Bombardier Bedford (Rik Mayall) Limited Edition Character Miniature

My latest painted Flintloque miniature is a very special character model - Bombardier Bedford, based on the Rik Mayall Bombardier Bedford, see this link.

So Huzzah, or may be Bang On! Here he is in all his painted glory.

Photo Two - The original conversion, showing just how much of the LE003 Wo-Gan, Sim-San and Pik-Tan miniatures were used.

Photo Three - Gavin at Alternative Armies has had this figure cast-up and the rumours are that it will be available as a very, very limited edition/Salute 2012 commemorative figure. So if you want one. I suggest you;
1 Beg Gavin
2 Go to Salute 2012 with lots of pocket money
3 Get someone you know who is going to Salute to pick one up
4 Pay extortionate amounts of money for an e-bay bargain

Photo Four - The same figure undercoated matt black (taken with a flash).

Photo Five - The heroic Rik Mayall aka Bombardier Bedford enjoying a glass of fine English Ale while in full Bombardier dress uniform.

Photos Five and Six - a couple more images of the finished figure.

No Flintloque Grand Alliance Army (particularly one with artillery) should be without one.

The figure was first sculpted back in early 2011 when the Bombardier Ale advert was first shown on TV. I sculpted the conversion almost straight away and had intended it as a one-off. Some comments on The Notables led me to send the original model to AA and Gavin cast him up for me.

I have no idea how many will be cast or the availability of this fantastic character, so as stated earlier - get your orders in quick.

Bang On!

Tony

The Ferach Drummerboy - a short story

Barking Irons Online have uploaded another one of my Flintloque-themed short stories. This time one of my favourites, The Ferach Drummerboy.

The story was based an an old Folk Tale; snippets of which I first read in an old children's story book while visiting my son and daughter-in-law in Leomington Spa some time ago. I have themed the story around the infamous South Mordor  Orc Redcoat Regiment and hope that readers enjoy the tale.

The White Liar short stories are a great way to test out gaming themes and back-stories. Why not give it a try.

Tony

White Dwarf 387

This week I was given White Dwarf issue 387, March 2012 as a birthday present.  I have not picked a WD for some time, since Games Workshop stopped distributing to WHSmiths. It was therefore something of a pleasant surprise to be able to settle down and read the magazine from cover to cover.

Whatever you may think of GW or their policy of no longer supplying WHS, I for one hove not missed WD. The magazine gift was like making the acquaintance of an old friend, however I am not planning on taking out a subscription or running off the the local Games Workshop Store (Worcester) to pick up more. Never-the-less I have enjoyed reading this particular issue.

A couple of the highlights were the new plastic Wolves or Fenrisian Wolf Pack, a set of five beautifully sculpted  leaping wolves for £15.00. I also found the short article on glues interesting, however I tend to pick up my Superglues from the Internet. The article by Jervis Johnson was very good and well worth picking over and the pages dedicated to the Games Day Golden Demon 2012 Slayer Sword Winners were lovely eye candy, but nothing very special and similar photos are bedecking the Internet, some with much better images.

All-in-all, a great read but nothing that is going to change my mind over buying new White Dwarf magazines. There are trade rumours that Miniature Wargamer are planning a new Fantasy based magazine for later this year (I read about it in the most recent on-line edition of The Ancible) and I look forward to seeing how they approach this market.

Overall, a birthday treat and one that I am truly gratefully for, but as stated earlier and without becoming a GW 'basher' this is no longer a magazine for me.

I could not say that I will never buy another White Dwarf, in fact I would assume that I would. But for now I just seam to have moved on.

I was intrigued to read about the planned events for March (most now gone) for example;
Materclass Sculpting workshop with Aly Morrison for 5th May, at just £105 (I am being tongue-in-cheek) these look like good value!
Scenery Masterclass 10th March, this time for £115 for the day.

I would be interested in reading reviews of these new ventures and although I would just love to attend one. I just can't justify this amount of money for a sculpting course.

Details;
Games Workshop's In-house magazine White Dwarf, issue 387 from March 2012. £4.50.

Tony

Gingerbread Mania - part six

Finally, my Gingerbread Man and his Bakers are finished.  I am very proud of this little set, having first sculpted the masters, then seeing them cast in metal and now fully painted and based.

The Gingerbread Set (VLE11) is now available from Alternative Armies, full details can be found here

Photo One - The completed set. (Please note that in the Gingerbread Set - there are six miniatures, you get three Gingerbread Men and not one as shown here.)

Photo Two - The Baker Boys, Bakerov The Cook and his two Dwarf helpers Findas and Buertseye.

Photo Three - The animated Gingerbread Man, who stands nearly 50mm tall. A real giant amongst confectionery!

It is pretty obvious from the images, but for completeness. The miniatures were first varnished with Ronseal Gloss Varnish and when fully dry given three coats of Acrylic Matt Varnish from Galleria. The Gingerbread Man's buttons and raisin eyes were gloss varnished with some Klear/Future before the static grass was added by first painting random spots of uPVA glue and then two types of scatter before blowing of the surplus.

My Pledge for March is complete. With so much time left before the end of the month, I should really try and get something else painted up.

Tony

Gingerbread Mania - part five

The Pledge continues! The four Very Limited Edition miniatures are now fully painted but still await varnishing and flocking. VLE11 Gingerbread Set is now available from Alternative Armies, see here for full details of how to order and read the great background story.

Photo One - Not much to add to earlier posts. I have finished the white chef's uniforms in various tones of White, re-painted the ginger beard on the larger of the two Dwarves and added some colour to the Gingerbread Man by painting his sugar-coated Jellytot Buttons Red and Green.

Photo Two - Bakerov the Cook and his two Dwarf assistants Findas and Burtseye.

Photo Three - The painted Gingerbread Man.

The 2p round bases were painted in my usual colour scheme of Snakebite Leather/Skull White with individual stones picked out in Chaos Black/Skull White. When fully dry, I washed the groundwork with Black and Sepia washes from GW.

Now that the figures have been 'officially' released and there are plans for a Demo. game at next months SALUTE, I will have to 'pull my finger out' to get this little group varnished and flocked. Once they are fully finished, I will add some more images.

Tony

West Midlands Military Show 2012 - a photo report

Last Sunday I visited the WMMS at Alumwell, nr. Wolverhampton and although I bought very little, I had a great day out, meeting friends, old and new and chatting about my hobby.

I didn't take that many photos but what I did take are all of interest to me and show some fantastic models. I have posted some images below. 

Tony

Gingerbread Mania - part four

The Pledge continues with some more painting of this Very Limited Edition set of Gingerbread Man, Head Chef and Two Dwarf Patisserie Chefs which will soon be available from Alternative Armies.

Photo One - Shows the group of four VLE miniatures.

Photo Two - The giant animated Gingerbread Man with 'currants for eyes and jelly tots for buttons.'

Photo Three - The Head Chef (my Gordon Ramsay inspired model) and the two distraught Dwarf helpers. I am not sure about the ginger bearded colour scheme on the one on the left and will more-than-likely re-paint him with a dark brown beard and hair.

The initial scenario called for a single Gingerbread Man, however I could imagine modifying a second Gingerbread Man miniature with a different facial expression for use in my Gingerbread inspired scenarios.

Tony

The Imperial French Aeronef Le Louis Daguerre

Over the last month I have chronicled the development and building of the large French Aeronef, Le Louis Daguerre, see;
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six for the on-line modelling competition TRASH BASH 2012. Full Rules here.

Photos One and Two - Show some of the initial pencil sketches, as you can see the finished design followed these sketches quite closely. The model was influenced by The Cygnet from The Disney film The Black Hole - a model that I have wanted to build for some time.

Photo Three - The Juicy Drop Pop Candy (sweet) containers used as the basis of the hull design.

Photo Four - The same Candy container broken down into it's constituent parts. The labels proved very difficult to remove and in the end, I scrapped the surface with a kitchen knife while washing it with white spirits.

The main oval sections (the candy lollipop containers), the yellow handles and the two stoppers were used, while the top of the lid was cut down for use as the forward gun emplacement. Even the clear plastic bottle (front right) was used to mix up the Klear/Future washes that I painted the hull with.

Photo Five - Construction well advanced. The main glue was superglue and accelerator, while the forward area was an elbow joint from a cheap transformer toy.

Photo Six - The basic construction is complete in this image. The tall mast is a hair curler (from my understanding Mother-in-Law) and the domed top is the head of a knitting needle. Most of the small detail is scratch-built from plastic card/plastic rod.

Photo Seven - As above, although there is a great deal of extra surface detail added from sticky-back plastic labels and small slivers of plastic card.

Photo Eight - Undercoated Grey - Charcoal Grey from Foundry, which was brush painted over a spray paint called 'Makes Paint Stick', which is a clear plastic primer used to spray paint garden furniture.

Photo Nine - painting nearly complete, but still awaiting decals (transfers) and varnishing.

Photos Ten, Eleven and Twelve - The finished and based model. The transfers came from a wide variety of different sheets, the cockerel image on the nose was from a WW1 French aircraft sheet and is a little bit of humour. "Watch the Birdie".

Photos Thirteen - Le Louis Daguerre and Le Fee Verte passing over Fort Kell Ben another scratch-built Space 1889/Aeronef model.

Photo Fourteen - Le Louis Daguerre accompanied by two Martian Hull Cutters, on patrol over the Martian Plains.

The finished model is built to the scale of 1mm = 1foot (or 6mm scale) and at just over 180mm long and 90mm wide (over the propellers) is the largest Space 1889/Aeronef model in my collection. I hope that this post proves interesting and may even inspire others to produce scratch-built models. Finally, I wanted to say congratulations to all that took part in the competition, Very Well Done to all who entered.

Tony

TRASH BASH 2012 - The Results

Roebeast's TRASH BASH 2012 competition results are now out. See this link

My own entry, The Imperial French Aeronef Le Louis Daguerre was not one of the three competition winners, but as you can see the entries were of a very high standard and I enjoyed this little bit of fun.

This early Dagurreotype image shows the only know contemporary image of the observation Aeronef while on station. It is believed that it was taken from Le Fee Verte while on a mapping mission over the great red plains of Mars.

The competion rules (see here) state that there should be five images, three showing the finished model set against a neutral background, one set in a gaming environment and a final image of the unpainted model. Here are the five images I sent.

My plan is to write up a fully detailed building and painting log, but for now I thought that these notes would help.

The French Imperial Aeronef Le Louis Daguerre

Trash Bash 2012

The Le Louis Daguerre is an observation and Survey Aeronef built by the French Colonisation Force, Le Mons, Mars in 1899.

It is designed to house the experimental Dagurreotype imaging camera which uses huge 500mm x 500mm silver coated glass plates to map the wild expanses of the Le Mons area of Mars.

The Nef is designed to go for many weeks mapping the surface of the red planet and has four large chemical storage containers mounted in the central hull. The tall observational tower is designed for 360’ viewing of the Martian horizon.

After some attempts, primarily by the German/Prussian Aeronef force to capture this new technology, Le Louis Daguerre was retro fitted with a defensive armament of two Hotchkiss Revolving Cannons and one 90mm Breech loading gun.

Construction;

Built to the scale of 1mm = 1foot or 6mm scale using readily available 6mm metal wargame  miniatures.

The two main chemical containers are sections of the Juicy Drop Pop container the two smaller containers are from the same candy container – the yellow tops. The forward gun emplacement also utilises parts from this sweet container.

The bow (or nose) is an elbow joint from a transforming toy, while the main observational tower is a section of a hair curler topped with the head of a knitting needle.

The rear or engine area is built from various thicknesses of plastic card on a hull of heavy duty insulation foam. Most of the deck items are scratch-built.

Painting was done over a grey primer and using various acrylic paints and washes. The transfers (decals) are from various sources, but I should note that the main markings are hand painted.

The model is 190mm long, 90mm wide (widest point over the props) and stands 180mm tall (bottom of base to top of flag pole).

For more details see http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/ Trash Bash 2012 labels.

Tony