Scouting report

I’ve been collecting up some links to new (and changed) places of interest for a while now. So, as well as adding them to the links, I thought I’d make a point of posting about them.

Firstly, I’ve often followed the link to Mike Davis’ Horse and Musket website from Leuthen Journal but now he’s got a brand new blog as well and it looks like that’s where a lot of material will be migrating. It’s well worth a look at the galleries of commissioned painted Napoleonics if you haven’t done so before.

Next, another blog that I’ve visited through a chain of links over the years is that of painter Dave Taylor. The reason for mentioning it now is that he has started work with some friends on a Napoleonic project called The Guns of April. This blog charts the group’s progress towards putting on a Salamanca demo game at AdeptiCon 2012. Good luck guys!

And to round things out, here are the blogs of three people who are venturing into 28mm Napoleonic Prussian armies. Der Feldmarschall looks like an experienced wargamer who’s just starting on adding a Prussian force to his collection; Schrumpkopf’s Grossbeeren 1813 blog charts the growth of his army of Calpe figures and the highly interesting development that he’s commissioned Paul Hicks to sculpt some medical staff to tend his wounded; and, lastly, the cleverly named Prussian through the lead pile is first-time blogger Beardy Mike’s story of his switch from Games Workshop to Napoleonic Prussians.

What strikes me about these three different blogs is the sheer variety of different approaches to the same army – not to mention that one author is in the UK, one in the US and the other in Germany. Yet our common interests bind us together!

Behind schedule already

Progress on the officer and drummer for the first base.

Oh dear! I’m already in danger of falling behind on my self-imposed schedule for completing my entry for the La Bricole painting competition. The idea was to get the first six figures finished by the end of January. This picture shows how far I’ve got (well, apart from doing the light blue pompoms on the other four figures’ shakos).

At least these two chaps are going in the right direction – heads, trousers and footwear finished. On the whole I’m pleased with the quality and it was nice to give the bare-headed drummer a little flash of his company colours by adding some piping to his cuffs. Of course, this is outwith the Bardin regulations but I couldn’t resist it as a little “gift” for a certain couple of Kiwi friends. As usual, I’ve applied some mud to boots, gaiters and the bottom of the trouser legs. It took an effort of willpower to resist muddying up the drum apron too.

Ah well, better get back to the painting desk!

Loosening up

Painted abandoned backpack.

I wanted a low-stress way of getting reacquainted with the brushes and paints for my contribution to the La Bricole painting competition, so I settled on tackling the abandoned backpack that I had prepared and primed the other day.

Whether it was the fact that it’s New Year’s Day or that I’m rusty, I don’t know, but this little piece of scenic clutter for the first base took me a couple of hours to complete. Perhaps most surprisingly, on nearing completion, I realised that I’d used 11 different paints! In no particular order they were Vallejo Ivory, Burnt Umber, Cavalry Brown, Red Leather, Orange Brown, Dark Grey, Neutral Grey, Light Grey and White plus the 1st Shadow and 2nd Shadow from the Andrea White set.

La Bricole painting competition

Primed figures for first base in La Bricole painting competition.

Regular BfK‘ers will know that I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions or entering painting competitions but coincidence has thrown something seasonal into my path. Over at the La Bricole discussion forum ran by my virtual friend in Tokyo, Robert Swan, (previously founded by Iannick Martin), there’s going to be a friendly Napoleonic painting competition running through the the end of the first quarter of 2012.

Given my pre-disposition against resolutions and entering painting competitions, why would I bother with this one?

Well, it has several interesting features to recommend it. Firstly, it comes at a time when my painting motivation needs a kick-start after an end to 2011 that saw my time heavily committed to the day job and my involvement with school governorship to the complete exclusion of hobby activities. Secondly, La Bricole is a small and friendly forum where a group of people with similar hobby values to my own hang out, so I almost feel a duty of camaraderie to participate. Lastly, the rules of the competition have been designed in a way that really appeals to me. There’s a goodly length of time to get entries completed (until 31 March 2012) and the scope of what’s required for a valid entry fits in nicely – the theme is militia and line units and we can opt for infantry, cavalry or artillery. I’m going for the former which, for 28mm scale, means I need only produce an entry of 18 figures.

And that’s the main attraction – this competition will, hopefully, give me sufficient motivation to make some real painting headway as we hurtle into the New Year. Doing 18 figures will get me halfway to my first completed battalion of French line infantry using the Calpe Route March figures. Once I get up momentum, I’m hoping it’ll carry me over into even more productivity as the year progresses. My plan is to complete at least one six-figure base per month of the competition and I’m hoping to throw in a couple of surprises as we go along.

Each entrant has been offered the opportunity to show work-in-progress updates in a special thread on the La Bricole forum and to offer encouragement to fellow participants as we go along. Of course, as well as doing that, I’ll be posting updates here too. I’ve already prepped and primed the figures for the first base and that’s where the first couple of interesting little surprises come into play. Firstly, I’ve done a head-swap on the drummer to give him a shouting barehead stolen from a Calpe Saxon infantryman; secondly, for a bit of scenic enhancement, I’ve added some putty straps to a backpack from the Perry plastic French infantry box to represent some discarded kit on the groundwork. The idea is that these touches will keep up my interest levels in the project and give my fellow competitors something to think about.

I’ve got some more sneaky ideas in mind to up the ante on the second base

I’m also going to use this competition for some experiments I’ve had in mind for a while. Having prepped the figures for the first base, I’ve primed them grey (a continuation of an ongoing experiment) but this time I’ve used Army Painter Uniform Grey spray paint for the job. It was certainly a quick job but somewhat smelly and you do need to be careful that details don’t get obscured by overspraying. Looking at the photo above, it would be easy to believe that these grey figures were Perry plastics rather than primed Calpe metals (well, apart from the backpack). More about other experiments as we progress.