Work In Progress......January 2014

There has been progress!  I have picked up several painting brushes and painted a bit of paint on a number of different things.  The most work has been on my limited 28mm French Napoleonic collection, where I am working on the first of 3 projected battalions and resurrected the blog post series I had started.  I have also been trying out an air brush set on several tanks of different sizes (see below).  I have also made it back to Deeside a few times for a few games, and read a few books.  Its been a better month than December.  I’ve painted up 6 28mm Napoleonic Frenchmen so far, and based them (they are just missing the final matt spray), and subsequently painted another 13 frenchmen, but not got round to ‘dipping’ them in my strong tone yet.   I’ve an additional 15 models waiting to be painted then I was going to dip the lot together to save on broken brushes. 

Air Brushing:

I was fortunate to be the recipient of an introductory air brush set for my birthday, I can only assume that it is designed for numpties, in which case I should find it a challenge.  I initially tried it out using my normal Vallejo paints watered down, but couldn’t get the right texture and it all came out too wet, so I bit the bullet and ordered a number of the air brush-specific Vallejo Air paints and primers.  I’ve used it limitedly so far, having a good go at air brushing an old GW leman russ tank in the same style as I hope to do my German FOW tanks, and overall I was quite happy at the result, having used a primer as an undercoat, then just adding green stripy camouflage afterwards.  More to come here I think.

Gaming:

I’ve started to make the trip to Deeside on a Thursday evening again, and slotted in a few games of varying sorts, including getting the better of Aidan in the Flames of War campaign, and then coming off worse to his Romano-Brits in Hail Caesar (good run out for the Wwwwomans though), as well as coming just second to Luke’s Irish in a three-sided Saga fight, and being thoroughly battered by Michael’s Normans while Red’s Vikings hide in some trees.  I even bumped into several people I haven’t seen for an age from the RGMB and had a nostalgia hit.  Damn that nostalgia hit.

Books:

New section partly because I have speedily read three books since the end of December, and started a fourth, and also because for once I have remembered which ones I have read!  In terms of books I did well at Christmas and my birthday, gaining no less than 7 tomes covering various topics and in both fiction and fact.  The three so far were Stormbird by Conn Iggulden, The Hobbit, and Embedded by Dan Abnett.

Stormbird was a bit of a find by my parents, and is the first in a fiction series of books set in the Wars of the Roses, and starts just after Henry VI comes to the throne.  I had previously read one of Iggulden’s roman-based novels, and this is similar in style, plenty of fighting but also plenty of storyline, and having read up on the Wars of the Roses recently I could identify each historical character and event and their overall place.  Well written with the only disappointment being that it is the first and only book so far – I’ll have too wait for a second. 

The Hobbit is a book which I haven’t read for probably 20 years, but having been to see the second of the 3 Peter Jackson films (and enjoying it) I wanted to read it again, and heavy hints meant it turned up!  Identical to Lord of the Rings in writing style, which sometimes makes it hard to read until I’ve spent a couple of chapters slowing my reading down to be able to take it in, then it flows.  You do have to be careful not to skim-read as much (a habit I’ve picked up over the years) because in this book you almost certainly will miss something.  Super still after all this time, and the films helped me image and enjoy it just like the Lord of the Rings films did.

Embedded was the shortest read.  Written by Dan Abnett (of 40k novels fame) it’s a science fiction piece from a media perspective.  Slow to get going (and odd to get used to the various futuristic words and lifestyles), once the shooting starts it rattles along nicely.  The only gripe being a slightly unsatisfactory ending – felt like it was being left open, perhaps it was.  A good read if that’s your thing.

Painted Vs Purchased: 

Didn’t even make it as far at Vapnartek in York this year (no money, no time off), so that helped.  I’ve also not finished painting anything.  Maybe this month….

Purchased: 0

Painted: 0

My first shot at air brushing.