Stone Bridge: Work In Progress......February 2014

February has been a good month for painting, but a bad month for putting the final matt varnish on models due to the damp and cold. I have no wish to turn my carefully painted models white, so when it finally warms up I will have a nice and health ‘painted’ total. I have not been able to focus on one specific project at the moment, so my painting efforts have gone across a variety of models, periods, and sizes. For starters I’m now up to 19 28mm Frenchmen painted and dipped, with a further 15 waiting on sticks on the sidelines with a bit of blue and pink on them.

I then became distracted (or possibly bored with the immense number of paints I had suckered myself into using on the frenchies) and diversified into a few 28mm Germans. I have thought regularly about building a force for Bolt Action, and I’ve around 30 late war German infantry models so thought I’d give painting them a try again rather than start collecting again for another nation (I’d considered Russians). I had had a shot at painting my, mostly Renegade Miniatures, Germans before, but it hadn’t looked too good half way through and I’d stopped. This time I put my trust in The Dip, painted two all the way to the end, and quite happy with the results I went ahead and did another 7 to make up a full 9-man squad. The second squad of 9 is now stuck to sandy bases and waiting for a coat of spray paint, when the weather is warmer again.

I had a day off which, having spent so long using my spare time in job searching (to no appreciable effect), I decided to designate as A Day Of Painting. I actually managed less than I had hoped for, but I did get my air brush out again and successfully used it to camouflage two 15mm Panzer IV’s. Having sprayed them with the Middle Stone previously to get the base colour I did the olive green camo lines first, and then discovered that the brown recommended by wargamestore was too close to middle stone, and as such useless. I used the red-brown I had got to be a foundation colour instead, and finished by painting the few extra details (tracks, mud mostly) with a brush, and giving it a brown wash (no Dip this time). I added transfers from my Old Glory stock, which was a tricky procedure, and they were done. They’ve come out quite dark – I struggled to make the air brush lines thin enough and the middle stone is mostly obscured – but they look ok. I certainly like the effect the air brush has compared to my previous brush-applied ones, even if that looks quite good still. I’m aiming to work on the other 10 Panzer IV’s I’ve got, but to try and lessen the amount of green and brown so the base coat of middlestone shows up much more.

Final period and size, and my eye was caught by the American Civil War and out came my 6mm Union troops again. I’ve done a post for this, but to summarise it was more basing than painting, and my army is now pleasantly bigger. I finished off the month by working on a 6mm Zouvre battalion which should give my lines a bit of extra colour, and by adding colour to a piece of scenery which I’ve had for an age, and just needed that bit of work to make it more suitable for the table top.

Gaming:

I wasn’t well for one Thursday late in the month, and subsequently failed to organise a game for one week as well, but I did manage to grind Aidan into a high scoring draw in the Flames Of War campaign, so that’s one to be pleased with.

Books:

Having read 3 books in January I’ve slowed down in February due to distractions (more time spent painting), and my choice of books not hitting the right note at the right time. I have started on a new book; The Desert War, by Alan Moorehead. It’s a trilogy written by a British war correspondent of his experiences during the North Africa campaign 1940-43, and despite its age runs along quite nicely, so when I get time to sit down and read it I think it’ll be rather good.

Painted Vs Purchased:

Nowt purchased, and only 6 things varnished (3 X 28mm Germans, a frenchie, and 2 X 15mm Panzer IV’s) and as such qualifying as finished. So once it turns warm it should all look much better. It also occurred the other day that I have never clarified what counts as ‘1’ model painted – I’m counting one base as one model, so my large bit of scenery is a single model, while the ACW 6mm bases with 4 strips of troops on also count as one. Finally I’ve put in a holiday application form in the hope of having the 18^th of May off so I can join up with a few friends and go to Triples in Sheffield.

Purchased: 0

Painted: 6