Yet Another New Book...

 Greetings...

This lovely new book arrived in the post yesterday...

Painting 28mm Wargame Figures 4... The Western Front 1914-1918.

By Mark Hargreaves...

This is a splendid book... Mark is up to his usual high standard... we have all of Marks techniques on show...

It is well laid out and filled with helpful and useful information... German bayonet knot colours anyone...?

I always enjoy reading and seeing how others paint toy soldiers... so this was always going to be a must for me...

Mark asked if he could use some of my photos for background shots... I was of course delighted to say yes... I was even more delighted to see that one of my photos is on the front cover...wow!

If you are at all interested in painting khaki and Field Grey... rush out and get this.. You (and Mark)will be all the richer for you doing so...

https://www.caliverbooks.com/bookview.php?ec9sjqomqvme5di28n58rfhmj5&id=28382&subcatcode=C&subcatno=56

All the best   Aly

 

Another New Book

 Greetings...

Here we have another book in The Uniforms of the French Armies 1690-1894 from Soldiershop Publishing...

https://soldiershop.com/shop/the-uniforms-of-french-armies-1690-1894-vol-5/

Strange as it may seem I have gone for volume five as opposed to two...

This is because I have an interest in the French National Guards and Allied Armies... so this one ticks all the boxes...

It includes the rather colourful armies of Naples...

The plate featured on the cover has an image of the un-issued yellow Hussars of the Guard uniform...

Un-issued!!!.... Well that’s not going to stop me... As soon as I find some sustainable figures I’m in there...

A splendid volume full of pretty uniforms... what more could one ask for.

All the best.   Aly

P.S. I posted this using the ‘new’ Blogger interface... It’s a bit like when you go into a trendy hipster restaurant... You know you are reading a menu in English... But you are still not sure what you are going to be eating....

Still it appears to have worked..

Shiny Napoleonics... More Prussians

Greetings...

Here we have the next unit for this project...

2nd Battalion 1st West Prussian Infantry Regiment...

Everything is painted in exactly the same way as the 1st Battalion...

http://alystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2020/07/shiny-napoleonics-prussian-infantry.html

The paints are Citadel and Vallejo Model Color
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling
https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/categoria/hobby/model-color-en/

The Flag is GMB Designs...
https://gmbdesigns.com/product-category/28mm-range/28mm-range-napoleonic-wars/


And the bases are Warbases... https://warbases.co.uk/

I decided to do the 2nd Battalion mostly because I liked the Standard....

I shall probably continue in this theme and add the Fusilier Battalion as well...

All the best.   Aly

An Old Book...

Greetings...

Yes... An Old Book.

The Great War in England  in 1897 by William Le Queux.
First published in 1894.

After talking to my friend David about this book I decided to read it again...

In my opinion this is one of the classics as far as Invasion Fiction is concerned...
Along with...
The Battle of Dorking. Reminiscences of a Volunteer... by George Tomkins Chesney. 1871
The Invasion of 1910... by William Le Queux. 1906
And of course The War of the Worlds... by H G Wells. 1898

The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th saw a rise in the publication and popularity of invasion fiction... not dissimilar from the Red Scare of the 1950s-1960s...

The Great War in England relates a tale of an invasion from France and Russian and a heroic defence by the British nation.
If you can forgive the dated and somewhat jingoistic writing style it makes for a rip roaring and enjoyable read...

This book influenced me a lot when I was making my Shiny Toy Soldier Little Britons.

I think all of the books in my short list are still available in some form or another from Amazon, eBay or your local bookshop...

All the best.   Aly

A Song of Drums and Shakos... French Light Infantry.

Greetings...


Here we have another addition to my Drums and Shakos collection...


I don't really need any more French at the moment... but these are so pretty I just had to add a few...


They are painted up as Voltigeurs from The 2nd Light Infantry... 1808-1812.

They are based on an illustration in Lucien Rousselots... Napoleons Army 1790-1815.

The Uniform is... Citadel... Kantor Blue...With a Diluted Contrast Leviadon Blue Wash... followed by Kantor Blue highlights.
The Muskets and Packs are... Citadel... Mournfang Brown.
The Red Bits are... Citadel... Evil Sunz Scarlet.
The Yellow Bits are... Citadel... Averland Sunset.
The White piping etc. is... Citadel... Pallid Wych Flesh.
The Belts are... Citadel... Corax White.
The Water Bottles and Bayonet Scabbards are... Citadel... Skrag Brown.
The Water Bottle Straps are... Wargames Foundry... Buff Leather 7B.
 Everything was given a coat of Aly's Brown Liquid then highlighted back to the original shade...
An extra highlight was added to the Red and Yellow and the belts were brought up to pure white...
The Leather and metal goods were given a coat of gloss...



 The miniatures are Perry Miniatures...
https://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_62&products_id=4074&osCsid=7k38vcbtkcaue53bd8k3587ge3


Paints from...
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling

And...
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint


The bases are Warbases...
https://warbases.co.uk/


These were a real joy to paint and I find this to be a particularly nice uniform...




I suppose I really do need to add more people for the French to shoot at now...


All the best   Aly.

Shiny Napoleonics... Neuchatel Battalion Test.

Greetings...

After a pleasant exchange with Wellington Man (Aka Matt) on his blog...(The Hinton Spieler... https://thehintonspieler.blogspot.com/ )...about the Neuchatel Battalion I said that I would post some pictures of the unit that I painted up as a test piece when I was starting my Shiny Napoleonics project...

Here they are...

These are Jack Scruby figures...
Available from Historifigs... http://historifigs.com/site/
I have to say that Mike the owner is a splendid fellow to deal with... He has some very interesting ranges...

So... After painting them up and basing them it soon became obvious to me that they just didn’t work that well with all my Minifigs... They are noticeably smaller....Which is why I haven’t got around to posting them before now...

I don’t think that I will keep them... They weren’t by any means a total loss as they helped me finalise how I wanted my basing and infantry units to look...
I have some nice old Minifigs FN56 that should work quite nicely instead... Nor do I mind painting another unit as I really like the colour combination in the uniform...

There you go... Napoleonics... Yes... But not the ones I had planned...

They will be next...

All the best.  Aly

Lion Rampant... Sassanid Spearmen.

Greetings...

Okay I said I was going to do Napoleonics next but...

Here we have another addition to my 3rd Century Lion Rampant (leo insurgens falculis)...

This time we have some Sassanid Armoured Spearmen...

I am slowly getting closer to having a game...another couple of units and I think there will be enough...

I have gone with a blue-ish theme for these chaps....
I picked a load of complimentary blues from my ridiculously large collection of paints... (The butterfly is in control with a lot of things in my hobby 😂 ) and painted two or three figures in each colour...

The Leather goods are... Citadel... Skrag Brown and Doombull Brown.
The White bits are... Citadel... Pallid Wych Flesh.
The body of the Shields and the Spears are... Foundry... Spearshaft Light 13C.

Then it’s Aly’s Brown Liquid and highlighting with the original shades... the white was given an extra highlight with added pure white...

I really enjoyed painting these... it was fun playing around with the different shades of blue...
The next unit for these will probably be more Spearmen... I think mostly in white.

The miniatures are...
Aventine... https://aventineminiatures.co.uk/

The bases are...
Warbases... https://warbases.co.uk/

The Shields are from...
Little Big Men Studios... https://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/

The paints are Wargames Foundry and Citadel...
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling


And another thing...

A lesson to be learned...

For the last couple of posts I have been using my IPad... because my old laptop is getting a bit like me... old and slow... and a bit wheezy...
So I thought I would get a tripod so I could use the IPad camera with a bit more control...

I bought this...

It’s very nice (and cheap)...
And it mostly does what it promises...
Except I just can not get in close enough to get a good picture... with my grown up camera it’s easy... It has good quality lenses... and I can frame the pictures better...but of course the only means of downloading my images is with old wheezy the laptop...

After a bit of experimentation (and shouting) I came up with this compromise...

I am now resting the iPad on the back of this chair...
It works... but I am still not happy with the framing... maybe I need more practice...

The stand should come in useful in my FaceTime games with Mharaid... so sort of win win...
But I can’t help thinking... I should have tried the chair first...

Or just maybe break open my heavily sealed Scottish wallet and buy a new laptop...😱😱😱

Napoleonics next.... maybe.

All the best.   Aly