The 'Fighting Forty-Firsts' - part six (not quite finished)

I have finished varnishing and basing the six Rifle Orcs, but have still to paint up both Oswald Pepperkettle or Harpy (see earlier posts). These will be cataloged in July and August.

Photos One and Two - Show the six Rifle Orcs painted as characters from the Commando Comics Days of Daring (3765), see this post for details.

The six miniatures are a variety of metal castings from Alternative Armies/Flintloque bought from various sources and eventually painted up as a small group of Rifles - 'The Fighting Forty-Firsts'.

Photo Three - Show the whole group of six, based, painted, varnished and flocked in my usual manner.

The two character figures, Pepperkettle and Harpy will follow very soon, but with other on-going projects expected to take up most of my Summer months, I think just two Flintloque miniatures is just enough of a treat to keep my brush occupied.

I hope that you like them.

Tony

Building Wargame Terrain by Tony Harwood - latest news

GOOD NEWS

The books has been proof read, updated, ordered and paid for. I am now expecting the first batch of 100 books to be with me for early July.

MORE GOOD NEWS

Following some comments on this Blog and 'other' forums, I have updated the front cover with a colour image, rather than the black and white one shown above. In addition the image on the back cover has also been upgraded to colour.

EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS

The book will be sold for £16.00 each. Payment via (old fashioned) cheque or Paypal. The first 100 books will be individually numbered and signed by me.

SOME NOT SO GOOD NEWS

Postage & Packaging will be;
UK - £4.00
Europe - £7.50
Rest of the World - £12.00
(Anyone who wants the book/package to be signed for - then please contact me at the time of ordering and I will amend the P&P costs).

PRE-ORDERS

Should anyone wish to pre-order the book, could you please e-mail me at;
dampfpanzerwagon(at)yahoo.co.uk
With your full name and address, your Paypal account details (so I can send you an invoice) and your Blog avatar or Blogging name (so I can check you off against the list of followers who have shown an interest in taking one of these books).

SOME GREAT NEWS

Once the first batch of 100 signed books have been sold, I will hold a prize draw. The draw prize will be one of the 'scratch-built' models featured in the book.

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The journey has been long and at times very arduous, but at long last, I am now able to offer the book for sale. More details will be posted once I have the first batch of books, see this link.

Thank you to all who have posted positive comments, they are greatly appreciated.

Tony

Figure Art by Roman Lappat & Raffaele Picca

Figure Art, the long awaited book by Roman Lappat and Raffaele Picca has finally arrived.

The hard-back art book is a joint venture between these two very gifted miniature artists, 132 pages jam packed with exquisitely painted miniatures on some of the best diorama bases I have ever seen.

I first heard about this project back in 2012, when I was browsing the Massive Voodoo Blog, for details go to this link. At this early stage the planned book was still being worked upon and exact details were a little 'woolly'.  I decided to take a punt on this Indegogo campaign and pledged the £20.00 fee (a 'Jungle Supporter'). The actual campaign raised $32,976.00 of a $2,500.00 goal. A real success. However I am aware that this also caused some problems as the book now became a major undertaking and the 'perks' multiplied.

One of the major problems was a slipped deadline for delivery of the book - which was delivered six months over due.

But on to the review proper; The book screams quality, a very stylish hard-back book with a predominant black cover and featuring two very well painted models on the front (and one more on the rear cover).

The pages, once again shout quality - there are some very special pieces buried within these pages, real eye-candy for the miniature painter or 'would-be' miniature painter! The book is sub-divided into;

• Small Figures Science Fiction
• Small Figures Fantasy and Mythology
• Large Figures Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Mixed
• Large Figures - Historical and Mixed
• Busts
• With Contents and Miniature Manufacturers at the back

These two sample images have been taken from Pins of War, see this link which also features the Documentary book, which I did not receive - due to my lower funding pledge.

As an aspiring figure painter, I can only drool over the quality of the modelling, the painting and the fantastic diorama work featured in this book. The two artists have much too much talent - and I bow my head in acknowledgement of this competition winning, artistic skill. £20.00 very well spent.

Finally, and this is more an observation than a criticism; I found the black page background a little too dark for me. I wonder if a lighter page colour would have been better?

Tony

The 'Fighting Forty-Firsts' - part five

In between more pressing projects, I have been 'slapping some paint' on these six Flintloque Orc Rifles.

Photos One and Two - Show the shakos painted, a dark grey base with green braiding and white detail.

Photos Three and Four - Most of the painting done, just some touching up and metallics prior to the gloss varnishing. The backpacks have been painted dark grey with the bedrolls dark blue/grey, other items painted either canvas/cream or black.

Photo Five - The group so far. You will notice that both Harper and Oswold Pepperkettle are not included, these I will keep as a separate On-Line Build for July/August.

I will post more once the gloss/matt varnishing is done.

Tony

Warwick Away-Day 2013 - part three

Here are some more images of our recent Away-Day in Warwick. The first six photos show a number of the more striking buildings we encountered, while the remainder are detail shots highlighting some of the construction techniques used on these timber-framed buildings.

Tony

The Lord Leycester Hospital, Warwick

More images from my latest away-day, our day out in Warwick. All of these photos are of the Lord Leycester Hospital, one of the best preserved Tudor-style buildings in the UK. For full details go to this link.

Of special note is the colouring of both the wooden frame and the in-fill panels as well as the almost luminescent green lichen growing on the clay tile roofs. I am currently modelling a similar (but much smaller) building and have been intrigued by the level of detail on the exposed timbers, the axe cuts, the wooden dowels or pegs and the amount of remedial work needed on these olde buildings.

The final photo is taken from the back of the building - the carpark area.

I hope you find them of use.

Tony

Tank Diorama

Earlier today Sue and I visited Warwick and enjoyed a great day out having afternoon tea and browsing the many antique shops. I was particularly struck by this naive piece of 'Trench Art', a Mk IV Male (I think?)

What caught my eye was not the modelling of the tank itself, but the very realistic attitude of the bogged-down tracks and the neglected aura. Who ever modelled this diorama knew his subject very well.

The model was on sale for £95.00, a little too rich for my pocket, but after I had shown an interest, the owner of the shop allowed me to take these three images, even offering to open the glass fronted cabinet so I could get a better view and photo.

Tony

Fathers Day Presents

In addition to these early Fathers day presents on Sunday, I received the following;

Cottage Modelling for Pendon - a very in-depth and detailed book showing new techniques for super-detailing terrain models. The card-backed book written by Chris Pilton is from Wild Swan Publication. The book is a look at some of the techniques used to reproduce what is possible the most detailed model railway layout in the UK (possibly the world). I would suggest that the book is for the serious modeller rather than the amateur.  The book was sent via Amazon from my Daughter Holly.

The second book was a gift from Sue, Airman by Eoin Colfer (he of Artemis Fowl fame). I started reading it last night, and so a full review would be difficult, but so far I am enjoying the adventures of the young Conor Broekhart.

The third book was another from Holly, The Windmill yesterday and today by RJ de Little. Published in 1975, the book is full of black and white illustrations and period photographs of windmills. I have a couple of similar books as I have modelled a wide range of model windmills over the years. I suspect that there will be more miniature windmills before long.

Gary has only just returned from a business trip to America, and I have been told that another present is on its way from Gary and Beckie.....

Tony

Building Wargame Terrain by Tony Harwood - a further update

Building Wargame Terrain, a further update. Yesterday I arrived home to find the first proof copy, a congratulations card and a bottle of Champagne. Thank you Sue. (We didn't drink the Champagne, preferring to go out for a celebratory meal instead).

The book is very well printed, as can be seen from these images which feature some of my earlier work in a gallery of earlier terrain pieces. In fact it is more of a glossy or premium magazine rather than a book with 170gsm inner pages and 300gsm card cover.

This image shows Sue, browsing through the contents, the second is me in a less well stage photo!

I am aware that there are a couple of changes and amendments to be made prior to the full production run, but as stated in my earlier posts, the deadlines I have set myself should be reached and books will be offered for sale before the end of July. I was also able to take the book to the local post office to assess postage costs to the UK, Europe and America.

It was always my intention to have a 'retro' cover in a style similar to the old Airfix Magazine Modelling Guides (see this link for examples). I think the orange cover does this. I hope you agree.

Additional details can be found here.

Tony

Early Fathers Day Presents

UK Fathers Day is this Sunday and I've already had three presents from my Wife. All three were charity shop purchases.

Military Modelling Guide to Wargaming by Stuart Asquith, an ex-library copy first published in 1987. It will come as no surprise that I have seen and even read this book before, actually a library copy. An interesting read.

The other two gifts are these Shire Modelmakers Guides; Modelling Farm Carts and Modelling Farm Wagons both by John Vince, published in 1977. Another two ex-library books, this time from the Christopher Whitehead School, Worcester.

Both are in very good condition and full of model making hints and tips. I think these have been re-bound as hard-backs, rather than the more usual card cover books.

Tony

The 'Fighting Forty-Firsts' - part four

Painting proper. The flesh areas are built up in my usual colour combination - Snakebite Leather from Games Workshop, highlighted with Snakebite and Skull White. In these two images I have tried to not highlight too much. I have also washed the flesh areas with the old (blue topped) Flesh Wash from GW.

I have tidied up the Black areas prior to taking these photos.

I wanted the Green uniforms to be a different colour/hue to my existing Green Rifles, which are almost Black/Green. The basic uniform is built up from Foundry Forest Green 26A, with highlights of Forest Green and a tiny touch of Skull White.

The cuffs are Coat d'Arms Angel Green (155), mixed with some Chaos Black and then highlighted with 100% Angel Green. The white braiding is Skull White over a Stonewall Grey/Skull White base.

The bugler figure has had his wrap painted Prussian Blue/Grey and highlighted with Prussian Blue before being washed with Badab Black.

I think the 'bottle green' or American green uniform looks OK, and is certainly a change from the almost Black-Green paint mix seen on so many of my Dwarves and Rifles.

I am still planning a final flesh highlight as I think the washes tend to dull the base colour.

Tony