One man and a hot glue gun - 376 figures based in a session

I'm going back through stalled projects and moving them along. Sometimes a project goes on hold because of uniform, or ORBAT, questions which have been thrown up. At other times I put a project on hold because of some laborious task which has to be undertaken.

Basing figures can be a real pain. For 28mm In The Grand Manner (rule set) it can be a problem to fit all the necessary figures onto the base, or to put them in the right spot. That means I can't use my painters to base these figures for me. I wouldn't do that anyway as I'm too particular about basing for ITGM. I have found that a hot glue gun is a life saver for basing. Many of the figures I use don't stand up on their own, so they have to he held in place while glue dries. This is no fun for a 48 man battalion!

The last time I based up figures I overdid it and put myself off for the past year. Most of these figures have been lying around on trays since then.

In this batch there are three forty man, and three thirty two man, British Napoleonic battalions. There are also two Austrian 48 man battalions and two really lovely Spanish 32 man battalions which are conversions made by either Doug Mason or Bill Gaskin. I can't remember who is responsible for these darlings. I bought several bags of them from a friend about ten years ago. There are still a few bags, some Spanish and some Porguguese, waiting for me to buy officers to go with them.

Waiting on my table, to base, are two 32 man Austrian Landwehr battalions, a battalion of 36 Austrian grenzer, two Austrian 48 man battalions, a 36 man Irish Legion battalion. I'm sure I have more trays of unbased figures in a pile somewhere. I'll try not to find them before these are all based, so as not to put myself off with another bout of figure blindness.

At this stage of the basing process I step away and let my cast of thousands take over. They will use crushed sea shells to make the ground work, then dye it with oil paint and dry brush it. I'm still trying to import some Silfor tufts, and flowers, to offset my bases.

28mm Napoleonic Spanish Guerrillas

The title of this post may be considered misleading. The figures pictured are in fact from three of the French Foreign Regiments; Isenburg, Neuchatel, and Preuss. Many men from these regiments went over to the Spanish during the Peninsula war. The Guerrilla leader Mina, in particular, received drafts of recruits from these regiments.

I am putting together three of Mina's regiments and one other Guerrilla regiment. I'm using mainly Front Rank figures (these are also Front Rank's figures) but also some figures from the Perry's Carlist range. Front Rank have excellent Guerillas.

Spanish regiments, even Guerrilla regiments, were very keen on uniforms and maintained them when they could. Most recruits would have been in Mina's brown uniforms when a new draft of uniforms arrived. But Guerrillas also used captured clothing, even from Spanish deserters when they caught them, for a bounty. So a mix of clothing would have obtained in regiments, in between new issue of clothing at least.

Anyway, these are my excuses for uniform selection and I'm sticking to them.

Ottoman infantry archers and Spahi 15th century cavalry

Here are some Old Glory Ottoman archers and Spahi which I just finished. I have another unit of archers almost done, but they differ in only minor changes to the uniform. I bought these figures to see how Old Glory's Ottoman range is. The figures look pretty good. They were all well cast with minimal flash. I know that we used to moan about Old Glory in days or yore, but they seem to have their act together now, making many of their lines viable. They also have a wealth of new figures coming online all the time. For my next trick, I'll be buying some Old Glory Ancients. I had some badly painted Cartheginians before I left the UK, and sold them off. This will be only my second foray into ancient.

28mm Napoleonic Austrian, British and French infantry

Here are some pictures of my Austrian, British 71st Highlander, French line, light and Guard infantry. The Austrians are painted a greyish off white, which I must have done years ago. For the past few years, five years or so, I've painted them cream colour, and then used sepia ink to stain them, before highlighting. I seem to remember these Austrians had to be repainted a few times to get the result white enough.

I'm looking at hand woven patterns for blankets and other cloth at the moment, with a view to painting them on my Napoleonic Spanish Guerillas. I think I must be going strange. This hobby has taken an odd tangent.

15mm German Panther tank breakthrough

I've been fooling around painting these tanks for about a year now. I keep bringing them back out to touch up, or to start again. I'm finally finished (I think!) My technique is to black undercoat the model, then air brush on a mid tone for the base colour (desert yellow in this case), but leaving some areas black on the tank. Then I air brush over the two other colours for the camouflage. At this state I dry brush the tank with a mix of pale sand (mostly) and stone grey. This is essential to bring out detail on the tank. It is nerve wracking to have done so much work and then to take the chance of spoiling it, but you may as well not bother if you aren't going to dry brush at this stage. The results were still not satisfactory, and I tried various washes, which were a waste of time, both before and after dry brushing (and repainting..). I was after more contrast on the model, so what I eventually did was to airbrush black onto the model as a last step, around the turret, and then in a few other spots. Voila! I was at last satisfied.

For my next trick I have some 28mm Bolt Action and Berlin or Bust vehicles I'm working on. It was seeing Troop of Shewe's excellent work on 28mm tanks that got me interested in airbrushing.

I'll be selling ready painted 15mm vehicles. Now I have the hang of things hopefully it won't take a year for each batch of 20 vehicles..

Here are all of the vehicles I've just finished brought to you in marvelous repeatovision.

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed

15mm Command Decision Panther tanks air brushed