Seduced By The Barmaid ... Or How Miniatures Sometimes Get Painted

Well, it wasn't quite like this.

She spoke German, not Italian. But there she was, way at the back of the painting queue, and somehow she caught my eye.

Perhaps you, good reader, are careful to enforce discipline in your painting queues. Figures are painted by project, or by time waiting in the lead mountain, or some such rule. I try to have guiding principles such as these, but I confess I am a victim to my own self-diagnosed painting ADHD. The problem is confounded by a shapely leg and a saucily poised beer stein.

She is the Reaper Miniatures Oktoberfest Fraulein, purchased for my Weird War Two project, which is still a vague mass of ideas and scenes from old films that only exist in my head. I sort of envisioned her as an Allied agent or resistance fighter, infiltrating German beer halls to worm secrets out of lager-addled Nazis, perhaps something along the lines of the late Ingrid Pitt's character Heidi from Where Eagles Dare. <

I can't resist, more Ingrid here:

Where was I? Oh, right. While I was painting some samurai figures for Curt's Analogue Hobbies painting challenge, she caught my eye from a box of unpainted figures tucked on a shelf by the painting bench. A finger beckoned, a promise of some good Munich beer, and a sly wink, and I was putty in her hands. Besides, as I mentioned here earlier, since she knew that I had no geisha girl figures on hand, she promised to be a calming influence on the samurai, and she was, mostly, though, like cats to their owners, they kept bringing her body parts.

Here's the final result.

Yes, I know, shocking for a middle-aged clergyman to be painting figures such as these. I'm shocked myself. And to think she was painted during Lent.

The samurai angle got me thinking about a character background for this charming lady. Let me know if you think this works. From Project Alice Personel Files, Top Secret Operative: Ingrid Pittcairn Code Name: KATANA Biography: Daughter of British missionary teacher (The Rev. Lancelot Andrews Pittcairn) and Austrian missionary nurse (Irene Pittcairn, nee Gammel) who met while working in Japan in the 1920s. British citizen, fluent in English, German, Japanese and Chinese. Largely raised on the northern island of Hokkaido, where her family befriended a Buddhist monk with training in the anciet samurai arts. Rv. Pittcairn, an eccentric and liberal-minded father, indulged his daughter when she asked the monk to teach in the martial arts. Upon her father's death in 1935, Ingrid and her mother settled with relatives in Vienna, but fled to England following the Anschluss. Ingrid enrolled in languages at Oxford University, but left her studies following a dispute over her being forbidden to participate in varsity fencing. She was recruited by Intelligence as a linguistic analyst, working in the Asia section, but a meeting with Padre Tristram Mercer, a friend of her father's, led to ber being taken on by Project Alice. Ms. Pittcairn has no special supernatural aptitude or abilities, but her knowledge of Buddhist meditation practices, her keen mind, linguistic abilities and athleticism, it is believed, will make her well-suited for the kind of work to be expected of Project Alice operatives.

Sound plausible? Remotely plausible? Bad fiction plausible? Quentin Tarantino plausible?

Now, if only someone were to sculpt a Bavarian beer garden girl wielding a samurai sword, I could die a happy man.

Toby Barrett Announces Ironclads For Ipad Kickstarter Project

I confess I am not yet convinced of the merits of Kickstarter, which is to say, truth by told, that I haven't found a project yet in our hobby that got me excited. That may have changed. I was very intrigued to read on the Ironclads Yahoo group this morning that Toby Barrett, proprietor of Thoroughbred Miniatures, has the rights to the old Yaquinto boardgame Ironclads and the expansions, and wants to port them over to the iPad platform.

This idea strikes me as eminently sensible because I have an American Civil War ironclads game on the table at present, and there are times when the ship models are obscured by a multitude of charts and tables, and if the ship models are visible, often the paper covers the little turning and arc of fire widgets I need. While the rules I am using, Smoke On The Water from Canis Publications, are perfectly fine, it's all a bit more cumbersome than I would like. I have an iPad and I have been slowly migrating .PDF copies of rules to it, and I would welcome a tablet-based solution for ACW naval gaming.

Here's a quote from Mr. Barrett's post on the Ironclads group:

Tonight on Kickstarter.com I launched a campaign in order to raise funds which will pay for the programming of an App to run on the Apple iPad. The App will contain everything from the original Ironclads game - all the rules, data cards, scenarios, and such for miniatures play, and will include a game referee and a combat resolution module to greatly help to speed up the operation and ease of the game. What happens on the table will still be key with the player more able to concentrate on movement, decisions and tactics. If you are not familiar with Kickstarter it is a web site whereby artists, creators and anyone with an idea can go in order to raise funds for projects in exchange for incentives. It is sort of like the show on TV Shark Tank but without the attitude and the millionaires. Several things came together – finally – to allow me to try this project for the Ironclads rules. First the amazing iPad system which I think will change a lot of things and greatly help gamers around the miniatures tabletop. Second I met a great programmer for the iPad, Jeremy Alessi, who is very skilled at the IOS programming skills required for creating apps for the system. (Jeremy has several apps already in operation, Airspin and Fat Rat. Check them out.)

The project URL for the Ironclads Kickstarter campaign is: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/293087222/the-ironclads-app?ref=email and anyone on this group list can go there to read about the project and decide if they wish to become a backer at one of the several levels offered. Anyone familiar with the Thoroughbred 1/600 product line will know I stand by my products and am offering a whole slew of new models for the campaign. I promise my work and efforts to turn out an excellent Ironclads App will match the same quality of work shown in my miniatures over the years. And I will continue to maintain the level of excellent customer service I have always practiced in order to fulfill my promises for the campaign. Questions can be asked and given on the Kickstarter site, or I'm available on this group and by regular email to offer answers. Regular updates and video clips of our progression will be added to the Kickstarter site, so please plan to return for repeat looks. As Always, Thank you and Enjoy! Toby Barrett Thoroughbred Figures Portsmouth, Virginia

So I'm in. My first Kickstarter project, very exciting. If you are a fan of ACW naval gaming, I hope you'll consider it.

Thoughts And Prayers Asked For Another Mad Padre

Long time readers of this blog may remember my Mad Padre Vs Mad Padre post of last August. This was not a post about some internal psychic conflict, but rather a small celebration of a friend I made that summer, Padre Kevin White of the British Army Chaplain Corps. Kevin had come over to Suffield, Alberta, to be with his congregation, 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, who were training for Afghanistan. That summer we discovered a mutual passion for God, good beer, and toy soldiers, to paraphrase this blog's header. Here we are after a rousing game of I Ain't Been Shot Mum at my gaming chapel. Kevin is the chap on the right, beside the chinless wonder.

From Mobile

He can also be seen on the far right of the masthead for Harry Pearson's Parum Pugna blog. Beside Harry (Achtung Schweinhund!) Pearson, Kevin's gaming circle includes another wargaming cleric, Stephen Caddy, who apparently is aware of my blog, so a wave to you, sir, if you are reading.

Well, enough of this froth, to business. Kevin wrote to me this week and said he would be deploying to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, this Easter Sunday and would likely be there until October. He goes with several other padre friends I made last summer: Padre Phil Burrows of 2nd Duke of Lancaster's Regiment (already in theatre) and Padre Nigel Kinsella of the Household Cavalry, who will be going over shortly. Phil has specifically asked for prayers that no one is killed on this rotation. The 1st Mercians lost a young Lance Corporal last week, so Helmand is still a dangerous place for the British Army even though the end now seems to be in sight. I ask you for your good thoughts and, if you are the praying type, for them and for their lads.

Work In Progress: More Russkies On Horsies 3

It's been a busy week at the Mad Padre's painting chapel on the edge of the somewhat still frozen Canadian prairie. A week's leave saw me doing more 1to1 scale terrain work: putting in a new kitchen sink (miraculously no geysers or indoor fountains) and, with Madame Padre, deciding on new carpet. To save money, I decided to rip out the old carpet and underlay myself. A flight of stairs alone took two days. I spent more time with these tools than I did with my paints and brushes.

Miraculously, despite several slips with the carpet knife, a murderous instrument reminiscent of a Turkish disembowelling cutlas, I didn't manage to drive the hook through my cheek or eyeball. Then there were numerous trips to flooring stores, where Madame Padre, a meditative sort, agonized over the right shade of carpet, while I looked at the sample squares and wondered which ones would be the best hue for crop fields for my 6mm Napoleonics.

As a bit of a Sabbath rest, I returned to my painting bench and resumed work on my Russian SYW hussars. Here Privates Boris and Karloff model their uniform, and their newly finished saddlecloths, which look rather sharp if I do say so myself.

<

I am actually starting to feel that the end might be in sight with these guys. Remaining on the riders: light grey for the wigs, flesh highlights for the faces, moustaches, eyes and eyebrows, brass for the sword scabbard and handle, metal for the sword and spurs, a wash of Army Painter light and then yellow highlights. The horses need a lot of work, but if I can blast through the harness and tack, then it's a wash and highlights. The only problem is that I've dragged so long with this project I can't recall what colours I used for some of the blasted beasties. Anyone else ever have that problem with long running projects, of forgetting yourinitial palette choices?

God willing, it will be a quiet week at work and then time over the Easter Weekend to get this project finished so I can begin my April is Resurrected Armies month. May God prosper your brushes and die rolls!

Samurai Beer Garden

Do I need to say more?Well, maybe. Here's another take on the samurai beer garden theme, thanks to young Kinch.

For me, the Analogue Painting Challenge is over. As I write this there are less than two hours to go, and I am in awe of what my fellow brush ronin achieved. For me I achieved 69.7% of my self-imposed challenge goal, so I'll round that up to a B- grade and be content with it. This week I am engaged in what the military calls "burning leave", using the last five days of my annual leave in this fiscal year (woe betide anyone who tries to carry leave into the new FY) and Madame Padre has some definite goals to meet before we put our house on the market come posting season. I spent today shopping for a new kitchen sink, buying the parts, and removing the old sink without creating a geyser in the kitchen. Tomorrow with a friend's help the new sink comes in, and tomorrow the carpet guy also comes in to measure for a quote. So the minis have to wait for now. But I did get these fellows done as my last entry.

As described here, these figures are from The Assault Group, who showed their amazing awesomeness with an extra bonus figure, the chap with two heads. There are more samurai photos here if you're curious. There are more pho In that same post I also mentioned a winsome youg biermadchen who volunteered to keep these samurai in line in the absence of any geisha girls. She's quite a feisty one, and I'll discuss her charms in another post. Needless to say, those rowdy samurai gave her a lot of guff.

< Young lady, you don't understand, in my country it is an honour for a maiden to be presented with the head of her intended's slain enemy! >

More Weird War Two Good Guys: The Ghostly Laird o' Kinch

Major John (Black Jack) MacAllan, the Ninth Laird of Kinch, an estate in the Western Highlands, was one of the legendary characters of the Great War. A company commander in the Black Watch, he was famous for spending most of his time in the forward trenches, inspiring his men with a joke, a song, a Woodbine or a well-placed kick in the arse as required. Armed with his beloved Stephen Grant side by side best gun, MacAllan often led trench raids despite orders from battalion and brigade not to put himself at risk. He liked, as he said, to teach his junior officers, or "sprogs", by example and not by sitting in some blasted dugout giving orders.

In the winter of 1917, MacAllan was acting battalion commander and was expected to be promoted to brigade staff, but chose to go to the fighting trenches one night when reports of German tunnelling were coming in from the listening posts. Convinced that the Germans were close to exploding a mine, he ordered two companies back to safety, while he remained to lead a small countermine party. The mine detonated, some say after a brief hand to hand struggle under ground, and MacAllan was never seen again, but his premonition saved the Black Watch from annihilation and prevented a breakthrough in their sector. MacAllan was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, and left behind a widow and one young son, Graham, to carry on the name.

Major John MacAllan as he was last seen, the night of his death in 1917.

As mentioned previously here, young Graham grew up and followed his father's footsteps into the army and into the Black Watch. At St. Valery in 1940, he managed to lead his company through German lines to the last RN destroyer waiting to evacuate troops of the doomed Highland Division. Graham casually mentioned in debrief that his dad had shown him the way through the German lines. That might have finished his career as a psychological casualty, but fortunately Project Alice was looking for men and women with supernatural inclinations and aptitudes. Now, the troops of S Commando are used to their Mad Major who talks to spooks. On several raids they have seen their boss stop and converse with thin air, and then go on to lead them to the objective or to the evac point without a scratch. True to his principles, John MacAllan is still leading his young sprogs from the front, a ghostly but effective ra extset of eyes and ears for his son the Mad Major.

This figure is from the Great War Miniatures British personalities set, and was painted up as part of an entry for the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge, whose mastermind, Curt, suggested that I paint him in grayscale as a proper ghost. That would have been a terrific idea had I thought of it in time, though I'm not sure I can justice to Curt's technique. I rather like the idea that he would appear as being perfectly natural and lifelike to his son's Celtic second sight, and invisible to others (an idea borrowed from that classic comic, The Haunted Tank).

If I ever get this project off the ground, I expect any force where Maj. MacAllan is present will get one or two chances to play the "Ghost Dad" card, allowing it a free spot or some other bonus against the German force.

And The Winners Are

Milords and ladies, the results of the Mad Padre Wargames 50K/100 contest are in. We have our winners. But first, a review of our fabulous prizes.

There are three prizes that our winners can choose from, with Winner 1 having his choice of the three, and Winner 2 choosing from the two remaining, and Winner 3 getting the one left. Tres simple, n'est-ce pas? The first two are from Bob Murch's Pulp Figures range of two-fisted, hard charging, devil may care adventurer types. Apologies for these oversized photos, a bit of a cock-up on the ImageShack front, apparently.

We have Pith Helmet Guy. For some reason, he seems sinister to me. I'm guessing he's a Nazi agent or spy keeping tabs on the British some place where mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.

Next up is a lady I've come to know and love as Safari Girl, cutting her way through the elephant grass with her trusty machete. If she could speak, I'll bet she'd sound just like Katharine Hepburn.

The third prize is this motorcycle dispatch rider from Great War Miniatures. I'm not an expert on Great War miniatures by any means, but he is sculpted wearing armbands and there is some evidence that dispatch riders were part of the Signal Corps, whose colours are white over blue. Those same colours fly today over the signals detachment building at the base where I work, so I think I'm good. Some poetic license with the motorcycle license plate, numbering, and roadsigns.

Everyone at Mad Padre Wargames worked hard to make this a fair and transparent process. In the absence of President Jimmy Carter and the United Nations, Stanley the Cat was drafted to oversee the process. Here he carefully examines the names of the contestants, carefully placed in the Mad Padre beret.

Madame Padre draws the the first winner, and it is ... Peter Douglas! Congratulations, Peter, you have your choice of the three prizes. Please email me at madpadre (at) gmail.com with your choice and address.

Madame Padre draws the second winner, and it is ... Wargaming News and Terrain! Congratulations sir! Please email me at madpadre @ gmail.com with your address and I'll let you know which two prizes you can choose from.

Madame Padre draws the third prize, and it is ... Chris Stoesen! Congratulations,Chris. I have your email address, I'll let you know what's left.

And finally, the fabulous bonus prize. As you may recall, I promised a bonus prize to the person whose literary undertaking had the greatest literary merit. Madame Padre accepted the role of judge, with the sole instruction that she choose the entry that most tickled her fancy. She took this role most seriously, and pondered the entries for almost half an hour. Madame Padre liked many, and her Honourable Mention award (sadly, no prize) goes to Mike Whittaker, whose sonnet was a very clever example of that genre. However, the one which made her laugh the most, and which earned her thumbs up, was ...

Dux Homunculorum, whose short but well crafted entry asked just why that padre in the blog masthead is leaning so close to that vamptastic temptress. A good question. Congratulations, Dux, that was a great entry. Your prize is this Great War Miniatures Tommy, gamely kicking a football towards the Hun lines. If you don't game the period, I hope he graces your desk or bookshelf, because he's a wonderful sculpt and I hope I did justice to him. I have your email address so will ping you for your snail mail address. I should add as a disclaimer that Madame Padre knew nothing of my winning a prize on Dux H's blog recently, so there was no fix, no quid pro quo here. Stanley the Cat made sure this was a clean contest.

So there you have it, gentles all, thanks for playing in this contest. For those of you who didn't play, I hope we'll see you in the 200K pageview / 200 follower contest, whenever that may be. Blessings to your die rolls!

The 50K/100 Contest: Last Call For Entries

Milords and Ladies, today until midnight, MST, is the last day to play Mad Padre Wargames' 50,000 pageview/100 follower contest. Three 28mm miniatures will go to those whose names are drawn at random, and a fourth will go to the poem that most tickles the fancy of Madame Padre. The minis are 98% finished and will be posted here shortly. If you want to play, and I pray you do, the contest rules are here. Here are the entries thus far:

The very first entry, from Colonel Scipio:

"One night with gusto, and derring-do,
Young Igor went a-searching,
He packed his Mauser, still brand new,
And to The Castle, went a-lurching.

The Castle was crammed, with evil deeds,
Of course, young Igor knew.
"Strasser's evil grows like weeds,
And hangs in the air, like dew!"

But as he approached this old, grim fortress,
He came across a man,
Dressed in sturdy battledress,
And named just 'Padre Tristram'.

"Look here my man! Now can't you see!"
He cried, turning to depart,
"The Count's displeased, he ought to be,
This stake's marked for his heart!"

As Igor watched, some other fellows,
Trudged upwards, t'wards the top,
'"WE'RE 'S' COMMANDO!", so they bellowed,
"And the Count is for the chop!"

So, satisfied, he began to head,
Down the mountain at a jog:
If there's one thing BETTER than slaying undead,
It's reading it on the blog!"

From Archdule Piccolo, composed while defoliating down under:

"How doth the Mad Padre
improve his shining blog,
With Chronicles of Commando 'S',
and the missions that they log.

How sweetly he seems to grin,
How carefully loads his gun,
And laughs with joy as the lead goes in:
Shooting zombies can be such fun."

A Spanish language entry from Annibal Invictus:

"De allende el mar nos llega
El blog del padre Miguel
El cura-soldado kanuck
Que a soldaditos juega

Su comando especial británico
A las criptas ha bajado
A erradicar al maligno
Y a otros seres malditos

Pero Oh! Cielos!
Ni zombies, ni diablos
Una vampiresa insinuante
Dicen, de rojo pasión vestida
Pero yo más bien diría… ¡desnuda!

Padre Miguel, qué cosas pintas!
En estas latitudes hispanas
Ya te habrían excomulgado
Rouco y sus secuaces

------------------- PS: Rouco is the head of the Spanish Catholic Episcopal Conference"

And a translation via Google Translate:

"From across the sea comes
The blog of Father Miguel
The priest-soldier kanuck
That plays soldiers

His special command British
A crypt is down
To eradicate the evil
And other beings cursed
But Oh! Heavens!
Neither zombies or hell
A flirtatious vamp
They say, of red dressed
But I would rather say ... naked!

Father Miguel, what things pints (err, paints? MP?!
In these latitudes Hispanic
Now you have excommunicated
Rouco and his henchmen"

From the flat-out whimsical Krista Johns, charming wife of my favourite tanker:

"I'm not much of a gamer
As you will duly note
But I felt the need to put
My feelings into rote

It's not too often that I find
A site worth browsing through
But here I see your artist's eye
And I'm inclined to favour you

So now I leave my little poesy
With a bright and cheery grin
By saying it's wonderful to keep up
With one of my favourite men!

[The others, as I should point out,
Are the one to whom I'm wed
And the one who looks just like him
But taller by a head"

A very clever and elegant sonnet from Mike Whittaker:

The Padre needs a comment that's in verse
A line or two from follower and friend
A limerick perhaps, or would he be averse
To something cleverer, a fancy blend
Of sonnet form, the pref'rence of the Bard
With rhyming scheme that drives me round the bend.
It's not that Terza Rima's really hard,
though interwoven rhymes can drive you mad,
and form, belov'd of Dante, leave you scarred.
Still, hopefully, this poem's not too bad,
And will show my admiration for your blog,
(I'm dodging rhyming with that word: I'm glad.)
And in the end, things could have been much worse:
Fourteen lines is, after all, quite terse.

Self-described "free verse doggerel from a no-talent poet and trombonist", Grenzer John, another wargaming pastor:

"Hey, Diddle, Diddle;
The Cat and the Fiddle;
the Padre is over the moon.
The Puppy Dog laughed to see such fun
and the bishop will never find out what you paint... 'specially that Weird War chaplaincy stuff."

A meditation on the fickle dice gods from Mr VBCW, PanzerKaput:

"God by on your side
When you first off to battle you go
For if you do not pray hard enough
The dice Gods will surely show
With rulers and rules, and dice and bags
The table will surely be filled
But if you don't pray hard enough
Your opponent will surely will
Remember the dice Gods are strange and fickle
Then will is all of there own
And to win the day its good to help
So a prayer would surely show.

Howard Han channels his oriental savoir faire to produce this haiku:

"Painting minis is fun.
Mike's blog makes it doubly so!
Weird war two, anyone!"

A fine Irish mashup from Monty:

"As I was going over the Saint Elias Mountains,
I met with a Mad Padre and his paint pots he was counting,
He first produced his paint brush and then produced his palette,
Saying "Lend me a fiver, for at home I've left me wallet,"
Write for your bloggio,
Write for your bloggio,
There's acrylics in the jar!"

From Dux Homunculorum:

"A padre with a brolly
is both whimsical and jolly,
but the godly man has duties more severe.

Like warding off a temptress,
nubile and nearly dress-less:
But does he really need to stand so very near?"

From Chris Stoesen, a nice riff on my ongoing ACW PBEM campaign:

Men of the South must rise
For the Yankees are coming with size
Bluffsburg is at play
Can Hatcher hold them at bay
Until our reinforcements arrive.
Our ironclads paddle
to victory in battle
both Joshua and Maccabee
pursue north to see
Just what the Mississippi might hide
At the Guntown affair
we held on by a hair
Be we await the results and abide.

From Peter Douglas:

There once was a Padre out West
Who thought his gaming the best
So came out to Curt's
To trade bruising and hurts
And we put his gaming to test!

From Wargames News and Terrain, a fine tribute to my recently shown Soviet Cossacks:

"Fierce horseman from the steppe
Dressed blue and red
Horse trotting
Head proud high
Ready to die"

New Follower Friday

It's Friday, and following the tradition I started last Friday, I want to welcome new followers to Mad Padre Wargames, with my thanks for showng an interest in what I do and have to say. We have two new followers this week.

Welcome to a follower with the splendidly business-like name of "The Wargamer", who owns four blogs, including Wargame News And Terrain. I haven't had time to visit this or the other three blogs, but WNT looks mightily interesting and a useful place to glean intelligence about the hobby.

Welcome as well to the crazed genius behind the blog known as Dux Homunculorum. I regret that I've come late to this splendid blog, and that over 240 people beat me to following it, so I don't know as much about Dux as I'd like to. I gather he works at a school, knows who Brian Blessed is (always a good thing in a gentleman), has an intriguing taste in haberdashery, is a dad, a prolific and skilled painter, and is generous. I can vouch for the generous part because I was absurdly pleased to learn today that won a prize in his recent contest to celebrate 200,000 pageviews! It appears I am the proud owner-to-be of a set of rules, "Disposable Heroes" by Iron Ivan Games. Huzzah!

Speaking of contests, there are only days left in my own contest. I misspoke myself in a previous post when I described it as the "100K/100" contest. In fact it is the "50K/100" contest, to celebrate 50,000 pageviews and 100 followers. If you haven't yet entered, you simply leave a poem of any sort in the comments. The poem has t be connected in some way some content on this blog. As an incentive, here's a look at the progress I'm making on the prizes to be offered. Three winners will be chosen at random, and there will be an extra prize for the poem that Mrs. Padre likes the most. And if you are counting and seeing five figures in the photo, one is already spoken for, and I'll say more about that on Sunday.

Work In Progress: More Russkies On Horsies 2

Yikes. Several weeks into this project, with the 20 March deadline of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge almost here, and I'm still struggling with it, even after the end of my self-declared February Is Russian Month project. After a weekend off, during which I searched for inspiration by driving by Hussar, Alberta en route to Edmonton (executive summary, don't make a special trip, there's not much there), I am trying to get these fellows finished. If you missed the previous posts, they are a unit of 12 Front Rank SYW Prussian Hussars which I bought a long time ago for a Russian SYW army I was building. I always intended to paint them as Russians, and Curt's painting challenge was a great incentive to retrieve them from the lead pile.

Here are Privates Yuri Blogginsnik and Oleg Leadovitch, modelling the intended uniform, a sharp combination of yellow, red and black. It's reasonably close to the plate depicting a Hussar of the Serbski Regiment in one of the Osprey books on the Russian army of the 1700s.

Here's the view from behind. I think I will have to drybrush the black fur trim on the pelisse so that the contrast with the yellow isn't so start. The yellow jacket also needs a light ink wash and then highlighting. Thank you James M for the suggestion to use yellow ochre as the base colour, that was helpful.

As you will have noted, progress on the horses has neen slower than on the troopers. I think I made a mistake in undercoating the horses in white, or at least in not darkening the white undercoat with a black wash before the base colours. I think I have several hours to just get the horses into shape, before I even start the tack and harnesses, and at the rate I'm going I'm lucky to get an hoiur a day in. As my friend Howard commented in an email today, 28m figures can be pretty but they can also be a PIAT to paint properly.

Also, you will notice in these pictures that the bottle caps have gone. These figures are heavy, and the white glue I use to keep them on the caps is not up to the strain when I tilt the figures in my hand to paint them. I've had several painful drops, but fortunately these Russian lads are of tough stock.