New Depot

I have been working on this off and on for a while now, and spent this afternoon getting it to the point where it is almost finished. Its supposed to be a depot/warehouse of some sort for use as either a general terrain piece in a VBCW game or in smaller pulp games. Its not quite finished yet, I still need to build a gate, and finish of the ground work of the yard. And the edge of the base needs painting etc. But it is mostly finished.

The name "Smillies Milk" was the wife's idea, I mentioned it was supposed to be a depot of some sort and she said that she thought it looked like it should be where milkmen went to pick up their round, so "Smillies Milk" it was. The sign was knocked together in photo shop and added with a balsa wood frame. The other posters were either pulled from the web and downsized by me, or supplied free of charge by 6milphil of GWP.

The roof comes off and at some point in the future I will add an interior, and I will need to make up some crates etc as scatter terrain around the base. Not the greatest looking terrain piece in the world but, not to shabby by my standards. It also fits the important criteria of having to fit on my model shelf.

Father xmas on his day off!

Just finished painting up these two models from Artizan Designs. The wife suggested the red coat for the big man, however it wasn't until I had finished painting him that I realised he now looked a bit like a militant Santa! I painted up the little lady first and decided on a nice neutral grey suit with a deep red waist coat. Turns out that if you put her with the big man she looks like an off duty Santa's helper!

Anyway another couple of finished models for use in either VBCW games or small pulp games.

An evil genius steps from the shadows!

This dastardly fellow is one of a number of top notch models that my good lady wife was kind enough to buy me for xmas. This is Artizan Designs evil genius from the kiss kiss bang bang range. I painted up Artizans cultist range of figures in July (if any ones interested there is a blog post about them under, unsurprisingly July below). I painted up this nasty chap as my cultists overlord.

In the alternative as my wife pointed out he does look a little like Mr dairy milk!

Either way I enjoyed painting him and like the results, although I'm not massively pleased with how his cats paint job turned out.

Grandad joins the militia

Painting this old fellow kept me busy this evening. I like how the colours turned out, and he fits in nicely with some other militia figures that I have.

A dashing fellow

Painted up this Artizan resistance fighter figure this evening (try saying that three times real fast). quite a nice model although the waist coat is quite heavy looking. Still I like how he turned out. Painted up in quite neutral colours for use in either VBCW games or pulp games.

Little Tilly

Having forgotten to procure transportation for my chaps before BG3 I popped into hobby craft and picked up this really quite nice 1:48 Tamiya model of  an Austin Tilly. The quality of the model is tip top, as I would expect from Tamiya and I think despite being 1:48 it scales up quite well with 28mm models.

I decided to paint this model up to accompany my Wittering Defence Force army, but I actually enjoyed building and painting the model so much I think I might get another couple and paint them up. I think I might paint one up for use in desert pulp games and the other as a general civilian truck or something similar.

Either way having noticed how well this scaled up with 28mm models I think I will have to look at the rest of Tamiya's 1:48 range and see what else might fit in with my forces.

Tumbledown Tower

I started building this tower a while ago for something else and got bored after the construction phase and undercoating. Well the other day I didn't have much else to do and thought "you know what a gaming table always needs, a ruddy great tower from an indeterminate period".

So out came the built but not painted tower. I painted this up in simple greys (as that's pretty much what I had handy in any quantity) and picked out the odd brick in a different shade to add a bit of depth. I wanted the tower to be generally quite simple and open (hence the mashed side). I know a collapse on that scale should A. make the thing fall down and B. leave a big pile of rubble. But hey its still up and if I had left a massive pile of rubble it wouldn't have left much room for gaming. I think this could comfortable be used in any VBCW game, a more modern game or as a hideout for some cultists in a pulp game.

In the future I might make a big pile of rubble on a seperate base, or a similarly badly damaged hall to sit next to this, but for the moment I'm happy.

Model for scale is a Musketeer Lewis gunner.

I say where's my weekend gone?

Well thanks to mother nature dumping a gazillion tons of snow on the north of England and Scotland I found myself being called at home on Friday night and asked to go to Newcastle a mere 3 hours and 200 miles from the house to investigate some claims. Well I say some what I really mean is lots, in and around Newcastle on Saturday followed by more in Newcastle and then on the way home today.

It was a very long knackering weekend, having worked all week to then get tasked up the road to Newcastle quite late on Friday. Still pays the bills.

It was clear though (as can be seen in the picture) that Newcastle really has had some snow!

Down side was I didn't get to do the painting I wanted to do. On the upside it meant my wife couldn't force me to clean out the cupboard under the stairs, so not a total loss then.

Volley Fire!

Spent this afternoon painting up these red coats from Empress. I like the models and love the period but I find it's really slow going painting these guys.

I think my Anglo-Zulu war period will always be slow burning, and it's also likely that I will never really get into the Napoleonic period for the same reason. Although I quite like the look of Prussian armies and the uniforms look a bit simpler to paint. Maybe that will be a new 15mm scale collection.

Still another enjoyable afternoon's painting.