A confession.

Yes, I need to start this weeks blog with a confession, I’ve been guilty of cowardice in the face of the enemy! But before I explain my sins, an update with what I have achieved in the last week. If you read last weeks blog you will know that I am working my way through some Galloping Major Mohawks Indians. After deciding that it wasn’t practical to batch paint them, I went for the one figure at a time approach. The result is that I have finished one figure – Doh!

Not exactly the progress that I was looking for. It seems that by painting one figure in isolation, I seemed to be drawn into correcting the most minor of errors, experimenting with different techniques and generally wasting time to produce a figure that whilst it is marginally better than my usual table top standard, is not going to win any prizes in a painting competition. So another readjustment is needed. Don’t misunderstand, I do want my figures to look as nice as possible but at the rate of one figure a week, it will be October 2016 before my Muskets and Tomahawks war band will be ready for the table…

Having said all of that, I have been painting some other bits and pieces. I completed another four civilians for the town of Little Bingham. These are Female civilians from Redoubt Enterprises that I picked up at the Derby Wargames show last year. As this years show is approaching, I thought that I better get them painted. My rule is that if I haven’t painted what I bought at last years show, I wont buy anything at this years show. Well traders, you can relax, I will be open to buy! The ladies were a quick paint job though. Just block painted, coated in Army painter Dark Tone to get the shading, Matt varnished and then the lighter colours re-highlighted. Little Bingham now has a population of 14!

And so to my confession. The other project that I have started is Napoleons Carriage, a really nice model from Warlord Games. When it was first released, I really fancied having a go at making and painting it. Now the observant reader will have spotted that this subject would not really fit in with my desire to have a collection of British Armies and their Allies through the ages! The plan was, however, to make the model with it’s doors open, surrounded by Prussian Hussars, capturing it just after Waterloo! Well it’s one thing to imagine these things and quite another to produce it.

The model itself is quite complex but after the pieces have been cleaned up, they do go together nicely. As you can see, the model itself builds into something quite imposing. It was at this stage that I had my wobble. I went to take my scalpel to cut the door and chickened out! I had good excuses – the resin is too delicate, the door frame will be too thin, I’m not sure where to cut it, How was it hinged… and so on. Ah well I thought, I’ll just build it as it is supposed to be. I can still have some Prussian Cavalry halting it. And then I wobbled again. What colour should the coach be? Warlord have both Green and Red versions. What about the interior? How should I paint the horses?

All good questions and all good reasons to pause. So the coach is on the work board awaiting for me to pluck up my courage and get on with it. The truth is there are three things that are really stopping me, all of them in my mind. 1. I may ruin the coach when I cut into it, spoiling the model. 2. I might choose the wrong colours because I didn’t research the subject thoroughly enough and some clever dick will point this out to me. 3. The finished result will not be good enough and wont match the perfect image in my head.

Of course, I know the answers to all of these. 1. I can always buy another one or just finish it as a battle damaged version. 2. Does it really matter, I’m not trying to create a museum piece but a talking point for the wargames table. As for clever dicks, I’ve yet to meet one that has painted his own models. 3. That’s always the case but at least I will have tried.

Right! Self talk over, where’s that scalpel!!!