The Pre-Holiday Works

Ta Daa! Here, you see the bulk of the completed brush-work. Obviously I was more stressed pre-wedding than I realised, as I managed to burn through pretty much the entire remainder of the Luftberg Infantry! Roughly, there's enough above for around four or five bases, using my current basing system of 12-figures per base.

Here's a pair of close-up views of some of them, arranged so you can see the back and front. I carried out all the painting to a structured plan, which I've detailed on one of my previous blog postings. It seemed to help, as I had all the stages written down on a big table and doggedly ticked off each completed section as I went ("Hats, done... Cartridge boxes, done..." etc.) It helped me see progress, which is definitely needed after a major session when you've just had to knuckle down and paint about 100 black gaiters - sadly there seems no way of avoiding at least 2 or 3 seriously dull 'plods' of this sort!

And here's an extremely-extreme-close-up. I stuck to the 2-foot rule, eliminating all detail that's not visible beyond this. Plus, the figures have still to be 'dipped' and this will greatly help with picking out details, etc. So, why haven't I dipped them yet? Well, I've not entirely finished all the infantry yet - I've just killed off the bulk of it. Here's what's still to do:

At the top you'll see my Grenadiers, who were left aside in the drive to get Line Infantry out the way. Below them, the red fellows are my skirmishers. I recently became siezed with the urge to paint them as Croat Grenzers, with a wildly impractical uniform of bright red. This means I'll actually have to destroy one of my new bases, as I've stuck the existing three down and they're painted in their 'old' uniform of a practical grey, which will never do! I'll only have my light troops sneaking silently through the woods and rocks while dressed in the most outrageously dandy-ish manner! These cut-throat fops can just count themselves lucky that neon hasn't been invented yet!

LAst of all, we have the deeply unglamorous stuff: a mass of horses, which I find the most irritatingly dull thing to paint; mounted officers, of which I seem to have loads; and the tail-end-charlies of the Line Infantry, the stray figures who came unstuck from my painting sticks and will have to be buffed up individually.

Fingers crossed for the weekend!

The Elector Returns!

Hello all! I have finally, after several weeks' absence, returned to normal life! I have been away from wargaming, first for the minor matter of getting married, then for a honeymoon. The wedding went brilliantly, and amazingly quite problem-free, so 'the empress' is now officially in the family, and I've now done some travelling in continental Europe. We headed off for a two-week cruise around the Baltic Sea, which proved to be fantastic. I've visited Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Sweden, Tradgardland and Norway. Quite a break!

Even with all that was happening, I still found myself in quiet moments pondering my hobby - I've quite missed it! Now that the wedding preparations and travelling have happily ended, I might be able to get back to normal. Despite thinking that I'd have no time before the big day, I actually found myself getting more painting done than normal, which means the mountain of Luftberg infantry is actually largely done. Now all I need to do is paint up some odd non-line units like grenzers and grenadiers, then I can dip & spray the whole bunch, and base them all. Once that's out the way, I can get on with the minor step of buying the Aschenbach figures and Luftberg cavalry I need to complete the armies to a playable standard. They look great, but it's quite a pain trying to run a campaign without a model army to put on the tabletop!

I'll start posting regularly again, and priority No. 1 is to get some photos of the painting efforts - updates on the way! Priority No. 2 is to read through all the regular blogs that have been posting for a fortnight and I've not had a chance to read. :-)