January Challenge

I'm currently painting up the last couple of stands for the main 'infantry' force of my Brit Airborne army when I discovered I had these fellas already painted and stuck to their bases, but not having had the actual basing finished. I should have them done by the end of the week, and this got me thinking...

How hard would it be for a slow painter like me, to have my army increased in size to 1,500pts, fully painted with a playable gaming table all finished by the end of January?

I think it would be doable, if I managed to stay focused and it would give me the option of a second army to play once gaming gets underway again in the new year.

Four More Stands

Sunday Afternoon Inkwashing

Inkwashed, ready to be suitably based. Trouble is I hate basing, so much so that I have a number of bases waiting to be done....

Sunday Morning Painting

It's another lovely day, and I managed to get up early despite a late night (early morning) of playing Grid online! The British Airborne are now ready for ink washing, and the Tiger has had it's tracks done. I used a variant of the track painting technique from the latest Art of War magazine.

Saturday Morning painting

I gave up on trying to do soft edge camo - even with the step by step instructions from The Art of War 2 - it was just not working for me. So it might not be a totally historic look for a Normandy Tiger, but there you go. Actually, I preferred if before adding the brown.

Brummbar Unpacked

Unpacked my Brummbar with the intention of cleaning up the pieces and assembling it ready for painting. But then I looked at the gun and how deformed the end that plugs into the resin tank body and I'm contemplating asking Battlefront for a replacement part. The only problem with this, is I'd have to wait for the part to arrive before I could start on my brummbar.... decisions, decisions.

Investing in my Germans....

I had to go to Starship today, so whilst I was in the area, I figured I may as well heading into Newmarket and see if NZ's best Flames of War stockist had any Brummbars in stock. They did, so on impulse I bought one. I've been using my Marders as Brummbars, so I figured I might as well by one to see what they look like....

Of course, now I've got something else that needs painting, and with me being the worlds slowest painter, it could be a while...

I've Been Painting!

Just when you thought this blog was dead, I decided to pick up a paint brush and tell the world about it!!

Inspired by the latest Art of War, I decided to take another look at my barely started Tiger. Using Art of War's guide to German tank colours and using their no airbrush camo painting guide, I'm going to attempt to paint a 1944 camo scheme on my Tiger, so it can hide from Allied planes in any Normandy action it might see!

Of course I didn't pay that much attention to the actual taking of the photo and consequently the only thing in focus is the junk in the background.

Oh well, better photos in another month when I start work on the actual camo scheme!

Band of Brothers Army List

Protecting My Men

My lovely wife bought me a craft bag from Spotlight a while back - it was on the sale table for $10 and she figured it might be useful for me to carry my army in. My army fitted perfectly, but I knew I was going to have to be careful, because they were essentially loose in plastic boxes.

No worries I thought, it only has to go to and from my erratic gaming nights. Of course, as Murphy's law would have it, the first corner I drove round on the way to Aaron's, the bag fell over and made a horrible noise - the noise of painted metal men being jumbled together with no protection - kinda like a mass drunken orgy, not in the nice Hollywood sense though, more like the kind that leaves you sick in your stomach with regret. Not that I've ever experienced a mass orgy, I'm just being figurative.

I won't make that mistake again I though to myself and on the way home, restrained the bag with the seat belt on the front passenger seat. Of course, in South Auckland we don't have nice smooth roads, so by the time I got home, my men were a little jumbled up.

So today, in preparation for the next gaming night - hopefully this Wednesday - I bought some foam to keep the men all snug and in place.

Bag: $10
Foam: $5

Not bag for a tidy, portable way of carrying my army around.

Painting Progress

Even slow progress is progress.

Time to get Motivated!

I kind of figured that my lack of motivation for painting might be partially due to the state of my painting area. So in an effort to get motivated I decided to tidy up! Also, I'm going to try and paint one coat/colour most days after work to try and get my base Airborne Army finished in time for some summer gaming!

Hitler Moves East

Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43 is a unique photography project from US artists David Levinthal and Garry Trudeau that was originally published in 1977. But the book, which documents the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, isn’t quite what it appears to be at first glance. While all the images are photographs, they’re actually all of toy soldiers arranged upon a series of intricately modeled dioramas.

To achieve the skewed sense of realism, Levinthal and Trudeau combined “archival materials” with their miniature settings, reconstructing scenes from Hitler’s eastward expansion that took place between 1941 and 1943. The results are certainly unnerving (images of war, made from toys?) but strangely emotive, bringing together notions of harmless imagined play and its antithesis, the horrors of early twentieth century warfare.

Levinthal has been working with toy figures and tableaux in his artwork since 1972, while Trudeau is more well-known as the creator of the comic strip Doonesbury, which launched in 1970.

“I became intrigued at how seeming reality could be constructed from mere models,” says Levinthal. “Over the more than 30 years that I have been working as an artist, I never ceased to be amazed at how much these figures and toys can tell us about ourselves.”

New Zealand War Art

Not sure if this is news, but it is to me! Apparently there is a treasure trove of New Zealand War Art available online:

The National Collection of War Art is composed of about 1,500 artworks, including portraits, battle scenes, landscapes and abstracts, depicting those who served New Zealand in times of war, and the arenas in which they served.

It includes both official pieces of war art, by artists formally commissioned by the New Zealand government, and other unofficial art works that were acquired by or donated to the collection.

Carentan Building Part 2

The first two walls get stuck together. I'm thinking I may have made the whole building a little thin...

Finished Objective

I've had this objective hanging around half painted for a while now. It came as part of the German Grenadierkompanie Box Set, but got neglected after I finished the Marder Objective. Since getting back into painting last weekend I decided to see if I could quickly get it finished, and now it is!

Carentan Building Part 1

Measuring up and planning the long front wall.

Cutting out the windows and doors is a lot harder on 5mm cork tile!

The finished wall. Only four more to go!

On The Painting Table Today

Painting Challenge Update!

Stu's painting challenge may be well over, but I'm still progressing towards my goal, albeit a tad late! From undercoating to just needing the helmets finished, I should be able to have these fellas ink washed before next weekend!

A month or so back, these guys had just been stuck to the bases, now they're finished!!

Totally Destroyed Building

I decided I should really do some more work on my Totally Destroyed Building, added the rubble and undercoated rubble in black. Now I'll probably not do anything with it for another month or two!

2mm Cork Tile Roads

Having brought a couple of pieces of cork tile to test out the sizing for some new buildings, I decided to see how cork would be for some simple roads.

Carentan Test

I stumbled across a website that had a tutorial for some 28mm Carentan buildings, so I've decide to try it in 15mm, starting with the Restaurant "Desire Ingouf" (above).

Planning the side of the building.

Cut out.

Size comparison with Stu's Building.

Size comparison with Kims building.

I started out trying to go with Kim's more accurate sizing, but found it was going to be a tad too fiddly, so went with the slightly bigger scale of Stu's building. I had trouble finding a source of single sheets of cork, but found some craft cork in K-Mart. The only problem being that at 2mm thick it' way too light, but for an exercise in testing the scale it did the trick.

Next weekend I'll be off to Bunnings to get a 5 pack of 4mm cork floor tiles and start building Desire Ingouf.

Re-Jigging my Germans

Spread out all my German components and worked on a new look army. I wonder if it will work any better.

Nice Table

Came across this rather nice table whilst browsing the FOW Forums today. Makes me want to get on with making my gaming table. One thing I noticed about this table was the walls around the church, very similar to what I did with some of Stu's North African walls. I might have top get him to make me some more! The only thing I don't like about this table is all the commercial buildings. None of them are destroyed or seem to have any battle damage!

King Dan's Place!

King Dan has a blog, let the world rejoice ;o)

Ruins

Last night I started another building, but this one is going to be more rubble than actual building...

The House Gets a 'Roof'

Whats left of the roof (a few burnt rafters) has been added, along with undercoating and smoke damage.

Painting Area

I used to have my painting/modeling area set up on a trestle table in the corner of the lounge, now I've upgraded to a slightly smaller desk. It's as cluttered as ever!

Building Progress

I'm using a few different techniques on this project, but I'm not gonna tell you about them until I've finished it!

I Should Really Be Painting...

But I can't help myself. Another little building project for my Normandy table using once again, a Kreative Scenery kit.

Lessons From The Front

Stu gave a pretty good overview of last Wednesday's game;

Between my own and Jonathan's legendary poor rolling I thought we were screwed and mid game it looked like a walk over. Then the Tiger finally ranged in as did my lone 88 (after being mortared for most of the game), plus my three IIIj's somehow weathered the storm of fire from six T-34's for several turns and then the Ruski/US tanks started popping! Last two turns I think we knocked out three shermans, a handful of T70's and a handful of T34's. Suddenly it was looking interesting again (my Jerries were looking forward to returning MG fire on those Infantry on the hill, and hammering those bloody mortars in the gully) when we called it a night cause it was past ten! Of course Jonathan's PBI and Marders were dead, but that's ok they'd staunchly drawn fire away from the objectives...his Tiger was just getting warmed up!

But was their anything I could learn from the experience?

Quite a bit actually. First and foremost is a trap I often fall into, especially when I have two platoons deployed so close to each other. I had two full combat platoons dug in on the edge of town, looking out at the objectives, but not anywhere close enough to secure them. One platoon was being harassed by a recon unit, that was puring enough lead on them to sink a battleship, but doing little damage. The other platoon just got forgotten about. What they should have done was rushed the second objective and dug in, whilst the lone Panzer made it's way to the first objective. I only remembered the second platoon when enemy reinforcements deployed mere millimeters from securing the objective and winning the game. They then had to go into a defensive battle whilst out in the open, not very wise and which saw them being cut to shreds.

The second is that I didn't bother to read up on the mission rules, or really think about where the enemy reinforcements were likely to come in. Had I done that I might not have forgotten about the second platoon. I think I need to be a bit more conscientious in my battle preparations and stop letting the game dictate what I do.

Hopefully I'll be able to make it to next weeks game, and think a little more about what I'm doing, rather that reacting to what my enemy is doing!

Dunkirk | Atonement

Shooting the five minute Dunkirk beach scene for Atonement was arguably the toughest portion of shooting for the entire film. The shooting schedule dictated that the scene must be completed in two days. However the location scouts report indicated the lighting quality at the beach was not good enough until the afternoon of the second day.

This forced director Joe Wright to change his shooting strategy into shooting with one camera. The scene was rehearsed on the first day and on the morning of the second day. The scene required five takes and the third take was used in the film.

On shooting, Steadicam operator Peter Robertson shot the scene by riding on a small tracking vehicle, walking off to a bandstand after rounding a boat, moved to a ramp, stepped onto a rickshaw, finally dismounting and moving past the pier into a bar.

For all it's difficulty, does it make it into anyones best War Movie Scenes list? I can't think of any that have the scope of this scene, even Saving Private Ryan's much lauded beach scene had a much narrower scope than this.

Painting update

FOW Figure Conversions

I struggle enough giving my Flames of War miniatures a decent paint job that I’m never going to even contemplate the art of Figure Conversions, Head Swaps, or even just applying a little Green Stuff.

But just because I don’t have the skills (or may be the patience) to do it myself it doesn’t mean I don’t admire those that do do it.

The first time I came across large scale (at least in my mind it’s large scale) Flames of War conversions, was an article on the Flames of War website looking at the process John Boultwood used to create his Dad’s Army, FOW Army.

It’s well worth a look.

Closer to my heart, but sadly as yet unfinished (or at least unpublished in it’s finished form) is Utini’s Band of Brother’s themed FOW Army.

I have to admire the amount of work, research and patience these crazy fanboys do to recreate fictional TV characters as the basis for their Flame of War armies.

Maybe one day I’ll have to invest in some Green Stuff. But for now I’ll concentrate on trying to improve my painting skills.