Blazing brushes!

A full day of painting!



First horses manes tails and bridles.



Then all shakos, helmets, bicornes and (just so that Jeff will remember!) Bonaparte's tricorne.

Then in the afternoon, a set of time for shabraques, and mid-tones on all tunics and dolmans.



Finnally this evening the facings, vests much of the plumes and turnbacks all got their colors.



All that remains is the 'higlights' and detail finishing.

I may yet get all this done in December!

Trying a new thing for the blog with a template change, since many had complained about the dark background and similarly dark text on it.

Along with the change I am trying this 'new' background image.

I will upload it here and see if all works!

All undercoats done.



With a day of relative calm, and no more rampaging sickness in the house, I managed to get all the undercoats done.




The block colors on all minis are in place and, provided the calm continues, I may have this batch of troops done by Saturday.



Enjoy the pics.

The 'under coat' colors and all the greens have been done.



Then Daddy daycare took over a while.





Then I got to the faces of all the troops, Bony and the boys.



I started on the inking process, but a crying baby son took up the balance of the night.

Gingerbread House

We started a new family tradition this year.



This was the first creation.

'nuff said.

Festive celebrations cause the 'interrupt', along with a dose of winter flu (just for fun).

I did manage to get a first layer on all the mounts, and green onto most of the units tunics that call for it as ta base color (almost all of them).


Still more green to do and of course all the horses.

This will come in the next 2 days, with a suitable gap (in the real world problems) and I may even see all the horse done and a major lump on the riders.

Been studying more on Murat, and I think this image sums up the plans for him.

Merry Ho-HO and a happy Hiccup!

No brushwork done yet, as the Empress Dragoons needed to have the saddles 'ground-down' otherwise the riders would all be 'canted forwards' over their mounts.

Since I needed to wait for the glue to dry on them I thought I would also 'grind-out' the saddles and extras on the dozen mounts needed for the squadron of "BIG BOOTS" French Grenadiers a cheval. The riders are already painted Hinchcliffe models I got off eBay for about $0.25 per fig. All that they needed were a dozen horses. So I have cast them and now need to clean and modify the mounts since the Prince August figs have the riders without saddles and Hinchcliffe has the riders and saddles together.


I have painted Bonaparte before, in 15mm, so I thought this might be as good a place as any to show off my older brushwork and mention the Waterloo Campaign Game(s) that I have run in the past.

The game is loosely based on Napoleon, as designed by Tom Dalgleish, now of Columbia Games. With the borrowed map and move concept. The battles are then faught-out using my own De Bellis Napoleone (basically a Hordes of the Things - with mods), the players give general battlefield directions based on a map and a 3-d 'picture' that gets sent to them. All games are played out via email.

The images here are of a battlefield in action from the 1st version of the game played in 2002.

A big thank-you to Stokes for the counter idea and now the MarauderS page has a nifty little counter in it also.


Started at 0 on December 18, 2006.

Challenge of challenges!

I have started on the December plan of painting Napoleon Bonaparte, Marshals Murat, Soult, Ney and some ADC's

Just in case I cannot find the energy to face the painting of these Grand Armee Commanders I also have 4 units of Dragoons one of Empress Dragoons and one of Imperial Guard Chasseurs as well as 10 Russian batteries with 30 gunners and 6 Russian Horse gunners (to man the two 'extra' guns from the former Russian Guard Batteries).

I'll now see if some pictures can be added to this new blog.

This posting was tried about a week ago and was drafted much, much better than this one - sorry I have been frustrated by the constant refusals of the system to accept my posting(s) and pictures. I'll be sure to 'improve' once the postings continue to be 'accepted'.

Cheers

Still trying to get a posting to work under the 'beta' version.

Hope this one goes thru.

Did not get much done on the minis over the weekend as I needed to solve other real world problems.

Sigh, if the real world would just stop getting in the way I could have more fun!

The Russian Cavalry

Last post before the gloss coat.

This time some more pics, closer view.

Enjoy!

Russian Cavalry Finale!

So now the grand total:

Dragoon Officer of the Russian Imperial Guards : 1 Officer and horse
Dragoons (in white trousers) with white collar and epaulette: 12 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.
Dragoons (in blue trousers) with yellow collar and epaulette: 12 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.
Dragoons (in blue trousers) with red collar and epaulette: 12 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.
Dragoons (in blue trousers) with blue collar and epaulette: 12 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.
Cossack Officer of the Russian Imperial Guards : 1 Officer and horse
Cossacks in blue coats: 12 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.
Cossacks in red coats: 12 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.
Hussar Officer of the Russian Imperial Guards : 1 Officer and horse
Hussars in red and blue: 8 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.
Hussars in brown and red: 8 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.
Uhulans: 4 troopers and mounts with 1 'blown' riderless horse.

Final total : 95 riders and 104 horses for a Grand total of 199 miniatures completed between November 10 and 30.

Only need to get the glue to set before I can gloss coat with the minwax.

This first series of pictures shows the 'overall view' of all the troops, first on the painting rack in my office, then on a table to show the size of the minis after they have been 'glued' to their mounts.


If you look on the left-hand side of the rack you can see the church that has been in progress since August.

Blazing Brushes!

I managed to get all the lace on the Hussars done, all the belts and straps, as well as the collars, turnbacks and epaulettes done on all the Dragoons. With the Horses, all the shabraques and valises have also been painted in.


Only the horse furniture and some 'blazes' as well as 'touch-ups' on the remaining riders needs to be done!

104 Cavalrymen and horses are almost done in the month of November!

I am so close to the challenge I set I can see it finishing on time!

New Ceramic Christmas Building!

It looked actually good when I used it in a game today!

The building is a ceramic, fully painted one that retailed for $14.00.

I was a bit skeptical about how well it would do in the military context of the tabletop, so I decided to 'try it on the dog' in a game that became suddenly available today.



We have had a major snow-fall around here so only the new young neighbor, my son and I were in the contest, which ran to the full time after over 12 turns!

I'll include a few other pics as well...



Cheers

Daddy Daycare,

OK really night-care; once again I have the 3 boys to care for, I also have the club newsletter to draft, formulate, edit and prepare for printing next week.

Along the way I have noted that I did not enter a link for Larry Leadhead on the blog here.

I will enter it next, however there are a few really good ones in the archives right now!

Check them all out at Larry Leadhead

Cheers!

Dragoons catch-up:

With about an hour and a half available I was able to paint in the belts, and gloves of all the Dragoons and brushed in the middle-blue layer on all their trousers.

Since white is the feature color of one unit of the dragoons I also managed to get their trousers to the middle-level of color.

A bit more was done on the Hussars and Cossacks, bringing much of the 104 cavalry to a point that could see them finished by next week!

Cheers

Brushus interruptus...


I had managed to set aside time to get loads done on the Russian Cavalry.

Green highlights, blue mid-tones, red top-coats on the Cossack Kaftans and Hussar Dolmans/Pellises were all finished.

I had started on the Dragoon blue-grey upper layers and the white belts/gloves were started when my wife got the emergency call-in to work to help solve an emergent situation.

BANG!

Back to daddy daycare.

I am typing this in stages as my 11 month old keeps taking his 'turn' at the keys.

Sigh.

Enjoy the pics.

p.s. oh an now my page is in 'beta'?

Joined the wargames webring.

I had actually connected to it many times, but now I've finally got the code for inputting the ring link onto the blog.

Not much painting done recently, I was under the weather yesterday, now the rest of the family is having their turn...sigh.

Inking layers done!

Now the horses all have their ink layers.

I also inked the faces and the green jackets and shabraques of the Russian Dragoons.

I filled in the red of the pliesses of the Hussar unit and Dolmans of the Russian Guard Cossacks (well I am painting them that way).

Still need to do the magenta on the red coats, but they need time to dry and I need to eat...

Enjoy the pics

Cheers

Colour Layer time:

Today the horses take a back seat as the undercoat colour layers have been put on for the Greens, Blues and Reds.

I have included a third pic this time as the red undercoat is 'light blue' so that I can demo my 'crimson/red' method.

Cheers