Unfortunately, being jolly and the serious work of painting miniatures don’t always go together. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m not cheerful or happy when I’m painting – far from it! It’s just that after a couple of Jack Daniels or a glass of beer, my concentration seems to go along with any ability to paint between the lines! So if the socialising at this time of year gets in the way, so does the logistics of getting ready for Christmas. It seems that we have been on the Christmas countdown since October and things are now reaching crisis point. ‘Oh my God, it’s the 10th of December and we haven’t got our tree yet’ is the latest distraction and it’s difficult to slide off to the garage to do some painting when quite clearly there are more important things to do. Personally, I’d prefer to fit this Christmas malarkey around my hobby rather than the other way around but being a wargaming Grinch isn’t really an option, especially when the wife plays the Granddaughter card!
Napoleons Coach – brass trim added
So the opening paragraph is really my apology for making very little progress with modelling and painting in general and Napoleons coach in particular. You can see from the shaky picture above that I have added the gold trim, painted the lights and the trunk at the rear of the coach. I’ve also repainted the green using Vallejo Reflective green although something has gone wrong with the wheels. Whether it is the different under coat or I’ve just picked up the wrong paint ( Jack Daniels effect), the rear wheels definitely look different to the rest of the coach.
Napoleons coach close up
So it’s back to the paint table and another coat of green. I’m also very tempted to paint the wooden Chassis green, just leaving the springs and metal work in black. Of course the real difference will come when I start the shading and highlighting. A dry brush over the main colours followed by a light ink wash will help. However, I think that what is really needed, is a good solid session of at least half a day working on the coach rather than the odd 15minutes here and there. On that basis, I cant see Napoleon in his coach this side of Christmas, so the good news is that it may be sometime before the next Coach blog article….