A Temporary Distraction

With life getting back to some level of normality now that we have moved out of our lockdown here in New Zealand (social distancing is gone and only the borders remain closed now), I have felt the need for a break from painting American Civil War infantry and I have spent this week painting some resin buildings for a friend.

The first is one of two Hovels pieces. This is what they call the “Old Country Farmhouse”. It is quite a nice piece and well cast.

The second piece is a fairly random piece of table decoration. I think it is a beehive with a dead tree and a few pieces of  hedge and wicker fencing. A perfect place as my friend says to hide a few dragoons or a sniper. I am not sure who the manufacturer is, but it looks like a Acheson Design piece.

The third piece is a timbered structure with a stone base. Again I am not sure of the manufacturer, but it is a very nicely cast piece. The ability to remove the roof  is a nice touch.

The final piece is another Hovels model. Not as well cast as the first one - there were a lot of air bubbles in the brick work that had to be filled with GreenStuff and covered with ivy where the damage was beyond reasonable repair.

I think this is the “Thyme house-Kentish framing, double bayed...” model that is no longer available.

The intention is to build this model into a significant built up area, surrounded by these brick walls. The walls had a lot of mould damage that saw some big areas filled in with chunks of resin, so the application of some foliage was necessary.

The complete built up area will probably be another week away.

Butternut Infantry

For the latest additions to the ACW project I decided to work with a predominately brown pallet to create two regiments of butternut infantry.

Using GW Tallarn Sand and Scrag Brown as the base colours, the uniforms were toned, washed and highlighted. Only the officer wears anything near a regulation uniform

A standard sized unit

A tiny unit

To increase the raggedness of the bottom of the trousers got the attention of the scalpel. Then patches of various colours were applied to knees and elbows. Finally to avoid a total wall of beige the blanket rolls were given some colour.

ACW Bits and Bobs

This week has seen yet another ACW Union regiment step off the painting table...this time a converted fair haired Union colonel leads the regiment forward with his kepi impaled on his sword.

No sooner than it had marched off, fresh Confederate recruits have marched on to make an appearance sometime next week.

Also completed this week is this very nice Perry Miniatures plastic farm house kit. This has been sitting in an unfinished state on the painting table for a couple of months...pre-COVID19 in fact. It came with the Battle in a Box set that I bought ages ago and was assembled in late February. But when I sprayed it black I screwed up the spraying and over sprayed it so that some of the detail became obscured. I was so disappointed that I just left it. When I finally did get around to painting the weatherboards white it didn’t look right and even the application of that secret potion “Aly’s Brown Liquid” couldn’t fix it. So it continued to sit on the painting table, unfinished.

Then just this week, when I was becoming a little bored with painting ACW troops, I had another go. First I painted the roof, starting with a dark grey which was then highlighted with a lighter grey. Normally I would apply some GW Nuln Oil over this, but I was running really low on this tone and no local retailer seemed to have any stock. Instead I created a wash that was a 50:50 blend of GW Seraphim Sepia and GW Darkenhof Nightshade which gave quite an interesting dark brownish green that brought out the edges of the slate really well.

I then decided to try this new blend on the weatherboards of the house and repainted one section in pure white and then applied the wash. I liked the result and went back and repainted all the white area then washed it. I could then go back with the same wash and pick out the edges of the weatherboards and window frames where I had over sprayed. A quick touch up to the porch and the brick chimney and it as done.

To add a little character I placed two chairs either side of a small barrel (I was tempted to stand a bottle on the barrel, but had nothing to hand) and added a larger barrel to the wall at the end of the porch. I am quite pleased with the way I as able to recover what I had written off as a disaster into what is now a very functional structure. I haven’t quite decided if I am going to base this at all yet, but having been looking through photographs on the web of various Civil War buildings, I quite like the idea of making up a base of a farmstead like some of these Gettysburg houses

The Lester House (Meade’s HQ)

Trostle’s house and barn

The Bryan house

The idea of creating a special piece is quite appealing.

MORE ACW units!

My ACW odyssey continues. This week sees a Union regiment added...

 
...and a rather well dressed Virginia regiment that I based on the VMI cadets from the Battle of Newmarket that inspired me when I watched the movie “Field of Lost Shoes”.

Several more ACW units are in the pile.

Can’t See the Wood for the Trees (2)

Following on from my earlier post I have been making trees to get a break from painting ACW figures.

Readers may recall that in the experimental tree I used a trunk made from Sculpey and I was quite happy with that. But I had a whole bunch of bare trees - sans foliage - that I made way back in 2005 when I put on a refight of Pea Ridge. That battle was fought in the  winter, so I built a collection of winter trees, some from Woodlands Scenics but the most I scratch built - all trunks and bare branches.  players in that game will remember it clearly because when moving troops in the woods they were likely to be stabbed by one of the trees. These have been sitting in the garage since that time and I thought why couldn’t these be repurposed by adding foliage using the same method described earlier.

This was the cause of another experiment where I took the bare tree, that was a wire armature....

Added the coconut fibre foliage shape and coated it with Woodlands Scenics coarse turf, conifer.

I liked the effect, but it needed some tone. I thought first of applying a lighter green turf, but chose instead to lightly spay the foliage with a bright yellow. Spraying this from a distance provided just enough of a highlight and has the added advantage of helping to secure the foliage.

So with this second experiment completed I set about adding foliage to another seven bare trunks.

The same trunks with their coconut matting foliage attached, ready to be sprayed black.

Then with the flock applied

And finally with a light spray of bright yellow.

Soon I had a wood, or at least a copse.

Finally, just in case regular readers were concerned that I was ignoring the ACW project, here is a standard sized Union cavalry regiment and a small Confederate one.

Now that the number of units in this project is stacking I think I need to organise a game to see if the vignette basing idea is going to work, before rebasing becomes too much if a chore.

Union Infantry Regiment

This weekend I have a quick post to show this week’s effort - a regiment of Union infantry advancing at the right shoulder shift.

And surprise, surprise, more ACW regiments are to come!

Revolutionary War French - the 63e Demi Brigade

After a hiatus of nine months I restarted this Revolutionary French project in February, but due to a purchasing error I was short six grenadier figures (having order the advancing pose when I needed march attack to match the rest of the battalions).

The figures in the correct pose arrived over the weekend and made their way immediately to the painting table. I have to admit it was nice to have something different to American Civil War figures.

With these completed I have now based all three battalions of this Demi Brigade.

The First Battalion

The Second Battalion

The Third Battalion

The entire Demi Brigade

Also completed over the weekend was yet another ACW Union infantry regiment.