07.22.07
Posted in Colonials
at 6:51 pm
The 1st of August is my wife’s birthday and since I can never find anything that she likes, I’m going to paint her a figure from Eureka miniatures. You can see the dancing couple here… I have the center top figure. I appreciate Nic’s assistance as I asked to get one of the dancing figures in conjunction with a 100 club order. I will be posting in-progress shots as I go along. Here are the first:
I mentioned in an earlier post that the bad thing about photos is that they show every little flaw. You can see several here. I am, overall, pleased with how the face came out. The error I made is that I used paint that was too thin on the face which caused it to look chalky up close. Fortunately it does not look that way from a distance. I have green eyes and brown hair (no moustache, though) and so that is how I painted him. At Reapercon I was taught that the next step in doing eyes is to do a small dot of white in the iris for the reflection of light. I tried it here using a shaper brush and actually did it satisfactorily! I outlined the face with brown liner and ran a line through the part in the hair. I also added a touch of grey at the temples and edges of the hair.
I don’t know if I am going to strip this and start over or leave it the way it is, but I’m thinking of just running with it.
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07.18.07
Posted in Fantasy
at 9:07 am
Now finished… the Bolt Thrower with crew! I finished the engineer last night and took a group photo this morning!
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07.17.07
Posted in Fantasy
at 12:43 pm
Last night I finished my cannon crew with the exception of two figures – the gunner for this cannon and the Engineer for my Bolt Thrower – I hope to finish them tonight. I have finished the CD In the Shadow of the Hegemon and have started In the Shadow of the Giant. Both have so far been interesting materials for keeping me painting.
I placed these on magnetic bases so they would travel easier. Since I had some room on the cannon base, I added the optical surveying device and the shells. Although the crewmen are probably pretty interchangeable between the Cannon and Organ Gun, I figured they’d look better crewing this piece.
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07.15.07
Posted in Fantasy
at 4:41 pm
Over the past couple of days I have had my painting mojo flowing again. I was listening to Orson Scott Card’s books on tape and maybe that helped. I now have my Bolt Thrower and crew ready for deployment.
I am relatively pleased with my camera and lighting setup. The only thing I *don’t* like is the poor depth of field I am getting. This kind of photography requires long exposure times and large f-stops and I can’t seem to get it set up on my Nikon. Back to the manual, I guess!
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07.13.07
Posted in Fantasy
at 8:37 am
This next figure is a West Wind Dwarf I just finished up this AM. I have not used any Dullcote on it to dull the protective sheen, but I figured I’d do that when I had more to do at once.
This gentleman will be the champion for my unit of Longbeards which the general will accompany, thus the gold and green to match the general shown below. I like the West Wind dwarves, 10 metal figures in a box, *every* pose is different!
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07.11.07
Posted in Fantasy
at 5:21 am
I switched back to the fine setting on my camera so I got (what I consider to be) better pictures of the dwarf.
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07.10.07
Posted in Fantasy
at 3:15 pm
As most who know me realize, I tend to have a number of projects going a one time. My latest, and thankfully, smallest, is my dwarf army for WHFB. The groups I play in don’t care what miniatures you use for your armies. If you think it’s cool and it is recognizable for what it is, then more power to you. I have just finished my Dwarf King today.
This is a Reaper miniature sculpted by Werner Klocke … aka “The Man”. I like his sculpting and what he does. I have three other characters in the army and two of them will come from the Warlord line. The other will be a GW plastic figure as I need a Battle Standard Bearer. One dwarf warrior unit will be Dwarf Wars figures by West Wind. The others likely a mix of Reaper grunts, Heartbreaker (now that’s an old line….) and GW. The army will be 2250 so that I can use it in Indy tournaments and I hope to have it finished by the Lonewolf in August.
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07.02.07
Posted in 7YW, Fictional Countries
at 5:28 am
Last Friday I received my package of Saxons from Eureka. Below are the musicians I plan on turning into a band. In the US Army the band is used for HQ protection but I think I’ll make up some rules to use them as medical evacuation orderlies/prisoner escorts.
Next are some of the Guard Grenadiers. The left figure is a drummer, the right, a standard bearer (of course, you probably didn’t need me to tell you that….) 
The flagpole comes separately and is a cast item.
I also ordered officers and NCOs to have the correct organization for a “Charge” style unit for each. They are, from left to right, Gd Grenadier NCO, Gd Grenadier officer, Grenadier NCO, Grenadier officer.
I’ll get pics of the grunts later today.
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06.25.07
Posted in Miscellaneous
at 5:04 pm
I have been using Word Press for several months now and enjoy using it. There are, however, a couple of aspects I don’t like. The main hangup I have with it is that I can’t get a functional history of posts put together on the website. What I want is the ability to have posts sorted by topic within each category so that navigation is easier. The closest thing I have found so far is here — Category/Topic Sorting. I can’t seem to get this one integrated into a single page within WordPress, however. I currently have a plugin that will sort posts alphabetically and another that will show posts by month. Neither is satisfactory. Joomla, on the other hand, will allow me to do sublevels and categories. I have added this capability to a development version of my wife’s site. If you look at the new category on the main menu, it will take you to a subcategory into which I can file stuff after it is no longer a newsflash.
I can’t find much info on importing WordPress into Joomla, so that might be the biggest holdup, but I’d appreciate comments on this.
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06.01.07
Posted in Fictional Countries
at 10:25 am
With major assistance from of Jean-Louis I now have the history of the regiment.
Many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, there lived a maiden whom the world would come to know. She was the very beautiful daughter of Duke Alonzo Café Bar y Casa de Tanning named Mirabel. [1]
The Yellow Bird
The king’s heir apparent Don Pedro was still a bachelor (for very good reasons, as the future will tell) and all the Counts and Dukes of the kingdom sent their marriageable (and some less so) daughters to the Court. None had as cute a face as Mirabel, none had smaller feet (nothing more could be seen) and she always appeared in dresses of lemon yellow and sky blue. The competition for the Prince’s attentions was harsh, cruel, and remorseless: a very powerful rival family (on the instigation of the brother of the House Head, the cunning Cardinal Libro y Portfolio Negro) hired an infamous seducer, Don Juan Siempre Usar Viagra, to dishonor pure and naive Mirabel. She oh so imprudently gave him, as a token of chaste (still) but ardent love, a very special ring bearing the ruling House’s arms. This had been a gift from a previous king to her grand-mother after she gave the then queen judicious advice that ensured the perpetuation of the royal line. Then, as the engagement of Mirabel and the Caballero (the traditional title of the Heir Apparent) was nearing announcement, some suggested to the King that Mirabel should wear at the next Ball the ring symbolizing the especially close relationship between the two families….
But the conspirators, as did any people of noble birth, scorned their domestic staff to the point of no longer being aware of their presence. The mysterious network of gossip between chambermaids, scullery maids, linen maids, pages, hairdressers and cooks carried the news to the man-servants of the officers of the garrison. In actuality – besides the skeleton Inner Guard of the palace – it consisted of a single foot regiment. It turned out that some junior officers were from Mirabel’s father’s estates; they had known her from childhood and cherished her deeply (some loved her hopelessly). It’s said that four of them (actually three minor nobles holding the King’s commission and a young cadet) took the matter at heart and in hand, and slaughtered – in formal duels or otherwise – Don Juan and many other males of various ages and recovered the ‘One Ring’ just in time…. Thus Mirabel married the Caballero.
Mirabel the Great
To Mirabel the marriage was a great disappointment: the future king turned out to be far more interested (if not in clockworks and locks as his cousin) in collecting live spiders and snakes than in ‘honoring’ his young wife. He was too often seen in the company of bizarre-looking hairstylists and makeup artists propounding the newly fashionable “guyliner†techniques. Things worsened when the old King died under odd circumstances. As soon as he was crowned, Pedro the XIII became a totally paranoid, cruel and greedy ruler. Caligula would have been sainted before Pedro. The more unpopular he became, the more Mirabel was loved in all circles. She had kept a special affection for those in the foot regiment who had saved her before her marriage – all were now company commanders or higher. The Queen was often seen with the regiment, actually appearing at the regimental feasts, and at hunting parties, in the regimental uniform. In his madness, the king became obsessively jealous of Mirabel: not for any suspected infidelity, his spies (the very few that actually lived to report) had nothing to say except to report on her increasing popularity. So he hired an assassin, though he grumbled about his wages. But nothing escaped the ever-present eyes and ears of the palace servants. This time the whole regiment came to help ‘its’ Queen. It is rumored that Pedro tried to fly from the Palace’s roof in an attempt to flee from their wrath but met with scant success. As a reward for their service the regiment was granted the title ‘The Queen’s Own’ – a boon they asked for instead of being given ‘Guard’ status (they knew that a Guard soon degenerates, they just had crushed one). To honor the queen, the regimental uniform colors were changed to yellow and blue and became known officially on the Army’s rolls as La Bandera de la Reina.
[1] Of uncommon beauty
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