Dad's Army 3 - Civilians Finished

I finished the civilians for the Dad's Army diorama last week. I'm reasonably happy with them, some more so than others...

The weakest figures are Mrs Pike and Mr Blewitt, but, to be fair, these figures don't claim to represent those characters. The Mrs Pike figure was pushing a bicycle in the original pack, and looks like she was simply meant to be a British citizen helping fight the Nazi invaders. Mr Blewitt is a fairly generic "old bloke with a walking stick", so again, I can't really complain (not that that will stop me)

I'm happy with the blacks on the Warden, the Vicar and the Verger. I used the Andrea Miniatures Black set for those, and I'm finally starting to understand how the different shades/highlights behave.

The only one of this group with markings was the Warden, and I'm fairly happy with how they came out. It was quite warm while I was painting, so trying to do fine lines and writing before the paint dried on the brush was tricky.

The figures that do represent characters on the show are very recognisable; it was just a shame that the casting of the figures was so poor.

Finished civilians

Note - the damage to Mr Blewitt and Mrs Pike (hat brims on both models) occurred as I was photographing them. I knocked one over, and just as I was thinking "let's not do that again", I knocked the second one over :-(. The damage, however, has been repaired.

Diorama Layout

I have begun thinking about this and planning stuff out.

I'm setting it in the church hall, but the original idea of simply having them on the bare wooden floor has expanded to include the back wall and the wall with the office door in it.

I've been taking lots of screenshots from the DVDs, and each picture depresses me more. There is a lot of detail in the church hall set that I'd never noticed before: pictures, posters, benches, tables, a piano (on order from Dixon Miniatures) and flags, to name but a few.

The problem is that I've never really done a diorama, or a scratchbuild of this complexity, before, and this strikes me as jumping in at the deep end. However, I've started to decide on some measurements and have picked up plenty of plasticard and foam-card (I'm expecting to make lots of mistakes).

It all needs to be done by the start of October (otherwise it'll be turning into a Christmas present). That gives me about seven weeks, but it has to be designed, built, painted and finished in that time. I suspect my evenings have just been booked for the next few weeks :-)

Claymore 2011

I was at  Claymore yesterday, where I spent the morning and a chunk of the afternoon wandering around the show with my brother-in-law.

My to-buy list before the show consisted of a few paints and a hope that figures would leap out at me. Four hours later, I had spent pretty much all my money, and had a number of things that I'll be keeping an eye on as potential future projects.

As usual, no photos, as there will be plenty of those about from other sources. This post is about things I bought, and some of the ideas that have started bubbling around in my mind because of the show.

Paints

Seeing as this was my main reason for going to the show, I shall start with them.

I added some more to my Vallejo collection - gloss and satin varnishes and some light greys.

Foundry continued the white/light grey theme with the Austrian White (67) set. I have the Andrea Miniatures White set, but it's more of a warm (cloth) white, and I was looking for a cold white.

I also picked up some Coat D'Arms from Fighting 15s (eventually - people were buying a lot from the stand so I gave up and went back later). I bought chestnut brown, dwarf flesh and their dark brown "Super Shader". It looks like another dip, so it should come in useful for my skeletons and other figures where I don't need/want to spend hours shading.

Books

I actually picked up a few books this time:

• Fighting Men of WW2: Axis forces. I have plenty of books of British uniforms, but not really any of German ones. I have some 20mm WW2 Germans to paint at some point, so this should come in useful
• Pirates: Predators of the Seas. Yet another Pirate book, but looks interesting
• Battle for Malta - the attacks on the island during WW2
• Langton Miniatures' Guide to assembling, painting and rigging their 1:1200 Dutch Wars ships. Naval warfare doesn't really do much for me, but the ships of this period are from the Golden Age of Piracy, which does interest me. I have always fancied painting a couple of these ships for display, and I've looked at them in past shows, but never done anything about it. The guy at the stand pretty much talked me out of the idea (the combinations and parts of Langton models looks quite daunting), but I'm going to do some research and order them online
• Chaos in Carpathia. This is a set of Victorian Vampire hunting rules from BlueMoon. I have plenty of Vampires of that period, but my hunters are all modern. I hope that the rules will be flexible enough to cope (after all, a wooden stake hasn't changed much in 100 years), but I may use this as an excuse to buy and paint some appropriate Victorian figures

Figures

Purchased figures covered a wide range:

• Pig Iron command squad. Having already got the troopers, heavy weapons and war droids, it was only a matter of time before I completed the set
• Lead Adventure Jesters. These will join my zombie clown troupe, although the figures aren't sold as zombies
• Lead Adventure Deep Dive Night 2. This is a deep sea diver and a figure with a large spanner. I didn't buy the figure when I first saw it, as I couldn't think of a use for it. However, at another stand (whose name I forget), they had various sea demons. An image of these guys fighting the deep sea diver immediately popped into my mind, so I picked up the demons and went back and bought the diver. It's a diorama idea, so whether it will ever manifest itself remains to be seen...
• Some Cthulu Cultists from the same sea demon place, along with a bloated zombie
• A Gremlin from the same manufacturer. What I really wanted was the base the miniature was on. However, it came with a blank base, and when I asked, I was told the base was from Fenris Games. I've tracked it down, but as they're an ebay store, and I don't have/want an ebay account, I don't think I'll be buying them
• Urban Mammoth Venom Drake. This was half price, and looks like it'll be suitable for my Demon Apocalypse, so it's in the lead pile
• Laughing Monk - Bearer of the Light. Bought this from Fighting 15s as I liked the look of the figure. Having looked at it in the cold light of home, however, I'm not so sure...
• Copplestone Terminators Robots. I had two of them already, so this will add some reinforcements. I have plenty of painted near future figures, so if I ever decide to have a Terminator style game, at least I'll have the figures
• Warhammer Vampire Counts Necromancer. This is the latest plastic release from GW. I think it's just me, but £8.00 for a single plastic figure seems to be a step too far. For metal or resin it doesn't seem too bad (although still expensive), but for one plastic sprue with no "extras", it just seems wrong. I got it at 10% off, but if it hadn't been at a show, I'm not sure I would have bothered. It's a shame, as it's a nice figure, and quite a few of the others in the range are nice as well. At the moment, however, it's a price point that's going to take me some time to get used to

Things I didn't get

One of the few specific things I went for was Dixon Miniature's "pianist with piano and female singer" set. I need a piano for the Dad's Army diorama and this one looked ideal.

Unfortunately, he brought the entire saloon set, but not the individual packs. It seemed silly to buy the whole lot for one item, so I ordered it online when I got home (not without incident, as clicking the "Add to Shopping Cart" button in Firefox 5 caused it to go into an infinite loop. I eventually managed to buy it using Chrome)

Inspiration for future projects

6mm ancients from Baccus.

I have a couple of painted 6mm armies from Irregular miniatures (Dwarf and some evil type army). I also have two unpainted armies from the same manufacturer (Orc and skeleton).

The main reason they're unpainted is that the casting quality isn't great, and it's sometimes difficult to tell where the flash ends and the figure starts.

The Baccus ones, however, look much cleaner, and I was nearly tempted into buying a 6mm Macedonian army pack. The things that saved me were:

• the old eyesight is not what it once was
• I'd have nobody to fight against, so I'd end up having to buy the Persians or Indians as well

Still, this is an area I may revisit, as the idea of a 6mm phalanx on the table is very appealing.

20mm modern British from Britannia

I have some 28mm moderns, although none of them are painted. These ones, however, looked amazing, and again, I was sorely tempted to purchase some. 20mm has the advantage that a lot of plastic kits are available in that scale and I already have some scenery (granted, it's WW2, but a bombed out building looks pretty much the same in every time period)

28mm, however, is more flexible, as I can use the figures with my zombies and other near-future figures (e.g. terminators). This means I won't be investing in 20mm moderns any time soon.

That's the end of my wargame shows for this year. There are still a couple in Scotland, but they're up north, so I don't bother with them.

Now I just have to wait patiently until next May :-)

Dwarf Wizards

Just a quick post, as I'm running late this week. The end is in site for the Dad's Army figures, and this week should see the civilians finished :-)

The diorama idea has changed slightly - to become more complicated, naturally. I'm still having it set in the church hall, but I'm now planning to put the back wall of the church in as well, rather than simply the floor. Anyway, I've just started thinking about that, so that's for a different post...

This week, some Dwarf wizards. In traditional fantasy canon, Dwarfs are not known for their magic use - in fact, they're considered quite resistant to it and unable to work with it, except through runes. However, this has not always been the case, and Citadel used to make quite a few "proper" wizards.

I think this one is a wizard - not sure what else he could be, and he was with the other wizards.

Finally, for the more traditionalists out there, a Rune Lord (I think. Mainly I'm going by the book he's carrying, but he could just as well be a standard bearer...)

That's all for now. I've just downloaded Google Sketchup, to help with planning the Dad's Army diorama layout, so I'd better go and have a play with that...

Storing Unpainted Figures

Storage cabinets

I keep most of my unpainted figures in storage cabinets - the sort normally used to hold nuts and bolts. Boxed sets remain in their boxes, but individual figures are tidied away into the small drawers. I find this approach means the lead pile doesn't look quite so daunting, and when I look through the drawers, I invariably find things I'd forgotten I'd bought.

The figures are spread across three storage units, and have started to outgrow even them - it's possible this signifies something, but probably not :-)

I do have a fourth unit (bright orange), but it has had a long and troubled history. After spending many years in various lofts, I finally reclaimed it a few years ago. However, it was really smelly, so smelly that I didn't want to put anything in it. I spent an afternoon washing the unit and each of the drawers in disinfectant, but it still didn't smell fresh.

With the pile spreading, and Claymore approaching (where it's just possible I may buy one or two figures), I decided it was time to either start using, or replace, the old orange unit. The unit has a dent in the bottom, so doesn't sit quite level, and this, coupled with the lingering smell, meant that the replacement option won.

However, I struggled to find an appropriate cabinet. They don't seem to be in fashion at the moment, but I finally tracked one down on Amazon. It has one more row than the unit its replacing, so should last for a while (famous last words).

It didn't come with any spacers - small plastic rectangles used to divide the drawers into two or three sections. The ones I found on Amazon cost nearly as much as the unit itself, and got some very strange reviews, so I have made my own from 1mm plasticard.

The next step was to reorganise the wardrobe to make room for the new unit. The old orange unit was sitting on top of a set of cardboard drawers which currently hold 20mm WW2, some old GW Epic models and some other odds and ends. As the orange unit was empty and didn't weigh too much, this wasn't really a concern. When the new one is loaded, however, it will be far too heavy, so something had to change.

The reorganisation was completed without incident, and the old unit's heading out to the recycling bin. The lead pile can continue to grow faster than I paint - nope, definitely doesn't signify anything.

New painting light

For more years than I care to remember, my painting area has been illuminated with a single 60W desk lamp. It's an excellent lamp and I've never had any problems with it. Unfortunately, with the EU directive to purge all incandescent bulbs from the pages of history, its days are numbered. I did try to fit a compact fluorescent bulb into it, but there wasn't enough room.

Given that, I have been trying for a while, off and on, to find a replacement lamp. I'm not a fan of fluorescent bulbs, as I find they don't provide as much light as they claim, but until cheap LED bulbs come out, it's all that's out there.

I picked one up this week, again from Amazon, and it has not been too bad so far (only used it for a few sessions, but there has been no eye strain, so that's a good sign). It did flicker something rotten the first time I switched it on, but once it warmed up, it was fine. The lamp has a daylight bulb in it, as opposed to the non-daylight incandescent bulb, so it'll be interesting to see if I notice a difference to the colours when I'm painting.

The lamp came with both a table base and a clamp. The clamp is nice and light, but the base weighs a lot - one review suggests eight or nine pounds, and they're probably correct. It just about did my knees in, as I had to balance it on them on the train journey to get the lamp home. Hopefully, the painting Gods will recognise and honour my sacrifice and suffering, and grant unto me the ability to blend colours properly and paint both quickly and accurately :-)

No photos this week, as I had various house activities to do that took up my usual photography time-slot. There's nothing much to report on anyway, just plodding through the Dad's Army civilians.

Dad's Army 2

I've just finished the first group of Dad's Army figures, so I thought I should post some pictures. They're not based yet, and won't be until the civilians have been painted (just starting on them).

The figures went together fairly easily - WW2 British Army colours are relatively simple. I was following the SHQ guide, which for the most part was okay. I should, however, have used khaki for the webbing, rather than Vallejo Iraqui Sand, which was too light.

When I was looking at reference pictures of the cast, I noticed that all the belts and puttees, apart from Mainwaring's, were black. Every other picture of British troops from that period that I've seen have the belts and puttees khaki. There were also some strange pouches being worn in the TV series, rather than the standard 37 pattern pouches that the Foundry figures had been sculpted with.

There was nothing I could do about the pouches, so I just painted up the ones on the figures. I decided to follow the cast photographs regarding the belts and puttees, however, so painted them black. I don't know if the BBC messed up their research, but it's probably more likely that units at that time (especially Home Guard units just after Dunkirk), would have got whatever equipment was lying around.

I did actually make an attempt at the shoulder flashes, but they're not very noticeable - one of the drawbacks of painting using an Optivisor is that things that look good at 2.5x magnification tend to disappear in normal use. They're just about visible on Godfrey's left shoulder below. The formation patch below the shoulder flash had "CP1" on it in the cast photos. I decided against trying this, however, as it was more likely to spoil things than add anything to the figure (that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!).

I tried to match the colour for Pike's scarf. I think it's mostly there, although there should have been more purple in it.

And finally, the group shot, still on their painting bases.

I had trouble deciding on hair colour for Captain Mainwaring. I've seen some pictures of him with grey hair, and others with red-brown hair. I decided to go with the red-brown, as everyone else (apart from Pike) had grey hair.

Civilians

Next up are the civilians - the Vicar, Verger, Mr Hodges, Mrs Fox, Mrs Pike and Mr Blewitt. The figures below have been undercoated, with eyes done and the skin basecolour applied.

The Vicar, Verger and Mr Hodges are in black clothes, so I'm hoping that will speed things up.

I subscribe to the online version of Skirmish Magazine, available through Exact Editions. They quite often cover WW2 re-enactment events, so I shouldn't have too much trouble finding clothing ideas for Mrs Pike and Mrs Fox below.

Diorama layout

I had planned to set the diorama in the church hall, with Fraser and Pike on the stage. However, when I had a look at pictures of the hall, there are railings all along the front of the stage, which means that I'm going to have to change my plan.

The problem is that Fraser is kneeling and pointing, so looks out of place with the others. What I'm thinking at the moment is to have him and Pike off to the side - Fraser pointing something out and Pike pretending to shoot it. The alternative is to have Fraser talking to Mr Blewitt - as he's got a slight stoop, it might not look too bad.

Progress to July 2011

Time for the mid-year progress report. I had planned to do a work-in-progress post on my Dad's Army figures, but as they're almost finished, I'll leave it until they're done.

Figures completed this year

I've only finished the Reaper Space Marine, Studio McVey Lt. Kara Black and limited edition Joseph Bugman figures that I mentioned in my April update since that post.

I ended up painting the figures serially, rather than in parallel, which added to the length of time it took. Looking back on it, painting figures where there was little overlap in colours, other than the flesh, was a mistake. I normally paint for an hour, so when painting a number of figures, I try to work through them all in the given time. What I have found, however, is that when painting just one figure, I pretty much spend the whole hour on one part.

As of writing, I still have the Reaper Marine and Lt. Black to base, so I'll post some pictures when they're finished. I am making the base of the Reaper Marine from scratch as I can't find one I like, but, unfortunately, this will slow me down - it's just as well I don't do this for a living :-)

The current Dad's Army figures are actually progressing quite quickly for me - just approaching four weeks, and nearly finished. Granted, they're all wearing uniforms, and have a lot of colours in common, but still...

Painting

I'm hopefully still improving, but that's kind-of "eye of the beholder" stuff. I have to admit that I'm getting a bit tired of the "proper painting" thing at the moment, and I'm looking forward to some less demanding painting when I finish the Dad's Army figures.

Modelling

This aspect has pretty much ground to a halt just now - blame Dad's Army again. As I mentioned earlier, I'm building a base for the Reaper Marine, but other than that, it's pure painting just now.

General

I'm not quite sure what my attitude to painting is at the moment. I'm still enjoying it, but not quite as enthusiastically as I was earlier in the year. That may in part be the weather, as I'm much more of a cold weather person (I empathise with the Trolls in Terry Pratchett's novels, although the deep freeze would probably be a bit too far the other way). Fortunately, I've been at this hobby long enough to know that these things go in cycles, so I'm not too worried. I've found that slowing down until the painting urge returns is the best approach - perhaps switching my primary focus to other modelling projects, like basing figures or making scenery. The worst idea (for me at least) is to stop completely, as it can be very difficult to restart.

The lack of finished figures and the lack of figures that I want to buy aren't helping. That being said, I've just ordered a few figures from Studio McVey, including their new Dark Emissary figure. This one is a slight gamble, as the dimensions suggest he's closer to 40mm than 32mm. He's for my Demon Apocalypse setting, however, so a little leeway is allowed.

I'm still studying towards an Open University degree that I started few years ago. I finished a module last October (2010), so I think it's time to get back on that particular horse and start studying again. Once that happens, my painting time gets cut back drastically, basically being reduced to weekends. As figures take three times longer to finish, I'll probably be sticking to more gaming quality painting (although I did paint Blackbeard while studying last year, so display standard can be done)

Bonus Pictures

Loads of self-indulgent words this week (well, that's what blogs are for), so I thought I'd end with a few random pictures.

These are various limited edition Citadel figures, from many moons ago.

One of the original models they produced for a Power Armoured Space Marine (usual caveat, if memory serves). I couldn't think of how to paint him - hence the overall metal theme.

One of a now defunct (although possibly being resurrected, if rumours are correct) race. Even though I have hundreds of Dwarfs, the whole Squat thing did nothing for me. This is the only figure I have, and I think he came out before the main range.

One of my favourite figures - just loads of character. One of the first figures I used my heavy drybrushing technique on, and I think it worked (it looks better in real life than the photograph suggests). He's on a Milliput base, rather than a slottabase, something I did quite often in those days - just didn't like slottabases. At some point, however, I should really finish his base :-)

Dwarf Artillery

There are a couple of rules I've tried to follow when building my Dwarf army:

• no duplicate figures
• no gunpowder

I've stuck to the "no gunpowder" rule (I disapprove of gunpowder generally in fantasy settings), but have broken the duplicate figure rule when it comes to artillery, mainly because of the crew figures.

There are a number of artillery pieces in my army, spanning at least two decades. In ascending order of firepower, the models are:

Heavy Crossbows

I have two units of the old Grenadier heavy crossbows

Bolt Throwers(i)

These are the first generation bolt throwers that Citadel produced. They look quite plain compared to the second generation units, but I still have a soft spot for them. There are four of these in the army.

Bolt Throwers(ii)

I can only find the crew for this one - no idea where the bolt thrower is. From some pictures I found on Google, however, the bolt thrower looks very similar to the original one. At some point, no doubt, I'll stumble across the model in a cupboard somewhere.

Bolt Throwers(iii)

A few years after the earlier bolt throwers, Citadel brought out some new ones. These ones had much more detail, and appear to be modelled after Roman catapulta. I bought and painted up two of these units.

Comparing the original bolt thrower with the latest generation one, the difference in size and detail is obvious.

MadAxe Thrower

I can't find anything about this model on the Internet, so I'm not really sure if I'm using its correct name. It's basically two rows of throwing axes, driven by a belt in the middle.

The engineer with the large spanner in his right hand is a conversion. He was originally holding a gun (or some sort of powder weapon) so I removed it and scratch built the spanner for him.

I built the model (obviously), and painted the crew, but haven't actually painted the model yet or finished basing the crew. I think the prospect of trying to paint the kit put me off, but one day...

Flame Cannon

This is as close as my Dwarfs get to a gunpowder level of technology, and, to be honest, it's a bit more advanced than I'm comfortable with.

When I bought this kit and tried to assemble it, I couldn't get it to fit together. After comparing it to some pictures in the Dwarf Codex of the time (circa. 2000) I found there was a piece missing. After getting a replacement, it went together much more easily (the local GW shop actually let me keep the original model, which I still have. Sadly, with a piece missing, there's never seemed much point putting it together)

It's probably more bronze than it needs to be, but I'm sure there was a good reason for it at the time.

Catapult(i)

This catapult came out around the same time as the Goblobber, although I think the Goblobber was first

Catapult(ii)

Lastly - the original Dwarf Goblobber Catapult, complete with crew and unwilling victims.

I also have the Anvil of Doom painted up, but I don't really consider it artillery, so I didn't include it here.