Whats on the work bench? – Page 18

Warlord Hanoverian Infantry

After a short break from Napoleonics, I decided to get back on track with my British contingent. However, the German influence remains! Having finished the Prussian infantry for the time being, I am moving onto Hanoverians! The plan is to complete the British 6th Infantry Division as they appeared at Waterloo. Which means that I need to paint 4 battalions of Hanoverian Landwehr to make the 4th Hanoverian Brigade that was one half of the division. The Other half was made up of 3 British Battalions, the 4th Kings Own, 27th Inniskillings, and the 40th Sommersets. ( There was a forth battalion, the 81st, but they were left in Brussels).

I already have completed the 4th, 27th and Verden Landwehr and so need to paint three more Landwehr battalions, the Luneberg, Munden and Osterode, a total of 72 figures. I’ve decided to use the Warlord Games Hanoverian boxed set and use the flat peaked field caps for two of the battalions, the other will be in Stovepipe shakos for a bit of difference.

2014-08-28 11.04.46 The Warlord figures are nice and straight forward to put together and have very little flash to worry about. A bit of cleaning with a file & a scrape with a knife and they are ready for undercoating. Here’s the first batch of 5 ready to be sprayed.

I’m going to use army painter grey spray for the undercoat. This will save time painting the trousers & blanket rolls and the grey takes the red for the jackets better than the other way around. I wont base them at this stage, the small bases that they are on will be good enough to hold whilst painting although I know that the ‘professionals’ would mount them on temporary bases. I am going to be batch painting a large amount again, so I’m happy to work with them as they are. It will also allow me to base them as fours on larger 40mm square bases once they are completed. As always, for my painting guide, I use the Mont st Jean site, which gives a nice clear picture of how to paint my figures. LandwehrHanovre

The reference material supplied with the warlord set is also very good as well. The point is made in the leaflet that not too many hard facts survive regarding the exact details of the Landwehr uniform but from the research that I have done, I wont be too far out following these colours. I suspect having the battalion in field caps is a stretch, regarding accuracy, but as I have said , it will make for a bit of difference on the battlefield and help to differentiate the battalions. As for flags, there is even less information, so I’ll use a bit of licence when solving this problem! One final thought, The Hanoverian Landwehr didn’t have flank companies but the warlord include figures with flank epaulets. Technically, I need to remove these but I suspect that I’ll just paint them when the time comes….

If You Go Down To The Woods…..

Once again, I find that my modelling and painting activities are taking a back seat and I have had very limited time to get to paint anything. I have managed to get the to Bear Cubs finished though. As I mentioned before, we will be adding these to the DeeZee range – I hope to have production started on these in the next fortnight, subject to the production moulds being completed.

The Bear cubs are a bit on the large size, even for giant Ice Age bears and to be fair, are more like juveniles than cubs. They look cute enough, though, and make an interesting addition to the range. The paint scheme was quick and easy enough, just a base coat of chocolate brown and then a number of dry brush highlights using increasing amounts of light brown. The noses, claws & eyes were picked out in black and then the eyes given a coat of gloss varnish. I’ve added a few flowers onto the base to represent the bears in spring time (not that I need an excuse to add flowers – most of my bases feature these, much to the amusement of my gaming buddies!) So the Bears are done. Onto the next batch of neanderthals!

What’s on the Workbench 28 August 2014

After nearly 3 weeks away from my workbench, I was actually pleased that we had a miserable wet Bank Holiday! I was able to sneak off and at last get some painting done! I was still persisting with my Prussian Brigade. The last figures that needed painting were the Volunteer Jaeger that come with the Perry’s Prussian infantry set. I didn’t do my usual research on these figures regarding uniforms but just relied on the artwork supplied in the boxed set ( which is usually very good anyway!).

Prussian Volunteer Jaeger

For some reason, I didn’t enjoy painting these figures as much as usual. I suspect that I have become a bit jaded with Prussians! Regardless, I pressed on and finished them as I thought best, with green jackets, yellow facings ( for Silesia), and equipment colours as the rest of my Prussians. Here are the figures based & ready for battle tonight!

As well as finishing these figures I started to prepare another batch ready for painting. I am working my way through the DeeZee range at the moment. Although we have painted examples of the full range now, some of them are quite old and since we acquired the range, I have been gradually painting examples. As well as giving me a few more display pieces it also helps me to understand how to paint the models so that I will be able to advise customers in the future. We also have some new models in the pipeline – we’ve already released the Baby Mammoth so next up we have some Juvenile or Baby bears! Here they are undercoated ready for painting. At some point in the future I’ll do an update on the DeeZee range and where we are going with it. The other little project on the go is my band of Neanderthals. Sculpted by Steve Saleh at Lucid Eye, these figures are the second pack to be released. There is a slight glitch in production as Steve has moved jobs but we hope to solve this soon. The Lucid Eye range fits nicely in with the Deezee Range, We have the animals, Steve will supply the Hunters ( or hunted!), so we hope that we can work with Steve to keep the range in production and growing. Here’s the pics: 2014-08-28 11.03.52

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It’s too darned hot!

I’m not really complaining about the weather, honest! I’ve been away on holiday to Crete and it was a lot hotter there! Of course the difference was that I didn’t have to go to work and the only time I spent on my hobby was to do some holiday reading. As well as reading the latest Bernard Cornwell historical novel (‘Pagan Lord’), and for a complete change, the latest Lee Child thriller ( ‘Never Go Back’), I also managed to fit in Alessandro Barberos’ book, ‘The Battle – A History of the Battle of Waterloo’. It’s every bit of a page turner as the the other two and just as exciting! As with all good history books it combines the facts with the narrative of the Battle, told from the perspective of those that were there. If you haven’t read this book , then I’m happy to recommend that you add it to your holiday reading list!

Prussian Command So over the last three weeks or so, progress on my projects have been slow to say the least. The hot weather brings other distractions and it doesn’t help that the paint was drying faster on the pallete than on the figures that I was painting. But work on the Prussians has progressed. I’ve finished an Officer & a sergeant and I also now have my Brigade Commanders completed. So I do have a Prussian brigade of Infantry that I can field in my next battle. Of course the brigade isn’t finished… I could do with completing the Jaeger as skirmishers that come with the set. I’ve started to assemble them but I have had problems with the arm holding the rifle on these figures. It seems that the rifle is a weak point and the rifle butt has snapped off on a couple of my figures. So I have decided to do a couple of minor conversions & replace the broken rifle arm with a musket arm from the Victrix British set. This does mean a bit of filing & filling with green stuff – the shoulder wings need removing, as does the piping on the cuffs and I’ve remodelled the cuff to match the other one. Apart from being a fidley job , it’s not too difficult. I don’t think that the musket rather than a rifle is too much of a problem, I am sure that there were jaegers with both. So that’s about it for this weeks blog – I’m off for a cold drink of something…..

Jaeger conversion

What’s on the Work Bench 26th June 2014

Landwehr With Muskets at trail

A couple of projects are moving towards completion. First of all the Prussian Brigade is slowly getting there. I have been painting another 10 Prussian Landwehr to complete the second Landwehr Battalion. These are Warlord Games metal Prussians running with Muskets at the trail. It means that I have a bit of variety with my troops and I hope that when these are mixed with the casualty figures already painted, there will be a bit of a story being told, with the officer ordering the advance in the face of enemy fire. I know that some wargamers like to have their models in similar poses and certainly for the sake of quickness, this helps when painting. I prefer some of my models to look a bit different, so I’m quite happy to mix it up a bit!

Landwehr Advance!

So, although I have painted 94 Prussian Infantry & Landwehr figures, the brigade is still not quite there! I have sent for a separate Prussian Infantry command sprue from the Perry’s – this will allow me to complete the 2nd battalion of the infantry. I also have a couple of Prussian Generals from Foundry to paint to make up the Brigade command. At this point, the Brigade will be ready to take to the wargames table but of course there is always more to add but at least I have the main rank & file done!

Sarissa Dark Age Church

As a break from painting figures, I thought that I would make a start on a church for ‘Little Bingham’, the fictious village that occupies my wargames table when it is not in use! I have a test piece from Sarissa, the Dark Age Church, and I thought that this would make a nice addition if painted up. So, to start, I just sprayed the walls of the Church with a Textured spray bought from B&Q. I first masked off the door, but otherwise just carefully sprayed over the MDF. I was quite pleased to see that despite the thickness of the spray, some of the MDF etching & detail still was visible even the fine detail around the windows.

Church window detail

I then just painted the roof tiles with a dark grey Vallejo paint. Again, the detail of the tiles are still visible. So the next step is to weather the the walls & roof with a quick dry brush & add some Ivy & moss. Hopefully, it will be finished for the next workbench!

What’s on the Workbench 14th June 2014

Napoleonic Gun Boat!

Somewhat encouraged by the news that Northstar Games, in conjunction with Osprey, will be releasing a new rules set for Pirates – ‘On the Seven Seas’ I cracked on with my gun boat project and here is the finished result.

All the crew painted and facing the right way!

Gunboat from the Bow

I painted the crew in dark Prussian Blue Jackets with off white trousers. Although there wasn’t a formal uniform as such, most sailors were kitted out this way. The head gear would have varied and of course the shirts & neck ties could all have been different. I have gone for a fairly straight forward colour scheme with a few red & light blue neck ties to brighten things up. The Marines were of course in uniform. I have used an Osprey reference guide and painted them with the standard red coats, Black ( Navy Blue in reality I think!) facings, off white trousers and white lace. All colours are from the vallejo model colour range. So for the time being, this model will sit in my cabinet to await the Osprey rules set. I suspect that I wont be able to use the boat but it will provide a nice bit of scenery. Although the rules are set in the 1600’s when pirates were in the ascendancy, I’m sure there will be a chance to modify the rules to incorporate these more ‘modern’ chaps! I plan to expand my naval force with a detachment of Marines, supplemented with some sailors to make a good sized shore party.

So, it’s back to the Napoleonic Army again, and of course on with my Prussians!

What’s on the workbench 8 June 2014

With the onset of summer (allegedly!), my painting seems to slow up, and as I’ve mentioned before it’s not fast to start with. So progress on the various projects is hampered by the need to mow the lawn, weed the borders, power wash the patio, wash down the garden furniture, clean up the barbeque, light the barbeque, cook the burgers, open the beer, drink the beer, drink the beer, drink the beer….you get the picture!

Ice Age Range!

But the baby mammoth has his tusks now and has joined the rest of the herd! If you would like one, he is now available as part of the DeeZee range. We’ve also added in the Lucid Eye Neanderthals and the Bestial huts, so if you would like to start building your own Ice Age collection, it’s all in one place now!

I’ve also made some progress with my gun boat, with the oarsmen almost finished, leaving just the marines to complete. The gun boat is one of those models that looks better from a distance. I mentioned that the crew needed quite a bit of work on them but some of the detail hasn’t cast too well and this is more obvious close up when the mini’s were painted. Still, the model will make a nice centre piece for my growing Caribbean collection.

Gun Boat & Crew

Incidentally, there is a big mistake with the positioning of my oarsmen on the gun boat! I hadn’t spotted it until I was looking at my own picture and it is just as well because they would have been glued in as they are. If you haven’t spotted it, I’ve got the oarsmen facing the wrong way! They should be facing the stern not the bow!

Also on the work bench is the last of my Prussian Landwehr troops. These are more metals from Warlord and will finish off the final battalion, giving me two battalions in total.

So over the next week, World Cup Football and Barbeques permitting, the plan is to complete at least one of these projects, not least because I am eager to get to work on the new Hanoverians from Warlord!

Whats on the Workbench 29th May

Gun Boat!

Oh dear! I’ve been distracted from finishing off one project by the lure of something more interesting…..

I guess it’s a common occurrence and it explains why most of us in the hobby have a ‘lead mountain’ lurking around in a secret location. A bit like the Wife’s handbag and shoe collection…

Well, last year, at the Derby war games show I saw a lovely model of a naval gunboat and thought that it would make a nice addition to my collection. I justified buying it as I could use it in the Caribbean campaign that I will one day play. Having had the instant gratification of buying it and showing it off to my mate, once home it went up onto the shelf – ‘for later’.

Well, I was tidying around in the garage this wet bank holiday weekend and came across it. What a great little project to complete, I thought. It wont take long as the uniforms are pretty straight forward to paint and they use a similar colour scheme to the Prussians, so I might as well have ago at finishing it. 2014-05-25 18.01.28

Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple. The figures weren’t quite as cleanly molded as I would like. Now I dont mind doing a bit of cleaning up, scraping down mold lines , getting rid of flash etc. – but these figures were just hard work! In fact, rather than cleaning up, it felt at times that I was re-sculpting them….Nevertheless, I persevered and I did make some progress. In fact, actually, the figures turned out to be quite nice and when put all together on the boat, do make a nice model. So the boat and the crew are finished. Just 5 marines and the ten oarsmen to go. So much for a quick project….

The full crew awaiting painting…

What’s on the Workbench 22 May 2014

Landwher Casualties

Despite a busy couple of weeks, including a short break in Belgium ( more on that later!) I did manage to finish off the 5 Prussian Landwehr casualties – not literally, of course – but they are now painted and based and ready to join their unit. The figures have been painted with the following Vallejo Paints:

Face & hands – Flat Flesh 955; Hats & coats – Dark Prussian Blue 899; Boots, Hat detail & cartridge case – Black 950; Musket straps, packs & equipment detail – Leather brown 871; Misc. equipment – Iraqi Sand 819, Powder horns – Dark yellow 978; Musket Stocks – Flat Brown 984; musket barrels, buttons & other detail – natural steel 864, Detail on muskets & straps – brass 801; Trousers & Straps – Off white 820; Blankets – neutral grey 992.

As these figures are from the Silesian Region, I gave them Yellow facings (yellow 953) and red shoulder tabs (Flat red 957). Technically, the colour of the tabs should vary by battalion, but I like the red & decided to go with this scheme with all my troops. The only other variations were the hair colouring – I just use a random mix of brown & blond! Oh! and one of the figures has light brown (Val929) trousers.

Once the basic colours

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were on, I painted them with Army Painter Dark tone and when this had dried for 24 hours, I sprayed them with Army Painter Anti shine varnish

I then go back and highlight some of the colours to make them stand out, notably, the white, yellow & flesh and I finish the bayonets with a bright silver ( val 997).

For basing, I re-based all the figures on Renedra 20mm square bases. I use a filler to level out the bases & then paint them chocolate brown. The next stage is to cover with Forest Brown scatter & then Flower field Static grass. The final step is to add some flowered and plain grass tufts for a bit of interest on the bases. The final picture shows three of the figures with their battalion as they advance into battle!

As a final thought, whilst I was over in Belgium, I visited the Battlefield at Waterloo and of course a full report will follow; but it only seems appropriate to include a picture of the memorial to the brave Prussian soldiers that fell during the battle for Plancenoit. prussian memorial at plancenoit

What’s on the Workbench 15th May 2014

Well, last week it was the Prussians and if all goes to plan they should be finished for next weeks post. This week, there is something different to show you, a baby mammoth- aaaah! We are gradually rebuilding the DeeZee range of animals and have had two

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new models sculpted by our very good friend Cedric. The first one is of the baby mammoth. Here’s the little darling being painted. I’ve still got the tusks to add and some more detail to add to the base but you can get an idea of how she (he?) will look when finished.

Once I’ve finished the baby, I’ll publish some pictures on the blog with the rest of the mammoths that we stock. The idea is to create a herd of mammoths for another project that we have on the go…….

Watch out for more information in the coming year and also for the next cute releases in the DeeZee range….

What’s on the workbench? 8th May 2014

It’s been a while since I have managed to to add to my blog in any regular fashion. I’m afraid that I have had other distractions that have prevented me from writing a regular blog – just finding some time to actually paint & do some modelling has been a challenge. I hope that this has now changed and I now have both the time and the facilities to keep my blog up to date. Of course as well as keeping me amused whilst writing the blog, I hope that there will be some content that is useful to anyone who is good enough to spare the time to have a look at my musings….

I thought that one way of giving some continuity to the blog would be to show just what I am working on at the moment. The danger being that some of my projects drag on as I am not the fastest when it comes to modelling & painting. As I usually have three or four projects on the go at any one time. I will perhaps alternate between a couple over the weeks. So what is on the workbench at the moment?

Prussian Landwehr Casulaties from Warlord Games

I’m working on Prussian Landwehr at the moment. I am in the process of building a Prussian Brigade for my Black Powder games and I need to add a couple of units of Landwehr to the brigade. I already have two command groups painted, as well as 30 marching troops ( The Warlord games plastic boxed set). I’ll need another 15 troops to be able to make up two battalions of 24. Rather than just buy some more of the marching troops, I thought that I would add in some Prussian Landwehr Casualties for a bit of flavour! The picture shows my progress so far. They have been cleaned up, undercoated & received the base coat of Flesh & dark Prussian blue. I’ve added a picture to give you an idea as to how they will look when they are completed an added to the unit. Of course they are on temporary bases at the moment, so they should look a bit better once the painting & basing is complete! Prussian Landwehr advance into fire!

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