Waltzing Matilda (2)

 

It's been a while, certainly. Rather than dwell on that though, I have a new model for you: the Airfix Matilda 2 kit from the 70s in its original packaging. A wonderful Christmas present, thank you, family.

I was a little tempted to leave it pristine in its packaging, but the entire purpose of a toy is to be played with.

What I've let myself in for

A whole 5 models complete! 4 of them weren't painted before lockdown!

 

I'm sure like many of you, my initial optimism about the effect of lockdown on my plastic pile has faded. Not only does painting time still seem hard to make, but self-medicating my mental health by buying models has made things even worse. So, some months before the publication of this update, I found myself needing to paint a dozen knights and two cannon in time for the Clash of Kings in October.

Lockdown Labours

"Oh yes," I thought, "spending all my free time indoors I'll get plenty of painting and blogging done!" Har har har. Not only have I been dabbling in the videoed-games, the family clear-out of the lego (it's not like there's much else to do round here...) has occupied rather a lot of "model time". 

About half the lego in our mysterious boxes is now clogging up the dining room table. We didn't originally own the pirate ship, it came in bits in a box of lego some acquaintances were giving away.

Buon Natale!

5 minutes research online informs me that this is the Italian version of "Merry Christmas" and thus a fitting opener for the following battle report. Apologies for the appalling photo quality.

Billy surveys his Jump-off Points (in a triangle on the left) and plans how best to approach mine (spread along the opposite table edge). 

Achtung Bagpiper!

20 mm Bagpiper (Britannia miniatures, sadly lacking kilt) with some fine brushwork on the tartan.

I wanted to get a figure, rather than a counter, to indicate force morale on the Chain-of-Command tracker (The Afrika Korps already have some surrendering chaps for this purpose) so I have a bagpiper. It only really works for Scottish units, but as the 51st Highland were at El-Alamein and the 15th Scots were in Normandy, that's the two theatres I have campaign packs for covered.

Some of these aren't technically tanks

Universal carriers: Spot the difference.

Note: universal carriers, not having a turret, are not tanks and therefore part of a balanced model painting diet. Which means the tanks and armoured cars to follow are entirely justified.

Tanks Again!

My mental health hasn't been great lately. This means plenty of models have been bought as retail therapy and painted in my secluded underground lair so there is plenty of content for the blog. Every cloud eh?

Airfix 1/76 T-34, assembled by my uncle, painted by me. During painting I gummed up the joint so unfortunately the gun doesn't elevate any more.

Tank Politics

Local miniature painter saves £££ time with this one simple trick! Don't bother painting camouflage on tanks, just do one colour. In all seriousness though, the Caunter Stuart has been in the "to do" draw for months and I've only just finished it, but the Valentines I bought last month have had the final layer of varnish on within weeks.

Non-binary pride Stuart (left, Plastic Soldier Company) and asexual pride Valentine (Right, Armourfast).

Warning: Small Pics Ahead

My current camera setup (mobile phone camera and sun/room light), while delightfully cheap, certainly has limitations when trying to capture smaller models or group shots. It doesn't help that I'm not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination. Nonetheless, I have recently discovered *new features* on the phone cam which will grace future updates...

The 2 mm tanks now based on 20 mm round washers. Not done much else in this scale, but I have the models, just need to get the paint on them.

In Which Suzanne is Over-Agressive

I absolutely promise that this battle report will not contain any crowing about my tactical genius, charismatic leadership, coolness under fire etc. Nor will it include any cheap shots at Suzanne's gaming skills.

Well, maybe just a few....

Slaves to Dorkness

I think my favourite strategy for getting stuff painted is to have four or five projects on the painting table at once, so that the desire to avoid painting one of them spurs you to paint another. Here is a case in point, I've started re-painting my chaos warriors (the first models I ever owned) for use in a future Kings of War army.

Re-painted Chaos warriors, now back in bold, bright colours with little regard for artistic coherence. Just as they should be. Flash used.

Cretan Holiday

I recently received a fan-mail from mrs_trellis@northwales.com asking me when my coverage of the Four Foot Snake Thing will be uploaded here. This post is something of a reply.

I've been  getting very CoC-ky with my posts lately.

Unusually Timely Update

Some of you on social media will already have seen the new tank, unless I've been buried in the algorithms.

Another example of my unusual vehicle marking conventions: British white-red-white vertical stripes square converted into trans pride flag.

Scenary and Storage Solutions

Preparation for my Easter gaming sesh continue apace. By the time I started writing this update, I will had already finished some of the models shown in progress here.

Various British support options arranged amongst scratch-built houses. L-R: Vickers machine gun, 2" mortar , barbed wire and sniper team.

Not Everything is Finished

I recently realised that most of my posts lately have featured fully painted and based models, so today's update is all about the things I have on the go. To start this off I present my finished British infantry platoon for North Africa. Wait a moment...

British infantry platoon for Chain of Command, airfix (old H0-00 and newer 1/72) Desert Rats and Grubby Tanks (both 20 mm ranges). The scale isn't perfect but it does allow variety in the poses.

Brown brown everywhere ner any a drop to drink.

Apologies for the lack of posts, silly things like 'work' and 'socialising' are getting in the way of important things like Shed Time. Nonetheless, I sneaked a few hours the weekend before last, and painted some things brown.

First on the agenda were the bowmen, who now sport basecoats of skin and leather (scorched brown, a colour which goes under most things it seems...) All of them are going to be white, but I might try to get variations of skin tone, and not use the same browns on all of them.

Still not sure about the trousers. They don't really have any raised bits for highlights.