15mm Confederate Generals

In between other projects, I spent about three hours this week painting up some generals for my rebel army. All figures are Old Glory except for the standard bearer, which is from Musket Miniatures.

I'm trying to field my ACW armies as quickly as possible, so I'm just painting them to a good wargaming standard. The only shading or highlighting I'm doing is on faces and hands.

I'm not sure that I'll ever use the band for anything, but they are cool figures and I wanted to see what they looked like painted. I only spent about an hour on them.

15mm ACW Artillery

This first: I hate painting limbers. I can't figure a way to paint them in pieces, so I build the whole thing, horses, crew, and all, and fix it to its base before painting. Same thing with guns. They both present some difficult angles in to which to fit my brush, and I can't really use my assembly line process to best effect.

So these 17 guns are a big accomplishment for me, even if the painting is nothing special. Now I should have enough artillery to play most Regimental Fire and Fury scenarios.

All the guns and crew are Old Glory. The limbers with more than one crewman are from Stone Mountain. The limbers with a single crewman are Frontier.

Eureka French Revolutionary Wars Austrian Infantry

Since I clearly do not have enough separate projects already, I ordered a few samples from Eureka's "Wars of the French Revolution" range. I've always thought it would be a blast to focus on one of the early campaigns, before Napoleon was emperor.

Eureka started the range a couple of years ago, and they've added to it steadily. Eureka seems to be focusing on Napoleon's campaigns in Italy for the moment, although the Eureka USA site lists some 1799 Russians.

The figures are very expensive, $2.30 apiece for foot and $5.25 apiece for mounted cavalry. For that price, you'd expect some amazing looking figures. I think these miniatures meet that description.

First, these figures are big. Even for 28s. I make them 30mm from bottom of the foot to eye level, or about 32mm to the top of the head. I didn't take any comparison shots, but I will gladly mix them with other manufacturers, at least in separate units. There's no worry about mixing within units anyway, since no one else makes early Austrians.

The sculpting is excellent, with good detail and very little cleanup required. Eureka uses a nice, stiff alloy, so there will be very little bending of bayonets and such.

Should I ever clear my painting queue of other projects, I will definitely buy enough Austrians to play out some Italian Campaign scenarios with General de Brigade.

Show Off the Good Stuff 2010

Each year my local modeling club hosts a show in Moscow. This year was one of our best yet. I entered wargames figures, as I always do, and this year I also entered quite a few tanks. I've enjoyed returning to armor modeling, but it does hurt my wargames figure production.

Here are some photos of my entries this year.

AWI Continentals

I entered my figures for British Grenadier!, Arnold's Command at Saratoga. The figures received a gold ribbon and the special award for best gaming miniatures.

I also received gold ribbons for my FoG Carthaginians and my 28mm HäT Napoleonics.

1/72 Sherman V

I suppose the Sherman might also be considered a gaming miniature, since I know a lot of people game in 1/72 scale, but this one is definitely not for handling! I put a lot of work into all the tiny photoetched brass parts on this one. I got a silver ribbon for this model.

1/48 KV-2

This is the Tamiya KV-2, built straight from the box, and this one definitely will be seeing the gaming table with my 28mm figures. I got a silver ribbon for this model.

1/35 Kugelblitz

This is the Dragon kit, again straight from the box. I wanted to practice building tracks from individual links. I got a silver ribbon for this model.

1/35 M4A3 76(W) Sherman

This is the Italeri kit, with Dragon DS tracks from a Sherman V. I added Verlinden stowage. The camo net is cheesecloth. I got a silver ribbon for this model.

1/35 Panzer III L

This is the Tamiya Panzer III L, again straight from the box. I used the figure Tamiya provided with the kit, which is a pretty ugly thing. I made the groundwork from plaster, acrylic resin, MIG pigments, sand, and a little water.

I built this tank in just four days, and I left it on the shelf, unpainted, because I didn't think I had done that good a job. I finally put some paint on it while Austin and I were practicing using our airbrushes. This kit received the only gold ribbon I got for my armor.

1/35 SU-122

This is the ancient Tamiya kit, dressed up with Master Club resin tracks and figures from Dragon. I was attempting a weathered whitewash with this one, but the white faded almost out of existence during weathering. I got a silver ribbon for this model.

1/35 France 1940 Diorama

Each year the club chooses a special theme for the show, with a special award for the judges' top pick. Nothing says 1940 to me like surrendering Frenchmen, so I decided this would be my entry. The Hotchkiss is the wretched kit from Trumpeter. The figures are Dragon. The church and diorama base came from Miniart, and it was the single hardest model I've ever worked on.

I used kitty litter for rubble, and I tried to tie in all the groundwork with some pigments. This diorama received a gold ribbon and won the show's theme award.

So if you've wondered why my painting production has seemed to fall, here's why. I've been enjoying armor modeling more than ever before. I'm probably not as good a modeler yet as I am a wargames figure painter, but it's not for lack of effort!

FOG Republican Romans: Hastati

It has been a long time since I had some painted figures to show off. These hastati took two weeks to paint, but I think they are worth the wait.

With my Field of Glory Carthaginian army done, I return now to the Romans. I already have one unit of cavalry, one unit of Italian allies, and one general stand done. Now I'm starting in on the bulk of the army, Rome's heavy infantry.

The last time I painted a Roman army for the Punic Wars, I used Old Glory and based them for Warhammer Ancient Battles. The Old Glory figures are fine little sculpts, but I wanted a little better for my FoG army and went with Crusader for all the infantry. I bought Little Big Men Studios shield transfers for all the infantry, sticking with white as the primary shield color. Bases are from Litko.

I wasn't happy with the unit standards that Crusader includes with their command packs, so I've emailed Old Glory and offered to buy some of the animal totems that they included with their range. Unit those replacements arrive, my Roman standard bearers will have bare poles.