One last post for January - RCW Additions

 Just managed to sneak this post in before the month ended - thirteen so far for January - lets see if I can keep that volume of posting going for the whole year!

As I will be attending an RCW game at Julian's on Friday, I moved the Copplestonr Bolshevik Field Gun to the head of the queue. 

Its a really great model, big, bold and beautiful, as are the crew!

I have also had this model sitting on my painting desk for about a year. Its a 1914 Vauxhall from the Matchbox Yesteryear range. With the addition of an RCW Bolshevik driver from the Siberia Miniatures range, this has finally been painted up as a staff car

How the original Matchbox model looked above.....

.....how it looks now below

With a "passenger" added ....

And finally, here are a few figures painted by another gaming friend, Andrew, who earns his living painting for three or four regular clients here in New Zealand. Andrew uses a very different style of painting to Nick - under coating all figures in matt white spray, then applying a wash of dark brown acrylic "test pot" paint that flows into creases but leaves raised areas white. He then paints in the detail with Tamiya enamels.

Great looking figures, I am sure you will agree. although personally, I have no idea what they are! Right, now I am off to the painting desk to crack on with some more mounted Border Reivers.

Red Rowan Mounted Reiver

 A small step - but each thousand mile journey begins with the first step - and here he is, the first of the mounted versions of my eighteen Timeline/Hoka Hey Miniatures Border Reivers. The range has about six "families" of Reivers, both mounted and dismounted versions. In a economic decision, I purchased 3 dismounted families some time ago but have only recently psyched myself up to spend basically 40 pounds (including postage) for one mounted unit of 6. My intention is to get the other two families over a period, to spread the pain!

Each foot figure has an equivalent mounted figure - generally, they have the same helmet, same face. same equipment etc - but as it turns out, they are not all EXACT matches. I thought this was the mounted leader figure until I tried to match him with the foot figure, and discovered he isnt! This mounted figure, unlike the other 5, has a cloak which is absent from the dismounted version. Its not a big deal but seems odd as the other 5 appear to be accoutered exactly the same in both mounted and dismounted versions....

I believe these figures may have been originally sculpted 15+ years ago - despite that, they certainly are very nice work, full of character and nice little details....

A couple of comparisons of the mounted and dismounted versions Note, the mounted version is also deficient a shield....odd!

The horses in this range are a little idiosyncratic - I dont mind them too much, but they are all sculpted in a similar pose to the above and look a little bit like a merry go round horse to my eye!

Now, to justify this post, I thought I would share a few images of our gaming mate Nick's rather impressive paint work. Most of these are WIP (work in progress) shots rather than the finished article, but I think you will be impressed none the less.

I have lots more images but I think these are probably sufficient to showcase Nicks work. He has always been a brilliant figure painter but for the last year or so he has been using the contrast paint system and he really has put a huge amount of effort into developing the best techniques to bring out the best in this process. I often say, his 28mm figures look like Meissen Pottery - in fact, I may have said it on this blog quite recently!

A Trio of Pulp Personalities

 Here are the three figures I had on the painting table for the last seven days or more - some of the recent arrivals from Noble Knight Games, they are all Reaper Miniatures. Two have been completed as Chinese and the third, being a Geisha, could only really be Japanese!

They are, from the left, Oyuki the Geisha, Xiufang the Femme Fatale and Ziao Lu a Female Monk

Xiufang is a rather tall 28mm figure - maybe she had a European ancestor - that could be part of her back story perhaps!

A very nicely sculpted pose though

I Googled painted versions for some inspiration and settled on this design

Final close up of the Chinese Femme Fatale

Ziao Lu the Female Monk has been painted in the Chinese Grey colours

This was one of the Reaper "Bones" figures and is in some kind of rubber like plastic - I dont think I would go with that option again, the paint (on her hair in particular) seems to have dried very glossy and the detail is not anything like as sharp as a metal version - she will do though.

Last but not least is Oyuki the Geisha

I decided to do her with the traditional white face make up

I only really noticed when I had finished that she bears quite a resemblance to the previous Geisha armed with a katana - in fact, I originally had her waist belt painted red but changed to blue to make her a bit less like the previous figure! The pink of her kimono is a paler shade but its a subtle difference to be honest...

This was supposed to be a close up of the face but doesn't seem any closer than any of the previous images!

I noticed I had forgotten to paint in the decorations in her hair so did that and took one final image as I was too lazy to delete all the previous images and redo them!

I have now assembled both the RCW Bolshevik Field Gun and the mounted Border Reivers - I have one Reiver under coated, so looks likely he will be next of the blocks for a paint job....

Not A Lot Happening.....

 I do have a couple of figures nearing completion on the painting desk but I have not had a lot of spare time in the last few days - game at Julian's on Weds, out for dinner after my picking my wife up from the airport Thurs evening, out to a delayed work Christmas function on Friday evening and then we have had a weekend in Rotorua, hitting some more bush walks....so, not a lot of painting going on.

BUT, I do have something that merits a blog entry - a lightening quick figure delivery ex the UK courtesy of Royal Mail.

This is a small order of Border Reivers from Hoka Hey Miniatures, but the important point to note is the date it was posted in the UK - 14 January - it was delivered here on Friday 21 January and allowing for time differences. that's a six day trip - which would have been bloody impressive three years ago, before anyone had ever heard of Wuhan or Covid! I have literally had up to ten items purchased on our local auction web site take eight or ten days to get here from the S Island!

Now, here are some random images with very tenuous connections to my wargaming

The Auckland Ferry Building where we had our Christmas function on Friday evening (we sat on the second floor balcony overlooking the ferry terminal, where you can see the four white awnings in this image)

View from our dining table on the balcony around 7pm

The menu - I had the seafood chowder which was a full meal in itself, and then the steak and the chocolate selection!

The main course - beautifully cooked steak

View from the Ferry Building by the time we were enjoying our main course.

The tenuous link with wargaming? Well, if I had not had to go to this meal, I could have been enjoying an RCW game at Julian's for the first time in a couple of years.....

Final pic for tonight - I received this in an email at work on my first day back, asking me to confirm it was, in fact related to me...unfortunately, it was

Tenuous connection number two? The only time I am on this road is a Sunday morning (check) en route to a wargame at Barry's place - so I obviously got this in early December when I attended my last game of 2021 - thanks New Zealand Police, you are doing a fine job keeping our roads safe!

There will be some toy soldiers next time - promise!