Monday, 20 April 2020

Venetian knights II part 2


Four or five painting sessions haven't got me very much further, with these, I seem to be getting slower and slower, and my sessions getting shorter and shorter. :-(  But the three new horses are mostly finished, most of the older minis have been retouched and the lances on the new knights are painted. A couple more sessions should do it!

Part of the reason I've been busy is that the shop has been lively- thanks for all the orders! Any and all panic-buying of rules is most welcome as I have plenty of stock. I've notice a big upturn on sales of bases- I can see that lots of you are getting down to some serious isolation re-basing!

Also, I'm working hard with a couple of groups who are developing modules that will enable both TtS! Ancients/Medieval and FK&P to be played online,  which is very exciting! Here's a screenshot from a prototype of the TtS! game I played last week.


And below, For King and Parliament.


I'll provide more information later this week!

Monday, 13 April 2020

Venetian knights II


I've started to prepare a second unit of Venetian knights. I'm cannibalising a unit I based last year- I plan to repaint 5 of the 6 models (they weren't originally painted by me, and need some TLC), and I will add four new ones, painted from scratch, to give me a larger unit of 9. Later, I will add coustilliers to both units, which will then each become 18 strong.

I'm trying something new here- I've sprayed the horse armour and knights aluminium (a trick from Mr Imrie). I've painted the unarmoured parts of the horses and will add the armour after they are finished, which should save time and be less fiddly.  Hopefully these will take around a week to do.

In other news, some Burgundian knights are on the way from France. 


And finally, the garden is looking stunning; it is currently a mass of blossom! Yesterday I couldn't hear any traffic, at all, over the noise of the bees in the crab apple tree. Such a delight in tough times.


Monday, 6 April 2020

Swords to Ploughshares III


Garden- latest! During the current emergency I've taken a brief pause from modelling to transform the back garden into a big vegetable patch.

I conscripted all the Bat-lings this weekend, for a Big Push, and it's all starting to come together. Above are the first proper plantings- some broad beans that will hopefully grow up the tripods. Last year our crop amounted to 8 beans- this year I hope to grow kilos of them 

Below is the new main planting area, which looks like a swimming pool filled with mud. We've dug a lot of compost into it and taken a lot of stones out, and planted the first French beans in the corner. Later we will landscape around it.



Above are improvised planters with early crop potatoes in them. The cardboard boxes are what the magnetic sheets arrive here in- they are very substantial, but it remains to be seen whether or not they will survive the spring showers. Nothing much lost, if they don't.

Below is the small planter- we have onions, spring onions, spinach, peas and beetroot in there.



And finally, here is the new raised bed, pretty much as before except I took out the great big bush by the steps and its roots last week, and a couple of sacks of stones, and Harry and I dug the earth over, again. This will be where we will grow most of the root vegetables- it's too shady for much else. Later, I plan to put a water butt in the corner.

So that's where we are; this evening we sat out with a round of gin and tonics and surveyed our domain, with considerable satisfaction. I've already done more gardening than I do in most full years and it's been a comfort, in difficult times. It's going to rain tomorrow, though, and I hope to get back to the modelling! Take care, all.

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Burgundian Arquebusiers


Here are the last of the Burgundians, for the time being, a unit of skirmishing arquebusiers painted, once again, by Lionel Bechara. These Perry plastics are superb minis- feather-trimmed hats off to the brothers!

I've just realised that this is my 11th blog post in March, the most blog posts I have made in a single month since March 2016. A Covid dividend! I do hope you all stay well, out there, as I plan to do, here.

Monday, 30 March 2020

Burgundian Crossbowmen


This unit of crossbowmen is my favourite Burgundian unit, so far. The Perry plastic minis were all painted by Lionel Bechara, although I did the Little Big Men Studios pavises and (with the help of Ian Notter) the basing.

It's a most unusual unit, because it looks better from the back (below) than it does the front, where you can see the details of the reloading crossbowmen (protected by their pavises). So I will be able to enjoy both the appearance of the unit and the effect of its shooting!



Above; lovely painting by Lionel! Below, I used the flag image from the Perry box.



Finally, you can see I've again used three of my favourite FK&P6 bases, so that I can field the unit either on a 15cm or on a 20cm grid. From this angle, you might also be able to make out the arrows stuck in the ground and pavises.

Sunday, 29 March 2020

Swords to ploughshares II



Here's the second in what will be a very occasional series of posts on the garden work that I'm doing when I really should be basing minis.  ;-)  The plan is to grow tons of vegetables that we can eat or give way in the summer/autumn/winter of Covid.

Above is the new small terrain feature (=vegetable patch). This is shady, so it'll only suit root vegetables. We took tons of rock, stones and roots out of this.  That bush got chopped, this afternoon.


And above is the new two-box terrain feature; a massive 16' x 8' potato bed, on the site of a long-defunct play area formerly covered in gravel. The soil here is really cloggy, since there's lots of clay mixed in and poor drainage table, so it qualifies as rough ground. This was an absolute back-breaker; we found a stone path buried 6" under the surface, that we had to remove. I bought a cheap rotavator from Aldi, that worked wonders on breaking up the clumps of soil.


And last (and least) a trough that we built last year, when Covid was but a glint in the Grim Reaper's eye. Although small, this proved fertile ground for green beans and lettuces. 

So the hardest part of the work is done and I hope to get back to writing, next week, interspersed with a little digging and planting. And some modelling. Huzzah! 

In other news, if you play TtS!, there's a new version of Even Stronger! out, you can download it from here:

Wednesday, 25 March 2020

Blue horsemen


Here are some minis I bought on eBay a while back, and retouched and rebased. They are a somewhat generic troop of Late c.17th horse, that I'll later expand to a full unit. I'm not sure what I'll use them for, exactly, perhaps militia; I've not come across a regiment that is recorded as having worn uniforms in these colours. They are a tough-looking bunch! Front Rank Minis, of course.