As I get older, the realisation comes that one day my miniatures collection may need to be reduced. Not any time soon I hope, but possibly within the next decade or so, if we were ever to downsize our home and I end up losing the space to display and store my figures.
So I’ve decided to start preserving my favourite miniatures in a more portable way by capturing them in photographic form.
Over the years I’ve taken many photos of my model soldiers. Lots of them are published on this blog. But I don’t know how permanent a blog is – could it disappear one day in the future with changes in technology?
And I don’t trust the long-term permanence of ‘in the cloud’ storage either, where your photographic treasures are totally in the hands of some impersonal company.
Therefore I’ve decided the best way to keep my photos in an easily accessible format is to publish them as a hardcopy photobook. I did do one about ten years ago, but it is obviously well out of date now with all the miniatures I’ve painted since.
In the great wargaming rules tradition of ‘second editions’, I decided to update my book. I would keep most of the earlier photos, but add in many more of my favourite pictures from the last decade.
I used a commercial online photobook printing app to compile them into a new hard-cover book. This is an Australian-based company called Snapfish, but there are similar outfits all over the world if you want to do something similar.
With the Snapfish online tool I simply uploaded and arranged my chosen photos. I then submitted my order, and two weeks later I had the book in my hands.
I was very impressed with the results. I had selected a glossy paper option, which made the photos really pop. My figures look even better than real life!
Now, if I ever find my much older self with a sadly diminished collection, and wishing to reminisce about my happy times in this hobby, I’ll always have these wonderful images to hand!
Some tips if you want to do this:
* The book will only be as good as your photos, so pick the best you have.
* Photos taken from the eye-level of the figures, rather than looking down on them, generally look better.
* Don’t jam too many photos on one page – in hindsight, I’d say no more than four (some of my pages with more pictures ended up with them being too small).
* Use the editing tools in the app to crop photos to the main subject – including lots of background just wastes precious space, and reduces the size of your figures on the page.
* Also, use the editing tool to adjust the subject of your image so that it is centred properly within its frame.
* Don’t underestimate the visual impact of the occasional page with a single picture bleeding off the edges.
* Add at least some text boxes with captions – although you know what your figures are, captions will help other viewers.
Below is a selection of some of the pages in my book.
– Landsknechts on the front cover.– German Landsknechts.– Eighteenth century ‘Lace Wars’.– British Napoleonics.– American Civil War– Colonial New Zealand Wars, 1840s.– Interwar & WW2 French– WW2 DutchIn case you’re interested, I’ve also just done similar book of my paintings.
I just came across NaukNauk, an AI program designed specifically for animating toys. So I had a bit of fun bringing some of my miniatures to life. Enjoy!
The Battle of Fontenoy, 1745. That mounted officer better be careful he doesn’t get caught in the crossfire!
The British Grenadiers. Hints of ‘Barry Lyndon’. Sorry, I forgot to add a music sound-track.
French on the march. Shame the AI can’t figure out wargaming bases!
I have just finished painting and basing this delightful little vignette by Eureka Miniatures.
The scene is a French Chasseur a Cheval fraternising with a local peasant girl as he waters three of his troops horses at the village pump.
The Eureka set includes the chasseur tapping his pipe on the bottom of his boot, three fully saddled horses, the water pump, a laundress washing clothes in a tub, her elderly chaperone.
Even the chickens and a couple of miniscule chicks came with the Eureka set!
I had intended to paint my chasseur as a much earlier hussar to accompany my 18th century Lynden Hussar regiment. However, I accidentally ordered the chap with a tarleton helmet, instead of the option with a mirliton hat.
The helmet was worn by the Chasseurs a Cheval during the French Revolutionary period. So this makes my guy too late for my 18th century army, but too early for my Napoleonics. Ah well, c’est la vie!
I used a 90mm wooden base, with terrain made out of a mixture of different types of sand and some patches of flock.
This little scene will look great on my Napoleonic tabletop, even though our chasseur’s hat is more than a few years out of date!
I was chuffed recently when Art Collective chose to reproduce four of my paintings as fine art prints for sale from their site. As regular visitors here will know, since retiring a year or so ago, I have taken up painting in addition to my existing hobby of wargaming.
These prints are available in New Zealand (with free shipping!) from $39 to $230, depending on size and whether or not you want them framed.
Art Collective’s site includes a bio of each of their artists, of whom I am now honoured to be amongst the august company!
In my bio photo I am holding my original painting for the print shown at the top of this posting. It depicts His Majesty’s Bark ‘Endeavour’, Captain James Cook’s ship on his first circumnavigation of the world from 1768 to 1771.
This print shows a restored Class Ka steam locomotive climbing the grade from Paekākāriki to Pukerua Bay, hauling an excursion train of restored carriages in their former New Zealand Railways brick-red livery.
Finally, this is the tugboat ‘Natone’ moored at the Wellington docks in the very early 1900s. She was actually skippered by my wife’s great-grandfather, Captain Joseph Corich.
I did a lot of research to find photos of ‘Natone’, and then spoke to several steam-tug enthusiasts to get the colours right. The buildings in the background are still there today, though of course ‘Natone’ has long since gone to that great shipyard in the sky.
At this stage I think they are only sold within New Zealand (which is where I would expect the main demand to come from anyway). But if there is sufficient interest, I may look into if there is a suitable international drop-seller as well.
I have just finished painting this lovely set of Eureka Miniatures‘ 28mm Māori warriors. They are primarily designed for the inter-tribal conflicts, before Europe started to make an impact with the introduction of the musket that asymmetrically changed the face of traditional tribal warfare.
However, these figures should also be able to be used for the earlier parts of the colonial New Zealand Wars of the 1840s, so they’ll bulk up my existing war-parties of figures by Empress Miniatures.
Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand. Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350AD.
Conflict between tribes was common, fought with the traditional weapons as depicted on these figures. If you want to know more about the Māori methods of warfare in pre-European days, you could check out an article I wrote in January 2022 for issue Wi409 of Wargames Illustrated.
The Eureka figures are beautifully sculpted. It is evident that they have paid great attention to the way Māori toa (warriors) move, as the posing includes some distinctive stances that are quite unlike those of other warriors around the world.
For example, fifth from left in the above picture (also visible in the picture at the end of this posting) you can see a warrior brandishing his patu (adze), his feet splayed in what appear to be odd directions, replicating the sort of dancing trot with quick restricted strides that Māori warriors used – and still use today in traditional ceremonies.
Note also that some of these figures are poking their tongues out. The gesture of a warrior flicking his tongue in and out like a lizard is a traditional challenge.
One of the warriors is a musician blowing a pūtātara, a type of trumpet with a carved wooden mouthpiece and a bell made from New Zealand’s small native conch shells or triton shells. We used to have a pūtātara at my work, and boy it was hard to get a sound out of it!
The set includes an ariki (chieftain), shown on the right in the above picture. He is wearing an elaborate cloak denoting his rank.
The other warriors are dressed in pirāpaki or pākē kūrure, which were garments of strands made from the leaves of harakeke (flax) with the fibre exposed in some sections to create lines or geometric patterns.
The right rear figure is the other musician included in the set. He is whirling a purerehua (bull-roarer) above his head, which produces a mournful moaning sound.
You can also see how I have based my figures individually, but can put them into sabots to group them. The ferns, by the way, are model railway scenery produced by Noch. They come in a garish green plastic colour, but a coat of paint soon fixed that!
Some of the figures are wearing a rain cloak called a pākē or hieke, essential for the often cold and wet conditions of the New Zealand winter. It was made from raw flax partly scraped and set in close rows on a plaited fibre base.
Another nice thing about the Eureka figures is that they have a range of body types. So you get everyone from tall and muscular to shorter and thicker-set.
The faces, too, are wonderful. When painting these figures, I could almost recognise some of my Māori friends. I am sure I have worked with that bearded fellow on the right!
I didn’t attempt to paint detailed facial moko (tattoos), but merely hinted at them with a green wash on some faces.
These two warriors kneeling in front of a meeting house (a 3D-print from Printable Scenery) are armed with the taiaha, a close-quarters staff weapon used for short, sharp strikes or stabbing thrusts with efficient footwork on the part of the wielder.
The taiaha consists of the rau (striking blade), which is a shaft of oval cross-section; and the upoko (head) with a large arero (tongue) extending out from the mouth in the Māori gesture of defiance, which could also be used to jab the opponent. These taiaha have a tauri (collar) of red feathers.
The taiaha requires skill, speed, and agility, which is why it was only wielded by high-ranking warriors. The specialty of the taiaha was defence. A master wielder could last an entire battle untouched, at the same time killing or disabling many of his attackers.
One of the figures is a little larger than the others, and along with his taiaha he is also carrying a fishing net. I have depicted him as Māui, a demi-god and a trickster in Māori mythology, famous for his exploits, cleverness, superhuman strength and shapeshifting ability.
One story about Māui describes how the sun used to move across the sky far faster than it does today, zipping back and forth so quickly that the day had barely begun before it was over. Māui would watch his family at work and, no matter how hard they tried, it was impossible for them to finish their chores before the sun was gone.
Māui decided he needed to slow down the sun. So he persuaded his brothers to come with him and gather great mountains of flax, weaving it together into long ropes. They then tied these into a great net – big enough to catch the sun.
With the help of his brothers, Māui caught the sun in the net and beat it with his grandmother’s magic jawbone. The sun was so bruised and bloodied by this battering that from that time on it could only limp slowly across the sky, slowing its passage and ensuring each day is now long enough.
I’m sure a net strong enough to catch the sun would be a powerful weapon in a wargame!
I used GW Contrast paints for all of these figures. As I get older, I find I am getting lazier and sloppier in my painting. Certainly these figures don’t bear the close-up inspection that some of my earlier work could happily withstand. But from any distance they still suffice as ‘wargames standard’.
A set of new Napoleonic rules? Ingeniously simple rules? Only eight pages (and that includes the front cover and a quick reference sheet!)? Written by wargames legends Jervis Johnson, Alan Perry and Michael Perry? And continuously supported and updated by them? Hmm, intriguing. Oh, and they’re completely free. Wow, how could I resist?!
Yep, Jervis Johnson and the Perry twins released their free downloadable Valour & Fortitude rules late last year. Of course, I snapped them up straight away. But although I have loads of Napoleonic troops, I don’t have a wargames table. So despite enjoying reading through the rules, I couldn’t actually play a game to test how they worked. Until the other day, that is …
My pal Scott Bowman (owner of Kapiti Hobbies) has a very well-equipped wargames room with three tables and an exquisite set of scratch-built terrain tiles. So with a minimum of arm-twisting, I persuaded Scott to host a Valour & Fortitude game at his place. We roped in a few of our gaming friends (thanks Bryan, Richard and Ste!) to help push the lead round the table, and so last Sunday afternoon we were finally ready to test the rules in earnest.
Our game was very loosely set during the Peninsula War. I say loosely as we included some troop types that were never even in Spain. But this was to be a fun game intended mainly to test the rules, not a serious historical reenactment. In any case, our little group’s overall gaming philosophy has never been particularly restricted to only follow historical orders of battle.
Many years ago I scratch-built a series of small Spanish-style buildings, so our test-game’s Peninsular setting also provided me with the opportunity of taking them out of the back of my cupboard and seeing the light of day!
With four players, we settled on a game with just over 200 points a side. This enabled us all to field a couple of brigades each on our 8’x6′ table. I was able to supply all the 28mm troops we needed, which was to be fought between the French and the Anglo-Portuguese. The above photo shows both the forces set up in our staging area (though in the end we had three artillery bases on each side instead of the five shown in the pic).
I’m not going to give you a detailed battle report here. Rather, I just want to sum up how we found these new rules. But if you do want a battle report, along with seeing and hearing how we handled the rules in real-time action, take a look at Scott’s video.
So, were the Valour & Fortitude rules actually ‘ingeniously simple’ as they are described on the cover? Did they work well? Did they give us an enjoyable game that felt right for the period? Did we like these rules enough to use them again? Would we recommend them?
These are all tough questions to ask after just one game. So bear in mind the following thoughts are very much just my first impressions. But first impressions do count!
Is Valour & Fortitude the ‘ingenious simple’ ruleset as it claims to be?
There were indeed aspects that seemed ingenious to us. One of the most obvious was that unlike many ‘you go, I go’ games, in Valour & Fortitude fire comes before movement. For us, this reversal overturned the way we usually thought about our wargames tactics. We had to think carefully about whether our units would fire and make assaults, or hold off their fire so they could manouevre for longer distances and/or make formation changes.
Another ingenious mechanism is that only one unit can take the lead in firing at an enemy unit, with additional dice added for any other units that can support that fire. This simplified the whole firing process, so that rather than individually sorting out each unit’s firing, we could whip through an entire army’s firing phase very quickly and efficiently.
The same ‘lead unit and supports’ mechanism is also used for melees, and once again simplifies what can sometimes be a very convoluted process in other horse and musket rules.
If a unit accrues hits up to its ‘tenacity’ rating, it is regarded as ‘shaken’, and for every further hit over and above that rating it has to undertake a morale test called a Valour test. When a unit becomes shaken or routs, it also causes a ‘setback’ token to be given to their brigade commander.
Once a brigade commander accrues three setback tokens, his whole brigade is regarded as ‘wavering’. Any subsequent setbacks require the wavering brigade to take a so-called Fortitude test, which could result in the whole brigade being shattered.
It is fair to say that the above Valour and Fortitude tests caused us the most initial confusion. They take a bit to get your head round, but once you get the hang of them, these tests again are remarkably ingenious and simple. Though we did decide that we need to work out a better system than we used for marking the hits, shaken units, setbacks and wavering brigades, but without cluttering Scott’s beautiful terrain with too many unsightly markers and tokens.
So, is Valour & Fortitude ‘ingeniously simple’? I would say yes, despite some initial puzzling through some aspects in our first and only game so far. We thought that with another read-through of the rules after this first experience of using them, everything would become clear. Furthermore, there appear to be lots of nuances that will result in more challenging games once we are more familiar with the basics of how the rules work.
Did the rules work well?
I mentioned above that the writers continuously support and update these rules. So by the time we got to test them, they were up to version 1.5. Being an online ruleset and only a few pages long, keeping your copy updated is simply a matter of downloading the latest version. These updates meant that many of the bugs and clarifications that any new set of rules tends to have were likely to be fixed by the time we tried them out.
We found these rules got us into combat quickly, rather than spending the first hour just moving into contact. Firing and melees were also quick and easy. Our game only lasted a few hours, but we got to a clear conclusion with one side the winner – though it was a toss-up right till the end as to which side would win (for the record, it was the Anglo-Portuguese, of which I was one of the commanders!).
The core rules are supplemented by a number of special unit rules and a set of fate cards, which are included in the various army sheets (also supplied free on the Valour & Fortitude website). So strictly speaking, I guess these rules aren’t really just eight pages long as you also need these army sheets – but they are still pretty concise compared to most other rulesets.
I did read a review somewhere that the one-page quick reference sheet that comes with the rules is a little hard to follow, as it merges tables for things you need to know during different phases of a turn. Little Wars TV have therefore produced a more logically sequenced QRS, but it is based on an earlier version of Valour & Fortitude, and is adapted for smaller games. So I further adapted the Little Wars QRS to match version 1.5 of the rules, and it worked fine for us. You can download my revised QRS below.
Did these rules give us an enjoyable game that felt right for the period?
Well, we definitely enjoyed ourselves. The rules weren’t as frustrating as sometimes new sets can be. It was relatively simple to look up things if required (though we did comment that even such a short set of rules could do with a short alphabetical index of the main points to help find things quickly in the heat of battle).
As for Napoleonic feel, the narrative that developed as our game progressed seemed quite in keeping with our (admittedly non-expert) understanding of the period.
Did we like these rules enough to use them again?
We all agreed that these were an immensely playable set of Napoleonic rules. We just need another game or two to really get them under our belts, and then they should become almost intuitive to play. So, yes, we will definitely play Valour & Fortitude again.
And would we recommend them? I guess that depends on what sort of player you are. I suspect these rules may be a smidgen too ‘ingeniously simple’ for some of the true grognards amongst us. But if you want a simple and enjoyable set of Napoleonic rules that has the right overall feel, that enable you to play a game from go to whoa within a few hours, and that are well-supported by three designers who have immense street-cred in the wargaming community, give Valour & Fortitude a go.
Anyway, even if after trying out these completely free rules you find they’re not your cup of tea, you’ll never regret how much you had to spend on them!
I know I only posted about my painting of Captain Cook’s ‘Endeavour’ yesterday, but I have got a little behind with my blogging and there is one more painting to report on.
This is a painting of the gunboat ‘Avon’ (which could be regarded as New Zealand’s first steam-powered warship) towing the iron-clad gunboat-barge ‘Midge’. These vessels were part of Waikato River Flotilla that took part in the invasion of the Waikato district of the North Island in 1863-64.
The invasion of the Waikato was the largest and most important campaign of the 19th-century colonial New Zealand Wars. Hostilities took place between the military forces of the colonial government and a federation of Māori tribes known as the Kingitanga Movement. The invasion was aimed at crushing Kingite power (which European settlers saw as a threat to colonial authority) and also at driving Waikato Māori from their territory in readiness for occupation and settlement by European colonists.
The colonial forces were aided by the large flotilla of vessels operating on the Waikato River and its tributaries. The flotilla comprised shallow draught boats, including gunboats and barges for transporting troops and supplies, as the front line moved progressively south.
Before we look at how I went about paining my picture, here’s a quick look at the finished item.
We see the little paddle-steamer ‘Avon’ of 40 tons, 60 feet in length, and drawing 3 feet of water. She had been trading out of Lyttelton before being purchased by the government for conversion into an armoured steamer. Iron plates with loopholes were bolted inside her bulwarks, and the wheel was enclosed with an iron house. A wooden blockhouse-like structure was added later abaft the funnel to provide more protection. ‘Avon’ was armed with a 12-pounder Armstrong in the bows, as well as several rocket tubes.
‘Midge’ was one of four gunboat-barges, each 30 feet to 35 feet in length. They had been open fore-decked cutters in Auckland Harbour. They were armoured with lengths of bar iron, and in the bows of each boat was a gun-platform for a 12-pounder. Troops and supplies were put into these barges, which were towed up the rivers by steamers.
The basis for my painting is a plan view of ‘Avon’ draughted by Harry Duncan in Grant Middlemiss’s excellent book The Waikato River Gunboats.
I have previously built a small model of the ‘Avon’, using a plastic toy as a template. Whilst not completely accurate (for example, the paddle boxes are quite different) it gives a general impression of what she would have looked like.
For the background I decided to base my painting on this moody water-colour of the Waipa River by 19th-century artist Frank Wright. The Waipa was one of the Waikato River’s tributaries used by ‘Avon’ during the campaign. I’ve never visited this area, so it was important to have some reference material to ensure I captured the look and feel of the river.
Before touching any paints, I did a lot of planning with a graphics program on my computer. I photographed my little model, and superimposed it onto the Wright water-colour. I then used the program’s tools to mock up some reflections and smoke, and to add a Māori warrior on the bank. Doing this allowed me to play around with the sizing and placement of the various components until I was completely happy with the composition.
The grid was to help me transfer the finished layout onto my much larger canvas. I simply used charcoal to draw a grid of exactly the same proportions onto my canvas, and then carefully copied the contents of each square. Much easier and more accurate than trying to copy the whole picture at once!
The above slideshow takes you step-by-step through my painting process, starting with the rough background that I did with a house-painter’s brush, and finishing with the final fully detailed rendition.
So here she is, the gunboat ‘Avon’, complete with captain and crew. For figures I paint a white silhouette first, then colour it in using Games Workshop Contrast paints (I wonder if Games Workshop realise that artists could be a huge untapped market for their model paints!).
And here’s ‘Midge’ with its commander, Midshipman Foljambe. He later went on to become Governor-General of New Zealand. ‘Midge’s’ gun is behind the iron doors at the bow.
Two Māori warriors hide on the bank, waiting for their chance to take some potshots at the gunboats. Volleys from the bank were a constant danger, and in February 1864 Lieutenant William Mitchell was shot and killed as he stood on ‘Avon’s’ paddle box.
Unlike my ‘Endeavour’, a ship that has been painted many times by loads of artists, I suspect this is the only large painting in existence of either ‘Avon’ or ‘Midge’ (though they do appear in smaller size in some contemporary pictures and on the cover of Middlemiss’s book).
I’ve already had a bit of interest in my painting, but I don’t want to sell it. So I am currently investigating how to get art-quality prints produced for sale.
I’ve been doing more painting … but painting paintings, not miniatures! Well actually that isn’t quite true, as I have actually been painting miniatures as well, but they’ll be the topic of another posting.
As I develop into the hobby of painting pictures, I’m finding that I am increasingly drawn to ships and planes. I’ve already featured a few of these in earlier postings on this blog.
So let’s look at my latest efforts.
I came across a picture of a sailing ship against a sunset on an old CD cover, and thought that it would make a wonderful subject for a painting. But I also wanted my picture to tell a story.
So this is HMS Herald in 1840, sailing off Kāpiti Island on the west coast of New Zealand. She was taking Major Thomas Bunbury of the 80th Regiment around New Zealand to get as many Māori chiefs as possible to sign a copy of the Treaty of Waitangi (an agreement between the British Crown and Māori).
Off Kāpiti Island the Herald met the canoe of famed chief Te Rauparaha, who came on board and signed the treaty (actually, he signed it twice, because unknown to Bunbury, he had already signed previously!).
I was quite pleased with how the frigate came out, especially the translucence of the sails back-lit by the sunset. Though that sunset is pure artistic licence, as I don’t think the meeting between Bunbury and Te Rauparaha would have occurred in the evening!
I learned one valuable lesson from doing this painting. If you are going to tell a story, make sure the subject of that story is large enough to see. My Māori canoes are so small that some viewers don’t even see them until I point them out!
Above you can see a slideshow showing the stages of completing this painting.
My next painting is also a scene from New Zealand’s nautical history. It depicts the ships of Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, the war-yacht Heemskerck (right) and the smaller fluyt Zeehaen (left).
In 1642 Tasman was the first European to sight the shores of New Zealand. But he never landed, after a cultural misunderstanding led to four of his sailors in a ship’s boat being killed by Māori.
Painting the ornate stern of the Heemskerck was an enjoyable challenge, in which my experience of painting miniature figures really helped.
I chose to show the Heemskerck with its top-masts cropped off. I feel this makes the picture more dramatic than if I had portrayed the entire ship.
I’ve had lots of compliments about my portrayal of the sea. I was trying to get the effect of the sun glinting on the swells.
I’m also really pleased with how the fat little fluyt Zeehaen came out in the background!
Above are the stages I went through to paint these two ships.
This painting is based on an old Air New Zealand publicity photo I came across, which I figured would make an unusual painting. I must admit I was as much taken by the wonderful Morris van as with the plane itself!
I am particularly pleased with the metallic effect on the plane’s engines. This was a case of trial and error, and there are many coats of paint under the engines, each one unsuccessful until I came up with final effect.
In researching this painting, I found out more information than anyone could ever need to know about as prosaic a subject as air-stairs! For those interested, these stairs (with their natty Cadillac-style wings) were made by Hastings-Deering.
My wife worked for many years as a cabin crew member for Air New Zealand. Though I hasten to add that she isn’t old enough to have worked on this DC8 in the 1960s!
Above you can see how the DC8 picture was put together.
Finally, here is a sneak peek at my next painting. Once again, a part of New Zealand’s marine history – Her Majesty’s Bark Endeavour – the ship that Captain James Cook sailed round the coast of New Zealand in 1769.
This is still a work in progress, as the sails and rigging needs lots more work. It is also the largest work I have endeavoured to do so far (see what I did there?!) – at 28 inches across, it is twice the size of my other works.
This is kind of weird, as I never planned to build a 16th century landsknecht army. I don’t know much about the period, I have never played any games in this era, and I have no-one particularly interested in building up opponents for this army.
Nevertheless, I now find that I have sort of organically reared a moderately sized landsknecht army.
It all started with one freebie sprue of Warlord Games’ plastic landsknecht pikeman. I painted them up on a whim, and then thought, ‘Why not buy one box just to see what a pike block looks like?’
Then the one pike block grew to two, then three. And when a fellow gamer mentioned a joint club order to Old Glory, I couldn’t resist seeing how a pike block of their more animated metal landsknecht figures would look in comparison to the rather staid poses of the Warlord plastics.
Along the way I realized I also needed some hand-gunners, then some zweihänder (two-handed) swordsmen and halberdiers, a cannon, some generals … and before I knew it, a landsknecht army had grown from no-where!
So for your delectation, here are some pictures of my latest additions to this unplanned army.
I mentioned above that I had been curious to see the animation of the Old Glory landsknechts. I had heard these were one of the better ranges that Old Glory put out, and I must say I was indeed quite impressed when I received them.
Apart from a couple of the officer poses that looked over-animated to my eye, the figures in general looked pretty realistic. And boy did they convey the famous panache of that slashed and be-ribboned landsknecht clothing!
I think I must have dipped my brush into every paint-pot I own to paint these guys, and even then mixed a few additional colours myself. I am really pleased at the resulting spectacular mélange of different hues and tones.
My painting style is pretty impressionistic. So from close-up the figures look a bit messy, but they do really pop when you stand back to normal tabletop height.
I rather like the officer in red in the above picture. The flags were made from images I found on the web.
This wee fifer is one of my favourite of the Old Glory figures. He looks like he has stepped right out of a renaissance-period print. Again, my slap-dash paint style is obvious here (from the GW Contrast paints that I like to use).
Above is the third of the Warlord Games pike blocks I painted. I intended that this regiment might hail from Bavaria, thus the blue and white flags. But to tell the truth I don’t know how realistic this is (as I said, I don’t know much about the period). But it is cool to look at, and that’s all I want!
For those intrigued to know how Warlord Games and Old Glory landsknechts match up, here are a couple of comparison close-ups.
As you can see, the faces of the Warlord figures are very realistic, even with no more than just a single wash of GW Contrast flesh paint. The poses are quite static, but look very natural.
Meanwhile the Old Glory figures have very active poses, and their clothing is much fuller and more flamboyant. I had to drill their hands to take the pikes (which are plastic spears from Fireforge Games). Their faces are not quite so finely sculpted, but still capture the look of the period.
A group of halberdiers, also from Warlord. The right arms are made out of metal, so they were a bugger to attach to the plastic figures. In the end I had to pin them, which was a bit of work. But I am pleased with the result.
These figures are from the same box as the halberdiers, but equipped with the plastic zweihänder swords, so a cinch to glue on compared to the halberds.
And of course I needed some handgunners. These are mainly by Warlord, but there are a couple of Steel Fist Miniatures metal gunner in there as well.
The handgunners look great defending this scratch-built farmhouse.
The cannon is by Steel Fist Miniatures. I like the way the figures are posed pushing the gun into position (though I imagine such a large gun would actually take more than just two men to move!).
Winners of the big hat competition are these two generals, the only mounted figures in my army so far.
I am currently mulling over what type of cavalry I should get. I don’t want to go overboard (famous last words?!), so just one unit. But should they be heavily armoured gens-d’armes, or maybe some lightly armoured pistol-wielding reiters?
Whilst taking a brief pause with painting my Landsknechts (I’m waiting for an Old Glory order), I’ve returned to my other hobby of painting pictures with acrylics.
My latest three paintings have all had an aviation theme, though of a civilian nature rather than military.
My late father-in-law was a pilot with a now-defunct airline called Skyways of London. This Lockheed Constellation was one of the aircraft he flew.
The Connie is in my opinion one of the finest looking airliners ever, with its fish-shaped fuselage, triple tail and stalky undercarriage. I copied the basic shape from a photo I found online.
My picture shows the aircraft landing at Manchester Airport, recognisable by its distinctive multi-story control tower visible in the distance.
In the foreground are a trio of enthusiastic plane-spotters! Their bicycles were actually one of the hardest parts of the painting, and even now I’m not sure I’ve got the angled wheels on that left-hand bike correct.
If you’re interested in how my pictures come together, here is a step-by-step slideshow.
The colour quality changes with some of the pics, as they were taken at different times of the day. But you get to see my method of layering the different components of the painting.
This painting shows an Air New Zealand Airbus on its final approach to Wellington Airport. The passengers will be having a bouncy ride as the aircraft lands in the face of a gusty southerly wind blowing up Evans Bay!
The large fern design on the side of the fuselage was challenging to paint. Air New Zealand’s ‘koru’ logo on the tail, based on the Māori symbol of a new unfurling silver fern frond, was also quite tricky.
The Hollywood-style WELLINGTON sign on the hill is real, with its fly-away design reflecting the city’s nick-name of ‘Windy Wellington’.
My brother-in-law is an avid wind-surfer, so I sought his technical expertise in how the sail should be angled in these wind conditions.
Again, here is a step-by-step view on how I created the above painting.
And here’s another Air New Zealand Airbus arriving at the gate on a drizzly night.
I worked off plans to depict the front-on view, but it still surprised me how boxy the bottom of a sleek Airbus looks from this angle.
I thought the reflections from the anti-collision light beneath the plane would be difficult to depict, but in the end when you simplify them down, they are basically just dry-brushed orange downward strokes under the wheels, engines and fuselage.
The beam from the white taxi light worked quite well, more-or-less by accident when I haphazardly slashed in a diagonal white streak on the ground. I do have to fix the light source though, as the taxi light should be at the top of the nose wheel strut, not the bottom.
I was quite pleased with the marshaller. I’ve never been good at painting humans, but this simple view from behind came out quite well. His arms may be a little long, but that could be just an optical illusion because of his batons!
And here is the step-by-step slideshow of how I painted the layers of this picture.
I may have time to do another painting or two before my Old Glory order arrives – and I have some ideas of other interesting subjects to depict. I may even pluck up the courage to try a military painting some time. So keep watching …
DRESSING THE LINES 