August 2019 – ARCANE Scenery and Models

The ‘Other Partizan’ show at Newark goes from strength to strength in it’s new location at the Newark Show Ground and under the steady stewardship of the organisors, Laurence Baldwin and Richard Tyndall. This will be the last time that the show will run in August – it moves to October for next year. This can only be an improvement as far I can see. The summer slot has meant that it can get rather too warm in parts of the exhibition hall when the sun is at full strength and there are other pressures on both traders and visitors, in the form of Holidays, that get in the way of attendance. October should be less of a problem with regards to temperature and it is a great time to get back to your hobby with the nights drawing in and fewer distractions elsewhere. That said, with over 800 people through the doors this year, attendance is not a problem!

Iceni and Trinovantes meet the romans in battle! A most impressive display!

Iceni and Trinovantes – some of the detail was fantastic!

It was the first time in years that I was there as a customer rather than a trader. We have an arrangement with Sarissa Precision to take some of our ranges to shows, so Sarissa were doing the hard work whilst I loafed around at the show! It was a pleasure to wander around the games and chat to friends without having to look over my shoulder at what was going on at my stand. I stayed the full day, fueling up on coffee and other refreshments at the excellent catering facilities in the hall. The show has a nice friendly atmosphere, there’s plenty of space, even with such a good attendance. The lighting is excellent, so you can see just how much work has gone into painting the miniatures on display. Free car parking, as well and easy access is a nice bonus! The great strength of the show is it’s consistency, so that you know which traders will be there, enabling you to plan your purchases. That said, it was good to see a couple of new traders and one in particular, ABC brushes, managed to prise open my wallet!

55 Minutes in Peking! By Victorious Miniatures

The format of having the inspirational demonstration games ( look but dont touch) at one end of the hall and most of the participation games at the other end made it clear where you could join in and roll some dice. That said, I find that the guys playing the demo games to be very welcoming and open to conversation. I think that it would help if the participation games were on smaller tables and had clearer ‘guest’ seating. Some sort of indication as to how long the game would take would also help. I found that I didn’t engage as much with the participation games as I didn’t know how long I would be committed to a particular game. Perhaps some of the manufacturers could persuaded to move their games into this area. Mind you, it’s easy to come up with ideas but as a trader, I know how much time and effort goes into just getting the stand to the show and manning it without having to find the resources to run a ‘remote’ demo. You also want your customers to be able to see that the product on the table is available to purchase. So I am mindful that as a spectator, my observations are at odds with playing on the pitch, so to speak!

Blood and Plunder – Leicester Phat Cats

Without wishing to be controversial, I actually think that from a Historical Gamers point of view, the Partisan shows are superior to Salute, with quality winning over quantity. The relaxed, friendly atmosphere, easy free parking and access, great selection of traders (yes I am biased here!), great showcase of historical games, a history resource area and good value refreshments mean that you will have an enjoyable day with more of your money spent on your hobby rather than the logistics of being there. If you can make a weekend of it, there is plenty of History around Newark to absorb you, from the Newark Aviation Museum (which is next to the Newark showground) to the Town of Newark itself, cradle of the English Civil War! Oh, and Stokes field down the road, if you fancy a bit of WOTR history. With Games Workshop in Nottingham, about 40 minutes drive away, you can even scratch your fantasy and 40K itch, so to speak!

Detail from the Battle of Madonna Dell’ Olmo

I’ve posted a selection of the games that caught my eye through out the blog post and below. They are only a small selection of the games on show and really don’t show half of what is there. The pictures do not do justice to some of the larger games. A really great day out for me and I’m very much looking forward to the next Partizan. If you can get there, you will not be disappointed!

The Great Northern War

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

If you are unable to get to a show, don’t worry, at Arcane Scenery we have a huge selection of products to help you with your hobby and even better we send your order out post free, to most world wide locations! You can see our shop here:

ARCANE SCENERY SHOP

To keep up to date with the partizan Shows, visit their web page here:

PARTIZAN SHOW

To see the Wargames Illustrated Video of the show, click here:

WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED TOP GUIDE

Dan, the owner and editor of WI showing off his steady cam skills!

Happy Modelling!

It’s been nearly three weeks since my last blog but I have been busy with all sorts of projects. As far as my War of the Roses project goes, The heavy cavalry are now complete – I have 12 ready for action. I have also built 12 Crossbowmen, 6 Handgunners and 10 more pikemen as well as painting 12 Pavises for the crossbowmen. I’ll write an update on this project in a future blog along with a report on the playtesting of ‘Nevermind the Billhooks’ – the WOTR rules set that Andy C. is developing.

Likewise, my Napoleonic project continues, with the next 12 highlanders, representing the Black watch, primed and the batch paint is underway. I use any ‘spare’ time to add colour to these until I get to the tricky tartan bit, when they will get my full attention!

Batch paint on Black watch with pavises in the foreground

I have been distracted by the latest addition to the DeeZee range. Not so much a new item as a re working of an old one. The mold on the Charging Rhino DZ8 was beginning to burn out, so we took the opportunity to re do the master and put the model into resin. I dont think that it’s a secret that we have a very good working relationship with the folks at Footsore and the master Resin Caster, Vince, was happy to take this on as a project. I was delighted with the results and the detail of the model shows much better in resin than it did in metal.

DZ08 Whoolly Rhino Charging - now in resin

DZ08 Woolly Rhino Charging – now in resin

This coincided with the production of the first ‘shots’ of the new range of DeeZee cavemen that we have commissioned. They are being sculpted for us by the very talented Matt Lupus, of Knuckle Bone miniatures. So I had a good reason to ‘park’ both the WOTR and Napoleonic projects and move further back into history to paint some cavemen and a Woolly Rhino!

Cavemen and Whooly Rhino primed and ready to paint!

Cavemen and Whooly Rhino primed in Leather brown and ready to paint!

I will write a future blog explaining what we are doing with the cavemen – for now, I’ll just say that there will be 10 cavemen in the initial release and of course if they sell well, we will add to the range. It’s a new venture for us and once the figures are available for production, I will be pleased to show them off in full! For now, I’ll focus on the Rhino and tease you with them in the pictures as I was working on them at the same time as the Rhino!

Fur now painted Chocolate Brown.

Once the Rhino had been primed with Army Painter Leather Brown, I painted the fur with Vallejo Chocolate Brown 70872.

Flat Brown Dry Brush

Using a large flat brush, I then gave the Rhino fur a heavy dry brush in Flat Brown 70984.

Fur Highlighted by dry brushing.

The picture above shows the rhino with his fur highlighted again with Flat Earth 70983, then Orange Brown 70981 and finally a light dry brush with Orange Brown lightened with Green Ochre 70914. I used the same large flat brush for all the dry brush coats. The toe nails were then picked out with Black Grey 70862 and the Horn painted with Iraqui sand 70819. I added some ink to the inner ear and around the legs to give these areas more definition. Incidentally, the horn should probably be the same or a similar dark colour to the Rhino fur as it is not really bone but I wanted the horns to stand out on the model!

Basing The Woolly Rhino

I gave the horn a brush over with Ivory 70918 and painted the eyes black 70850. The rhino was then mounted on a Sarissa MDF base and using Vallejo Dark Earth Texture paste, blended in. The large ‘rocks’ are small stones from the garden, the smaller grit is ballast from the Woodlands scenic range.

Base painted with Emulsion.

I used my tried and trusted basing routine to finish off. The base was painted with Matt Emulsion – Dehli Baazar and highlighted with dry brush coats mixed with Iraqui sand. I’ve covered how and why I use Emulsion paints for basing in a previous blog here:

DONT JUST DO IT…

It was then just a case of adding some Woodlands Scenics green scatter to the base ( I had decided on a Spring time look rather than Winter!).

Grass added to the base

I had also toned down the brightness of the horn by painting with Army Painter Soft Tone – this also brought out the detail at the base of the horn.

Gamers Grass Tufts added to base.

Finally, I added a mixture of Gamers Grass tufts to the base to finish things off. I’m quite pleased at how he looks and also how straight forward the Rhino was to paint.

Woolly Rhino completed and based.

As for the cavemen…all being well, I expect to have them in production for late September – watch this space for more details. In the meantime, they are off to catch their dinner!