibly the mantle piece in the War Room, but we shall see. Though going back to my previous blog entry on him - I realise that I never did finish "With Pike and Dyke" by GA Henty.  I must go back to that. 

Just look at that face and the delicate blending on the fabric.  There's a character to give King Phillip a sleepness night or two and no mistake. 

One of having a little time with nothing more strenuous then some desultory Christmas shopping was I had the chance to do a spot of reading. This presented itself by chance more than anything and I really enjoyed it. Christie is really more Mrs. Kinch's thing than mine - but this is probably the least Christie-ish of her books that I've read. 

The novel is a short one, more of a collection of short stories really.  The protagonist is an Englishman called Satterthwaite who meets a mysterious character, named Quin, who inveigles him into solving mysteries and righting wrongs. The stories have a strange almost dreamlike quality to them. There is a good deal of contrivance, but the thrust of the storytelling carries the stories along without you wondering too much about it. 

In many ways, the stories are reminiscent of the best of GK Chesterton. They have a curious fairytale logic about them that I found quite enchanting.  I had not suspected that Christie would be able to carry off that sort of thing, but she did and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I shan't write more, so as not to spoil them, but they are well worth reading and quite short. 

MiniArt Netherlands Musketeer

Mrs Kinch and I are recently returned from a holiday in the country. It was wonderful, we saw absolutely nothing of the country beyond the four walls of the cottage. Mainly we sat in silence in the same room, read a succession of books, listened to music and drank, ate and slept when the mood took us.  There were cats of course, though not a patch on our own. However in between reading At Swim Two Birds, Hobson Jobson and Edouard De Pomiane - I did some writing and did a spot of modelling just for fun.

I have some very expensive resin kits of 120mm figures that I picked up over the years, but that I simply haven't done anything with, mainly for fear of spoiling them. So I decided on a whim to get a kit that would be completely impractical, that I couldn't use for wargaming and that would just be for the pleasure of the thing.

Drying fitting hands and musket

I ended up buying this fine fellow, a 17th century musketeer by MiniArt. At €15, he was a damn sight cheaper then resin (not that I have ever paid full price for a resin figure) and disposeable enough that I could trust myself not to bottle it and put him back in the box half done. Having painted two large scale figures at this stage, I decided that I would assemble him in parts and paint as I went.

My musketeer without his hands and other additional

 pieces that will have to be added with thread

"And then I told him to put Tab A into Slot B"

"That's what your mother said!"

MiniArt are a Ukrainrian and I haven't put any of their output together before. There are two points that bear mentioning, the Ukrainians are simple folk, direct and forthright in the dealings. They have no need of instructions, which are for decadent fellows who cannot hold their vodka. Consequently the figure comes with one sheet showing all the parts, but nothing by way of instructions as they are generally understood. This is I suppose, a step up from resin figures which frequently come with no instructions at all, but it did give me pause at first.

Secondly, the fit of some of the pieces is not all that could be wished. There are some significant gaps and I'll have to do a spot of filling. Shamefully, I didn't have any green stuff with me while I was on holiday. So I tried originally to do with this with bits of sprue chopped small and disolved in poly cement, but the result was an evil smelling mixture that was too lumpy to be used and that provoked stern looks from wife and cats.

Pay attention to the rapier and it's damned quillons,

 much bad language was expended on those quillions

But it must be said that despite the lack of hand holding and the gapping, the kit went together relatively well. I quite pleased with result so far and while it's a far cry from soldering irons and banana oil, I did feel albeit briefly like a proper modeller for a change. Normally when I've put figures like this together they have been as a gift for someone else, but I think I'll hold onto this chap.

Still much work to be done

Puzzling out how to put the fellow together and shaving the differant bits was fun. The figures himself is a Dutch musketeer from the time of the Dutch revolt. I don't know much about the period, just what little I've picked up from the Alatriste novels and my recent reading of CV Wedgewood.

Twelve Apostles - looking rather more wooden 

then when they crashed that wedding at Cana

I've always rather liked Velasquez's "The Surrender of Breda", though I don't know enough about the
period to date my musketeer before or after. He lacks the "Twelve Apostles" (twelve rounds of ammunition kept in wooden tubes) that I thought most marksmen of the day carried. Whether this puts him at the beginning or middle of the century, I don't know.

While I was putting this chap rogether, I listened to some of GA Henty's "With Pike & Dike" , which is about the Dutch revolt, though Mrs Kinch did make an unkind comment about that a book about a lesbian angler would have been more interesting. 

More gaps

We shall see if this stuff works. I haven't tried it yet as I've been busy since we came home, but rest assured, when I find out, you'll read all about it.


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Happy New Year!

A drummer of the First Dublin Volunteers, a specially commissioned figure
(as always click to embiggen)

I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

I haven't found the time to blog of late, but we've been having a wonderful time. I was working over Christmas which was quite busy, but I had a few days off afterwards which were a welcome opportunity to spend some time with Mrs Kinch.

My handed over my drummer figure yesterday, the recipient was gratifyingly pleased with the results.

Mrs Kinch's cousin Basil, newly on the strength
(as always click to embiggen)

In other news, Mrs Kinch's cousin Basil will be living in our spare room for a while. He's a good sort and we share a taste in movies.

Cutting a dash in profile
(as always click to embiggen)

This was probably the most challenging piece of painting I've ever done. The white uniform was very tricky. I must thank Stokes for his assistance, though I discovered that his technique using black lining and a grey basecoat doesn't really work on such a large figure. However, I found his advice about using a tan undercoat covered by successive very thin coats of white, to be very effective. The trick I think with larger figures is to forget about highlighting, as the figure is so large that natural light does the work for you.

A rear view
(as always click to embiggen)

Painting the lace and the chevrons on the arms in red were particularly difficult as mistakes were very hard to cover up. I painted the drum separately and then pinned it to the rest of the figure.

In the meantime, my pledge to make a donation on each of the Twelve Days of the Christmas is going well, though I'm beginning to run out of charities. Any suggestions can be left in the comments below.

25th December - Temple Street Children's Hospital
26th December - The Capuchin Day Centre
27th December - The Salvation Army

28th December - Kathryn Casey Memorial Fund
29th December - Jack Vasel Memorial Fund
30th December - Peter McFerry Trust

31st December - Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
1st January - Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross

Drummer update

Drummer on the right

(click to embiggen)

Progress on my drummer continues slowly, but steadily. Mainly slowly. The effects of multiple washes of white are slow to materialise, but I think I'm beginning to see some improvement. I'm doing the red, and there is a lot of red, with thinned down Scab Red from the GW stable. Thanks due to Mr E on that one.

My other two short term projects arrived from Wargames Illustrated today. They're both kits from their Moments in History series for Mrs Kinch's great uncle and grandfather.

Drummer - work in progress

Brown moleskine trousers, very fetching

I haven't had much chance to work on anything hobby related over the last few days, mainly because the house has been demanding attention. Getting our heating fixed is a definite priority. As to why it is broken? Well, therein hangs a tale...

...which does not concern us now.

As you can see I've started making some very timid steps with my new large scale project. I read Stokes's article on painting white uniforms in the Wargamers Annual 2012, available from Caliverbooks, and asked the author a few questions online. The idea is to paint the uniform grey and use that as a sort of blacklining. Then paint a basecoat in tan, which you then cover with thinned down white paint.

Everyone is wearing white this year

I was skeptical about the grey undercoat, mainly because I've found that it, much like shading, doesn't do large scale figures much credit. So I started as you can see above with a tan basecoat on a test section of the figure. I then gave that a quick coat of very thinned down white. The result looked dirty and a bit blotchy, but the technique calls for several coats, so I expect that result will even out once its had another lick of paint.

And that is a problem for another day as I'm up for work in four hours. Goodnight.

Dismounted French Dragoons - Hinton Hunt - Kriegspieler

Dismounted French Dragoons by Hinton Hunt (by way of Kriegspieler), a HAT British Light Infantryman shown for scale.

One of the other pleasures of John C's visit to Chateau Kinch was that he brought with him some Dismounted French Dragoons that he had got from the United States of America. I have something of a curious obsession with Dismounted Dragoons, having parted with a substantial amount of money for a Strelets set. I suspect that it may have something to do with the Sharpe novels that I read in my teens, which invariably focussed on the petit geurre aspects of the Peninsular War. French Dragoons were very competent anti-guerrilla troops, though their methods bear little praise.

On a happier note, John's figures are ten beautiful little sculpts, quite small by modern standards and about the same size as Newline Design figures. They are Hinton Hunt figures, a name that never really meant anything to me until I read Achtung Swinehundt! The figures them selves are actually American copies by a company called Der Kriegspieler apparently, but I still think they are rather fine. I am very taken with these, so much so that I don't think I'll give them to my usual painter to be painted, these I think I will keep for myself. The size issue may be ameliorated somewhat after they are based, but I think my Italeri Dragoons have found some more dismounted company. There will probably be a size discrepancy, but I'm not sure I care.

I can't say I know when I'll get around to them with my copious free time, but it strikes me that these are a pleasure to be sipped.

For those of you who would like to learn a little more about Hinton Hunt and other old 20mm figures, should check out Vintage 20MIL. The Hinton Hunter run by Clive of the ever wonderful Vintage Wargaming blog which is also well worth a look.

Large Scale Figures

A Crimean Officer of the 19th Foot

I finally finished my Roll Call Crimean Officer - which is meant as a belated birthday gift for Mrs Kinch's great uncle. I'm relatively happy with the figure, my first of this size (120mm) and it has certainly been a learning experience. The figure itself is cast in resin and comes in multiple parts. The resin needs to be washed and trimmed, as there are large pieces of sprue still attached. This is not quite as easy as it looks and requires a firm hand, patience and plenty of sandpaper.

Once assembled with superglue, I undercoated the figure white and painted him with my normal vallejo acrylics with virtually no shading or highlighting. There is little need to in this scale, the light does the work for you. I'm not convinced my choice of glossy black base and I may repaint it in a warmer brown to give an effect of the mahogany type before he takes up his new billet. I'm hoping Mrs Kinch's great uncle will name him, he has a rather excellant collection of old teddy bears all of whom have names. My favourite by a country mile is Paget Soames.

Some years ago, Mrs Kinch and I were married. It was a wonderful day, but one that was not without its troubles the week before. The main problem being the fact that the venue that we had booked for our reception effectively withdrew eight days before the wedding - anyone who has attempted to book a venue for 170+ persons in Dublin city centre at a weeks notice, can attest I'm sure to the fact that it is an impossibility for anything less than a Kings ransom.

Enter stage left, the man of the hour, Mrs Kinchs uncle - who put his Georgian town house entirely at our disposal. He and his family took time off from work and college to clear the bottom two floors of their home and plumbed in extra bathrooms in order to accommodate our guests. There are some debts that can never be repaid, but when I discovered that the relative in question liked 120mm models - I think I may where to begin.

With that in mind I purchased two new figures, a British officer of Waterloo (who may have to be transfered into the 88th) and a trooper of the French Dromedary Corps. Time will tell how well I get on with them.

Who knows, I may even get better at this modelling lark.