How miniatures are born! Video guide.

Spotted this on you tube.

A video guide covering the basics of pewter miniature making and casting.

Stephen Oates who runs "The Baggage Train" is a club member and has often explained some of the difficulties of making and casting figures. But it was nice to see the process in motion and the way at least this chap goes about it.

And here is a guide on how he makes the actual moulds..

Its good to see how it all happes. And how our nice shiny figures are made! :)



A club night. Some random bits..

So, managed to snap a few shots off at the club night last week.
Nothing excitng, sorry, but a few photos of what was being played.
It always surprises me, the variety of games our club plays.

I am fairly sure, that if you can pick a gaming system, then someone at the club either has it in their collection or plays regularly.

So here a few shots of some of the games that were going on.

 I thought had taken more photos of my game. But can only find one on the camera. Sorry.

 Wills black powder or hail ceasar game. Cannot recall qhich.

 Will, and Pete. Will trying to get his romans into a fight.

 Lens , actually managing to win a game of Dystopian wars. He likes the system alot.

 Dystopian naval system does seem to be getting a good following at the club.

 Steve Oates, was running a skirmish /rgp game, with I think the old AD&D skirmish rules.

 Ian watching on, as Martin and Denise slog it out using Flames of War.

Colin and Dave, playing a test game of chain reaction sci-fi rules.  

Colin ever so slightly pleased he has made his roll!

 A game of war and conquest. Not a rule set I know.

 Warhammer fantasy, still well played and still Colin seems to remain the man to beat, though in this case, PeterD and Little-si were slogging it out.

 Undead on beasts I think. It was just the colours that got me.

Not sure why this photo did not come out clearly.. but was a nice unit of skeli's.



Anyhow I ran a quick game of RoE (rules of enagement) moderns, my addaption for using the WW2 rule set for modern gaming. Still working on the tweaks, but it was fun. See the first photo.

Clambering in dusty places..

OK, so last night, I put on an Moderns 28mm afghanistan game. Using my modified Rules of Engagement, rule system.
The basic pretence was a SAS unit, guarding some downed US pilots whilst the british arrived to rescue them.

The Taliban were very agreesive and it was a good game. A close tie over all. the pilots were got out, but the british troops lost one man and two were wounded.

I think i only got the one photo of the game, but will do a write up later.

Just been clambering in dusty places, hauling out a lot of big boxes of dwarven forge scenery for the club weekend. :).

Off to the club shortly to help lug tables from the storage room up to the hall and set things out. Then back for fish and chips dinner. And then up bright and early.

Playing a dungeon bash using Warrior Heroes, so a chance to dig the DF and get some usage.. been a few years since it saw action alas, as my regular fantasy roleplaying stopped, due to various reasons.

Has got me thinking about getting back into it.

Anyhow, the good old fun of lugging tables is about to begin, so better get my backside down to the club. And its just started raining.. oh the joys!

Will try and take some photos of the weekend and get them posted up next week.

SOTCW - Society of 20th Century Wargamers - New Site

The SOTCW have been regular game runners at our Club Show, Gauntlet.
And several of our club members are amongst their membership ranks. Pete, a club member has just taken on the task of revamping the societies website. And its now alot better than it was.

The society has a regular journal that covers various gaming related and historical topics from the period in a variety of scales. And can have some real gems in it.

Sadly it seem it might be a while yet, before the older forum posts are recovered.

But the new forum is now up and runnig and you don't have to join the society to be a member.

So, if you haven't heard of them before, then have a look around and follow the link above.

28mm Vietnam Project - Part 5 - Basing Texture

Well, I managed to find an hour to apply some basing texture.
Having mounted the figures onto 2pence pieces like so;

FoA Vietnam Figures Mounted on 2pence pieces before texture

Now this is where personal preference tends to come in. I know many painters who do their basing texture last. However I choose to apply it now and then undercoat the figures with black or white spray depending.

For these Force of Arms Vietnam 28mm figures I am sticking to my usual texturing medium, of Basetex paint. Its a paint with grit in it basically. Now it comes in varying size pots, from 200ml size, upto 0.5ltr size. I buy the big pots for a simple reason. They have better lids and they don't dry out. Also its handy stuff and lasts a long time if sealed.
But the smaller pots I found to be a false economy if you like it. So by all means grab a small pot to try, but if you like it, make sure you use that small pot up quick. Basetex paint is made by Colourparty, here in the UK.

Now the one thing you have to note, with basetex. The consistency does not always come out the same. I mean, i have bought two pots of brown. One has come out quite viscous and easily spatulared on. And a second pot from the same batch has come out, very runny.
Now this really isn't a problem, either leave the lid off the runny stuff for a few mins and watch the liquid evaporate, or do as i have done to sometimes extend a pots life, by adding some sand. Now in the brown, you will not notice it. The brown will take extra sand, and gravel and not discolour. Lighter colours of course, may tint slightly in shade.

Now, I like it quite thick, as I use a stiff long bristle cheap nylon brush to apply it. Working the brush like a spatula. Applying the first off around the feet/centre of the model and working outwards. The liquids surface tension is pretty good, but it will settle out, and so if you have a raised area, like the base of a figure, then you need to add a little more here, to compensate.

Once I have applied enough basetex and covered the base, you could leave it like that and let is set/dry. If you do, you get a nice caked mud type finish, with drying type cracks in the odd places. Don't worry the basetex, sets like concrete!  So it really is tough stuff.

Now my preference, is to add a pinch of model railway ballast or sand/fine grit mix, here and there to break up the texture and ensure i have some areas when i come to dry brush the model bas, will pick up paint and leave a nice effect.

By sprinkling the gravel onto the wet basetext paint the majority of the gravel will sink in a little and remain well glued down. I do however, rub each figure base with my thumb, to remove and weakly bonded gravel prior to base coating, to avoid you getting "bright spots" when some comes away after base coating, as Murphy's law states it will do in the most obvious place..

So here is what they look like once textured;

Basetex Paint by colour party as base texture medium

As you can see, there are some gravel pieces near the edges and these i tend to ping out, to ensure there are non over hanging. But even as yet unpainted, the bases look pretty reasonable.
So the next step with these will be give them each a rub over, and remove the loosely bonded bits. And glue on a single M79 weapon, that comes as a separate item on one of the figures. Oh and then try and sort the lost gun barrels on a couple. Now I probably should have fixed those earlier, before mounting, but my brain was saying.. " you will have more to hold onto after basing".. time will soon tell whether my brain was right or not.

So here is a close up for those who like detail..

Close up of the textured base.

So the next step, will be glue on the M79 and sort the snapped M16 barrels and then undercoat them. However these are not my only US figures by a long shot. See some of my earlier posts and I have realised some of those were not textured either. So it looks like I might be spending a further night or two prepping before I can get around to base coating.

But will keep you in touch with progress as it occurs.  So stay tuned for the next progress report..

28mm Vietnam Project - Part 4 - Basing Begins

Ok, so firstly apologies for the lack of any substantial progress of late. But life has conspired to keep my rather busy and away from the painting table. However in a sudden fit of energy last night. I dug out my pot of 2pence pieces and my batch of Force of Arms 28mm Vietnam figures and started on the basing.

The first step was, simply to go through cleaning up the figures, trimming off flash and vent tags from the moulding. There was not a great deal, mostly vent tags, which are easy to snip off, cut off or file off, depending on your chosen technique.

There were remarkably few bits of flash to deal with. That was the good news. The bad news, was. The FoA metal is not the most bendy. I found several figures with bent gun barrels and two or three snapped upon straightening. Now this is annoying. But I have had it with other makers.

From a recent comment by John Bruce (FoA) with regards to his latest ANZACS release on TMP, I noted he has now moved to a softer metal. So obviously I was not the only one notice how brittle it could be.

Anyhow, I will try and pin those, to give a gun barrel of sorts. And it probably won't be too obvious. As these are gaming and not display models, I am not too worried. It is just slightly frustrating.

So, first step was the clean them up.. now.. a quick note on tools. A while ago I bought a seam scraper from Micromark tools over in the USA. Its a triangular shaped cutter. Its have a double ended bit and can be extended and retracted as required. And its sharp!

It flies through flash at a rate of knots. The only issue is, they are not cheap to buy, having to order from across the pond.

The postage was pretty high and I managed to avoid the tax threshold just. So quite happy with it. I spotted the tool being demoed on YouTube;

This is not the one I original spotted but that has been removed. However this one shows the tool in use. The one thing I will issue a WARNING!! about is, the point is sharp. It is very, I stress very easy to slip and jab your self with this tool. Just like hobby knives. Best treated with respect or the blood will flow! The video also shows some other tools in use.

So.. once the figures were cleaned up, it was just a case of digging out the two part, 5-minute epoxy. I use Devcon, as its never let me down in the past.

Some care needs to be taken. The inbuilt figure bases/tags with some of John's miniatures are quite small and their poses make the figure top heavy. So you have to ensure you have a pretty flat working area, or you get them toppling, whilst the glue dries. This happened to one and I have to quickly remove the still curing semi rigid epoxy with a knife and re glue it. Nothing too serious.

I mix about two penny sized blobs of resin and harnder in each batch and use a cocktail stick to mix the two, thoroughly. You can tell when it is well mixed, as the liquid will take on a frosted haze, that will clear as it sets. This is usually enough to do about 6-9 figures, depending on base size. Its easy to try and do too many in one go. And before you know it, the epoxy will begin to setup/harden and you will have fine stringers of glue, everywhere and then wham! All of a sudden its hard,, and you find your cocktail stick is now, going to have to be come part of your base.

So, small batches. It also means if you get a figure suddenly fall off the desk, or get interrupted by the phone, the cat, the dog, family etc, and you have to leave it, you only loose a little. I mix the liquids on old business cards, as they are a good size and can be scrapped off, before the excess sets, to get more than one use out of them. Be careful mind with tossing setting epoxy about the place. Its exothermic, meaning it generates some heat depending on brands/chemicals, and so can cause melting/fires in large quantities. Also don't get it on your carpet!

Right, OK here they are.. the 34 odd or so.. stuck and firmly glued.. next step will be the texturing.. which I hope to get done this evening.

Force of Arms 28mm Vietnam based on 2pence pieces

If you look carefully you will see some US infantry, including some special forces and a few VC figures in the set. These figures are nicely styled, and have some real character to them. Each figure is an individual and I do think many gamers interested in 28mm Vietnam, over look John Bruces - Junction City Range.

Flight Stands and Compulsive Disorders

I spotted some Startship Troopers Rippler Bugs (A mega swarm box of 9 highly detailed plastic miniatures) on ebay and bid for it. That was whilst I was over at a friends. And I won. And having gotten home and checked my careful excel spread sheet, knowing I already had a couple of boxes and thought a 3^rd would do nicely. Discovered… I now have four! Oops.

Well you can never have enough rippler bugs ;)

Whilst I wait for this latest unplanned purchase to arrive, I was contemplating the basing of flying models and flight stands. I recently made two stands for 28mm scale aircraft for my moderns games. Getting the balance of height and stability is the tricky part.

I was fortunate that the end look, using 6mm acrylic dowel came out nicely.

A10 Warthog on home made flight stand.

Diecast Apache Gunship on home made flight stand.

Both models being 28mm in scale roughly, are quite heavy. The Apachie is a diecast metal model and so fairly heavy. Both are detachable for transport.

Now I know from previous experience, that the small plastic flight stands that come with the likes of GW and the old SST figures are not that strong. The plastic is quite brittle and the mounting pin or lug, that slots into the figure are weak.  Given my Rippler and other flying bugs and WASP equipped MI Troopers, all have these supplied with them. I can see me having a few breakages and then the frustration of repairing them. Infact one of the wasp troopers I bought already painted a while back as snapped already.
Using 6mm, acrlic, is just not suitable for smaller models (though the rippler bugs are not that small).
So I was intruiged when a few years ago now I cam across the excellent site "Tanks and Trolls" at the time I was discussing airbrushing with the author. If you have a moment, take a look around some of his galleries. The painting is inspiring. Anyhow, he mounted his Rippler Bugs at varying hights on what appears  to be stiff wire.

Photo from Tanks and Trolls Website - SST Rippler Bugs

I liked the fact the stands were unobtrusive and had a variety of hights. Wire should also not snap, though may bend of course.  The rippler bugs are plastic models and so weight is not a major issue, though they are quite large as far as plastic models go and so getting the centre of gravity right, will be key.

I was fortunate with both the Apache and the A10, there was a conveient holes in the bottom of both models, meaning I just had to taper the acrylic rods to fit. On the Apache, the whole was forward fo the CoG, so I had to drill a hole across the rod, at an angle and mount a piece of stiff piano wire into it, to push the tail of the apache up, to give it that classic nose down "in flight/attack" stance.

Now I just need to find some suitable wire, that will be stiff enough to be durable, but not too stiff or brittle that i cannot bend/shape the base to attach it to bases. I can some a few experiments ahead.

Afghanistan 28mm WIP thread on FoF forum.

Here is a link to the WIP thread I did for my Afghanistan figures. It has some large photos of the figures, though due to time constraints I never got much of the US or British Infantry on there. Empress have since released a support pack for the British Infantry. I am very tempted to add that to my British Forces as it would give them the rather deadly Javelin launcher. As well as a proper sniper figure.  
http://ambushalleygames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6923

28mm Afghanistan - Models

I realise it is not some peoples cup of tea, to game current or recent campaigns. I can appreciate it is uneasy for some, and thus they don’t enjoy it. But I have grown up with friends serving in the forces. Many of whom are themselves gamers.

I have had an interest in Afghanistan, and its historic and current conflicts for a while, from the soviet era through to the current operations. I was gutted a year or two back, when just as I made the decision to buy some figures from Mongrel Miniatures, they shut up shop in the UK.
So, was over the moon a year or so later when I managed to aquire a few sets. A month or two after that, the range reappeared.
At the same time I was reading through some books, on the british army in Afghanistan in 2006, and onwards, such Attack State Red and 3 Para. Both excellent books and worth a read for anyone who wants to hear a soldiers eye view of the war at that time. With Gauntlet 2011 Gaming show coming up soon I decided I would run a game and so.. I began to assemble some Mongrel Afhgans and some Empress Taliban figures. The later ware very much modern day, in style and clothing. The former are more 1980s in style and equipment but fit very well in modern terms and so.. here are some photos of painting and assembly..

In the end I gathered a large set nearly 70 plus Taliban / Mujahedeen fighters as my op-for. Here are a couple of shots of some of the weapon teams and massed ranks.