Samurai Charging with Katanas

Next base for my Shimazu Impetus army is Samurai charging with katanas. I painted my Samurai in strong individual colours which is in contrast to my Ashigaru's more neutral uniformed look in order to distinguish them as the true elites of my army. However, I still wanted them to look like they belong to the same army and so the shimazu mon(heraldry) remained on the sashimono's(back banners) and Nobori(large Banner) and also in the same colour which I hope succeeds in tying them together.

I won't beat around the bush and will simply say these guys were flat out the hardest miniatures I've ever painted and made the Ashigaru seem like a walk in the park. That said, I'm pleased with the results and feel the time spent was really worth it. Now that I know what is required of me in terms of time needed to complete Samurai bases I really need to pick up the pace when painting Ashigaru bases to make sure I meet my goal for 300pts by September which is roughly 11 bases plus a camp.
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures

Ashigaru Arquebusier

It's been a bit since my last post, but there were reasons starting with I was in the states on vacation for a couple weeks visiting relatives plus the amount of work to paint this unit was more then I expected and lastly I have the man flu and the world is coming down around my ears!!(moan,sniffle)

So now that I'm done with my lame excuses I'll talk a bit a bout the unit. It's my first unit for my Shimazu Clan 28mm Impetus Samurai army. I knew they were going to be hard to paint, but not as hard as they turned out to be. They are Perry figures and hands down the most difficult figures I've attempted to date and these are just the Ashigaru and not the Samurai who are ever harder which has me concerned. Mainly because the Perry's added so much fine detail it's hard to paint and highlight(darn near snapped a brush in frustration). That said, I won't give up because for years I've wanted a Samurai army and in the end I think I'll be very happy I persevered.

When starting I soon realized I had to first study how all the armour was put together before even trying to paint it as you will make mistakes if you start assuming things(like I did) making you start over(like I did 3x!). I decided for a brown armour for my Ashigaru for reasons like-

-Shogun-Loved the movie and Toranaga's Samurai were brown which I liked.
-Earthy colours- I really enjoy earthy tones so I thought since I'll be painting Ashigaru more then Samurai  I should use colours I really enjoy the most.
-I wanted something different then Red and Black which are the most used colours
-Really like the Samurai and Ashigaru in brown armour by Angus McBride

I wanted a nice contrasting colour to the brown, but again opted out on the more common black,white,red and instead went with a light blue which works out very well for me.
Overall I'm reasonably happy with the results, however I do need to add some improvements that I didn't really see when I was painting that have come to light when I viewed the pictures.

You would think I might want to take a break after complaining about their difficulty, but actually I'm already looking forward to the next base with the only thing being do I add another Ashigaru  or attempt a Samurai base. I'm also doing a couple SCW figures, but they won't take to long and ACW.....

As always thank you very much for taking time out time see what I'm doing as I really appreciate it!
Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures

300 followers and thank you!

I couldn't resist using this film image for the header as many of us cannot.:-) I'm very grateful for those who have given their time to follow what I do in this wonderful hobby we call wargaming! Hitting the 300 mark is a very special event for me that has been a goal of mine for quite some time that frankly I wasn't sure I would reach as the new followers hit the molasses at 270 or so. Once again thank you all very, very much and I do read every single comment you write!
The blog will be quite over the next few weeks as I'll be very busy with "real" life, but I promise the postings will pick up again towards the end of May to my normal levels. Upcoming things will be my Samurai(priority#1), ACW revamp and some SCW. Stay tuned!!

Victorian Adventuress

I entered this Victorian Adventuress in Curt's painting challenge and haven't got around to posting it until now. I really did enjoy painting this as I like working in earth tones and neutral colours quite a bit. As a matter of fact I'll probably due a few more.

A friend of mine is running some Zulu stuff and at first I was going to do some Natal contingents and I still might, but I think I'll do some Boars (as in Dutch natives) first as I really like their look.

When I do the Boars I can't really say as my schedule is pretty full for the summer which leads me into my next topic. I have some painting projects that really do need to get done and so I won't be able to follow blogs as closely as I usually do, but I will do my best for sure. For example I spend about 70% of my free time on blogs and forums and 30% at the painting table which doesn't help productivity very much. I need to at least change that to about 60% to 70% at the painting table and the rest on blogs and forums. So please understand if I miss a post or two I'm not ignoring you and will get back to you as soon as I reasonably can. By this I mean I'll read as often as I can, but commenting might prove difficult. I figure after September things will loosen up for me where I can go to about 50/50. Thanks for following my blog and understanding my situation and I'll do my best to support yours within my time allowance!

Complete Analogue Hobbies challenge results

I mentioned last year joining in a winter painting competition hosted by Curt at  http://analogue-hobbies.blogspot.de/ where points were awarded for each painted miniature that ran from December 20th 2011 to March 20th 2012. Whoever amassed the most points would be declared the winner and receive the grand prize with 2nd and 3rd also getting a prize.

The final results for the points challenge were:

RayR: 4940 link

KentG: 4724 link

TimB: 3385 link

FranL: 2152link

SteveM: 2044Link?

ChrisP: 2029 link

DaveD: 1975link

MilesR: 1061link

GregB: 1019 link

JohnM: 1000link

IanW: 900 link

MikeW: 867link

Curt: 791 link

Scott: 695 link

PhilH: 519 link

JuanM: 446 link

ChristopherS: 442 Myself!

DallasE: 420 link

Michael: 315link

JohnB: 310Link?

RossM: 269link

TimmyD: 138link

Sylvain: 90link

PaulP: 34link

As you can see the top dogs scored some truly staggering point totals that left me bugged eyed in amazement!! I wonder if they are not really half machines then real human beings! The sprint to the finish between Ray and Kent was nail biting and dramatic with each slipping in final posts at the last minute with Ray just edging out Kent at the very last moment. Another highlight had to be the rivalry between Fran and Ray heckling each other throughout the competition, however it was all in good fun as in actuality they are very good friends.
Outstanding results to the top dogs and I wish to congratulate all of them on an awesome performance!

Unsurprisingly and therefore needless to say I was nowhere near the top as I paint rather slowly with what can best be described as a less then stellar point total, but thankfully Curt in his wisdom realized all men are not created equal in their ability to both paint a figure quickly and efficiently and so gave us more mortal underdogs other goals to achieve.

People's Choice Award- This is given to viewers of the competition and is open to anyone to vote. I was both honoured, humbled and of course delighted to be declared winner of this category with my 15mm Ayyubid Mamluks! They can be viewed in my side bar under 15mm Crusades if you wish.

Challengers choice- This is by the participants in the challenge for their favourite entry which was won by Dave's excellent Baverian Chevaulegers "Konig"link.

Sarah's choice- This innovative idea is given by Curts wife for a female themed historical figure which was won by Phil's Femme Fatale from the Societe Archeolgique and 1930s Gun Molllink.

Judges Choice- This is given by Curt for his personal favourite entry. Rather then just one entry Curt decided to award Juan the prize for his very nice complete body of worklink.

It was great fun and I enjoyed being part of something if not unique then at least not often done where you group a bunch of painters from all over the world and bring them together to compete in a friendly format. No question I'm really looking forward to the next one to see if I can improve on my total and once again enjoy watching what everyone does. Oh and of course watch Fran and Ray's verbal boxing match!

Well done to everyone who stepped up and competed regardless of your points and most of all a superb job to Curt for making it all possible!!

The great 15mm ACW overhaul

Well I've finally got a window to do this without feeling like I should be doing something else in imminent need of completion. It's not that I don't have a lot to do which I do, but rather nothing that has to be done right now which gives me the freedom to do what I want......yipeee!:-)

My largish 15mm ACW collection is quite old in that 90% of the collection was painted about 15 to 20 years ago and is in a bad need of an overhaul in both basing and figure touch ups! I've been looking at them for several years saying I really need to do a revamp and now I've finally got the time.:-) The figures are based for the old Fire and Fury with different sized bases and varying number of figures per base. I'm now re-basing the entire collection using the standardize format given in Regimental Fire and Fury which has speeded up the desire to get started since it's release!

The figures themselves are Old Glory and they are still are very nice figures and even more so when one bears in mind the sculpts are over 20 + years old. In addition to the figures I have painted I also have bags full of unpainted ones where quite literally if I assembled and painted everything I owned I could field both sides for Gettysburg! However first things first so painted stuff revamped before adding any new stuff.
 
Things that will be done:

*Figures will conform to RF&F recommended base sizes which in effect will give me more units which is nice.
*The basing will be completely redone as the old style is pretty darn dated and looks shabby.
*Figures will given a wash and a quick highlight(I noticed I did at least cleanly block in the colours when I first did them which was a pleasant discovery making touch ups much easier).
*When placing the figures on the new bases I must make sure to keep the figures with lowered rifles farther back on the base to allow easier alignment of the units which I failed to do the first time and made everything line up haphazardly.
*Replace badly done shot up standards with whole ones which I think looks better at this scale.
*Paint up all the new terrain I bought for this well!
*Add new units

I'm not looking to paint the armies to the best of my ability as I have 28mm ACW collection to lavish that kind of attention on, but rather I am going for a decent looking force that hopefully I and others visiting will find pleasing to look at on the tabletop.

Since Fire and Fury is in my top 3 all time favourite games I'm just iching to try out Regimental Fire and Fury and so I'm really excited to see how this turns out!:-)

Fanatic Warriors

I've been a little under the weather lately, but I managed to finish these two stands of Fanatic Warriors for my Ayyubid 15mm Muslim Crusades army.
There were two approaches I could have used in designing these troops. The first could have been a group of warriors in different clothes, weapons and shields to look like the faithful hastily gathered together from different parts to fight the invading Franks. The second option and the one I decided to go with was a more serious and slightly sinister looking discipled  formation of warriors dedicated to crushing the infidels who invaded their holy land. They look much harder then their profile really is in the list, but hopefully they will intimate my opponent enough!:-)
In going with the black I insured to add plenty of colour to the sashes and shields to keep them tied in with the rest of my rather colourful army and so I hope it worked.
The figures are legio Heroica which as I said before are some of the best 15mm out there, but if I did have one small critique I'd say some of the figures can be a bit static, but the sculpting detail more then make up for it. The paints I used were mostly Foundry with some Vallejo and the flag is from LBM.
Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Legio Heroica