Paint Table Saturday: American and Mexican cavalry

 Paint table today

I like painting horses but don't like painting cavalry, mostly because of all the fiddly bridles and horse furniture.  I was going to get on with my Perry ACW cavalry horses today but then noticed my box of Mexican lancers looking a bit bare so thought that I could progress some of the horses of both at the same time, although it will slow the ACW cavalry down a lot.  I will just be doing the horses on the Mexicans and will leave the riders until another time.

So here are the shaded coats of the chestnut contingent with three Union and two Mexican cavalry.  The light is awful again and I struggled with these. I have decided to not go mad on the quality of these so am going to be rather impressionistic on the horses.  That said, it is still five colour shading!  Hopefully tomorrow I can do some of the bays, although the Old Bat has got the day off work and is going to make me go on a walk/jog (mainly walking, I suspect).  I am encouraged by the progress on my much needed diet, although I haven't been so good the last two days, having succumbed to a reduced pork pie, egged (no it wasn't a gala pie) on by my daughter while out shopping for the weird (and expensive - they do frozen shiitake mushrooms?) vegetarian stuff she eats. it's alright for her, though as she is 5' 10" and weighs 7 stone 10lbs, despite eating like a horse.  Never mind, I have been good again today and I have lost eight pounds since I got back from Liberia.   

Today's inspirational wallpaper is of a non-American theme, Ariadne asleep on the island of Naxos (1815) but is by an American artist, John Vanderlyn.  Vanderlyn, a New Yorker, was the first American artist to study in Paris and the first to have a painting accepted by the Paris Salon.  This was really the first major nude by an  American painter.  Needless to say, when it was first displayed in America in 1815, its sensual approach caused controversy and as late as the 1890s, when it was firmly esconced in the Pennsylvania Academy's collection, there were protests against its "flagrant indelicacy" and calls for it to be removed from display.  The Legatus saw this painting in the Pennsylvania Academy on a visit to Philadelphia (a city with a fine artistic tradition) a few years ago.

In artistic contrast I have been listening to an American inspired piece of music by a European composer; Dvorak's New World symphony.  It is odd how some pieces of music become so familiar that you can't stand to listen to them any more (Beethoven's 6th, Mozart's Symphony Number 40, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto) but some remain fresh, despite repeated hearings.  I never get tired of the New World, even though I have been listening to it for nearly half a century and it was one of the first five records (with Beethoven's 3rd, Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt Pepper - all of which I still enjoy) I owned.  I was given them by my aunt when she got married in 1968, as they were duplicates with her new husband's collection. 

This piece reminds me of my days of doing ACW wargames with Arifix plastics and I used to play it when setting up my wargames board in the dining room.  This always stressed my mother out as I manoeuvered two 7' by 3' 6" boards through the French windows onto her precious dining table.  The version of the New World I had inherited was an old mono recording by Otto Klemperer which featured this painting, The Old Stage Coach by another American painter.  Eastman Johnson (1824-1906).   It is a very evocative piece and when looking at it on the glory of a 12" record cover it used to quite transport me (despite the lack of wheels).

Imagine how excited I was, when wandering around the Pennsylvania Academy the same day as I saw the Vanderlyn painting, to see this detailed oil sketch by Johnson of the same painting!  Today, the version I have on CD is by George Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and it is one of the oldest CDs in my collection.  Solti and the CSO are on their finest form and he conducts it as if it was a new and exciting work, not an old favourite.  A fabulous recording!  When I play it I can still smell the evergreen shrub clippings I used as trees as I built a version of Devil's Den from Gettysburg out of stones from the garden and lichen.

ACW Cavalry under way

I did manage to undercoat and and start my ACW cavalry yesterday, as you can see here.  I also  filed and based some Perry Afghans!  

The 32 figures I need for the Mexican Tolluca Battalion

I also got the base jacket colour down on my next unit of Mexicans for the Tolliuca Battalion.  These are now in three groups as regards progress: faces, jackets and trousers shaded, faces and jackets shaded with trousers base colour done and faces and jackets base colour done. Not sure whether to try to get them all to the same stage or carry on painting them in phases

Won't be posting much in the next few days as there is a problem with my computer and I have lost the right click function (which means some sort of virus, I suspect).  Off to KAD computers in Esher with it tomorrow. People who deliberately spread computer viruses should be imprisoned for ten years with no access to modern technology.  In the Falkand Islands.

Off to the NFL at Wembley, though, today!  Need to try and get some Superglue at Waterloo.  I have completely run out and I need to base Santa Anna!

Zulu Wars in the Shed and back to the ACW?

Well it was nice to get over to the Shed this week and see the extension that Eric has been working on over the summer.  We played a Zulu Wars game with the new The Men who Would be Kings rules by Dan Mersey. My account of it is here and Eric the Shed's much more comprehensive view of it is here.  We had five players and my dice throwing was a bit better than usual although not as good as Alastair's!

Throw five or six to hit!

My DIY skills do not extend further than putting up a curtain rail or, possibly, a shelf, at most.  I cannot do things with wood, let alone build a shed from scratch!  We got a shed a couple of years ago but I had to pay Mr John Lewis £3000 for it (plus another £1000 for the base).

How do people even learn how to do this stuff?  Even if I did learn I would still be rubbish at execution.  My father in law despairs of me.  He has a whole workshop full of stuff for doing stuff to stuff. I get stressed if I have to put on an electric plug.  Maybe its about having the right tools.  This is his workshop.  Look at the size of it!  It's got two boats in it he is working on.  This boat was at Dunkirk in 1940!

Eric's Shedstension means you can stand back and admire his lovely table from afar

Oh well.  The Shedstension means that Eric now has more room for his stuff.  This is useful wargames stuff, which is proper stuff, not weird tools stuff (although he probably has those too).  I was over at my father in law's the other week and he was talking about a new 'router'. What on earth is a router?  What is it for?  I have never heard of such a thing.  Some sort of power tool, I gather.  I didn't ask in case he told me and made me feel inadequate.  He gets cross that I make the Old Bat lay concrete and such like.  I don't make her, actually, she does it herself.  I am always in trouble for not maintaining the house.  How do you maintain a house? Things fall apart (as that annoying Nigerian novel was called which I had to study at school - I seem to recall it was mostly about yams) and you put up with them not working until it gets so bad you get a man in to deal with it (or get the Old Bat to do it),  

It even looks evil!

If the Old Bat gets really cross with me ("Have you paid for Guy's rowing?"  "Have you paid for Charlotte's physiotherapy?" etc etc - it's always pay, pay, pay for something for those waste of time and money babies) she threatens to buy me a Black & Decker workmate for Christmas.  She does this because she knows it would be my worst present ever and I would never use it (I probably would struggle with getting it out of the box).  She just likes the idea of it sitting there in the shed like a malevolent spirit (like that evil rocking horse in the scariest film I ever saw when I was little, The Rocking Horse Winner (1949)) making me feel uncomfortable.

Anyway, the Shed has been much enhanced with the addition of things like a kettle and also music (we had the Zulu soundtrack by John Barry playing).  Of course from now on I will expect appropriate music for every game!  We also had a new player along although, of course, they were a proper wargamer, not a terrified amateur like me.  The reason I stopped going to Guildford Wargames Club was that I got so stressed about having to play against clever people who knew the rules.  The Shed is a very friendly environment, though and people are patient with me.

I haven't played a game there since May and this was only my third game of the year but I have been very busy at work (I am back working from home - I didn't like going back to commuting) and dealing with various issues with the children who are both stressing me out.  I really want to get back to doing a bit of painting but my eyesight seems to have taken a turn for the worse and I know I can't paint to the standard I used to (which wasn't that good, anyway) so I am a bit frightened of picking up a brush in case my eyesight is even worse than I thought.

What I am now not sure about now is where this leaves my own Zulu Wars project.  Eric now has every figure you could possible need for a game so it seems a bit pointless to carry on at my glacial speed painting figures.  I have painted 40 Zulus and some 25 British but this is about 10% of what Eric painted in a few months.  Still, some solo skirmish games might be on the cards.

I have been good at not buying any figures and haven't been to a show since Salute but I might try and get to Warfare.  I am very tempted by Perry miniatures new Union ACW plastics, despite stopping and starting with the period several times.  This is all to do with Airfix days, of course and the recent article in the September issue of miniature Wargames on recreating a Terence Wise scenario from his book Introduction to Battle Gaming. using plastic 1/72nd figures.

The (fictional) Centerville battle was one I played many times with my friends in the mid seventies.  To do this again with 28mm plastics and the same rules is very tempting.  Now Guy has gone to university it would be easy to set up our table tennis table in his room for a solo game.  Each side has 81 infantry (3 regiments of 27) 12 cavalry and three guns.  So I reckon that would be eight boxes plus a few metal command. Hmm...

Of course I would have to paint all those figures and that would mean sacrificing painting quality (which I find really hard to do - I just cannot contemplate army painter!) but if they were plastics maybe I wouldn't care so much.  Now the real issue is that I have only painted 10 figures this year but a project like this might get me painting again.

Exciting update: I based some Mexicans today.  My first hobby activity for six months!  Hooray!
Not such an exciting update:  There is a chance I will have to go and work abroad for three months.  Boo!

Paint table Sunday: Cavepeople and Mexicans

I got on with my cavegirls a bit today and you can read about them, my favourite dinosaur book and an interesting experience with a schoolfriend as a result of looking at it.  All on my cavegirl wargaming  blog.

I have also shaded the skin and jackets of my Mexicans and done the shading on the trousers of half of those I have under way too.  More arrived this week though so they will need basing, except I have a more than two week overseas trip starting on Saturday.  Just when I was getting back into painting too!  

The Great lead-pile reduction strategy 2: the Americas

Goodbye, 4th Virginia

Time for another look at, as the old TV commercial (only people who work in TV call them commercials in Britain, everyone else calls them adverts) said, "the fish that John West reject."  Appropriately, we sail across the ocean to the New World and explore the many hundreds of figures we have bought for conflicts in the Americas. This time we will look at them in chronological order.

Skraelings

I was at Salute a few years ago and Gripping Beast were selling a box of  37 "limited edition" Skraelings for Saga.  I am one of those people who is totally unable to resist anything dubbed "limited edition" even though the description is often "a mere puff" (as those familiar with Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company (1892) will appreciate).  These figures were sculpted by Bill Thornhill of Musketeer Miniatures (now Footsore Miniatures) and are now available from them (so not limited at all, in fact). I have based some and even started them but having spent all day in Canada House I don't have the energy to dig them out to find some to photograph, so here is one I didn't prepare earlier.   Now this is an absolutely ideal example of a set of figures I should sell but, I really, really want to play Saga, even though I think it might be too "gamey" (like a pheasant that's been hung for too long - no, actually, nothing like that at all) for me.  So the Skraelings will remain!


Conquistadors

My sole painted conquistador

When I was at school we had to do a school history project over the summer holidays.  What I selected, from a long list, was one on the Conquistadors; in particular, Cortés and Pizarro.  I really went to town on the illustrations but I still didn't win a prize (as I had hoped) due to my terrible handwriting (I missed all my joined up writing classes when I was at junior school as I was off for a month with pneumonia).  So when Foundry came out with their Mark Copplestone-sculpted Eldorado figures I bought the whole lot.  Of course the Incas and Aztecs never really came out, apart from the odd pack.  When other firms like the Assault Group came out with suitable figures I realised that painting all those Aztecs would be a major pain.  So I painted just one figure and they have sat there in my plastic drawer units never since.  Ideal for eBay.  Except they are also ideal for skirmishes and I am minded to pitch them against the Copplestone castings Brazilian Indians as Portuguese.  Just right for Donnybrook!  So they will remain too!  Oh dear!


The French in Canada

When the Copplestone Glory of the Sun figures came out depicting late seventeenth century troops I bought some automatically, without knowing what exactly to do with them.  Having thought about them for a number of years I realised that I still don't know what to do with them but painted one up as a member of the French Régiment de Carignan-Salières who were sent to Quebec in 1675 to protect the settlers from the Iroquois.  Here would be a good subject for skirmishes in the woods, I thought.  Except in reality most of the Iroquois had died of smallpox so there were no battles.  In addition, getting pre-flintlock armed Indians was a problem  so that project will be no more.  I will sell off the other French I have.


Pirates

The easiest decision here as regards retention.  I have painted enough for pirate games and they have seen action four times (a lot for me!)  In fact, I even did a bit of work on some more this morning.  Mostly Foundry, plus some Black Scorpion for the increasing pirate babes crew.  Lots (well all) of new North Star too.


The French Indian War

Now, I played a game of Muskets and Tomahowks at Eric the Shed's and so I won't be getting rid of the Galloping Major figures I have.  However, I have a lot of the Conquest/Warlord games figures and although I have painted one (above) I think, even though they are superior figures to the GM ones, I will get rid of these as they are too small to match with GM and North Star.  I hate mixing figures of different sizes in my armies!


American War of Independence

I don't think I have that many troops for this left (some part painted militia bought after my visit to Boston - above) but I still have some books.  This is big battle stuff, largely, and the uniforms are a right fiddle.  Anyway, this period has been so comprehensively covered in the blogosphere by Giles Allison that doing anything on it is pointless.


Latin American Wars of Independence

Although I have only finished one figure, I do have a bunch under way on the workbench and Orinoco Miniatures has just released another group of figures, so this will remain.  It means I can do Napoleonic style uniforms without doing Napoleonics!


Mountain Men 

This was another case of buying the whole Foundry release.  I have painted half a dozen and really like the figures but haven't touched them for years.  Still, this would be a good basis for some skirmish games and there are rules in one of the Warhammer Historical Old West supplements, which I have got buried somewhere.  You could also use them for skirmishes with Mexicans on the borders of California.  So these are staying!


Texan War of Independence

Given I have finished a whole unit of Mexicans, and am working on some more, then these are going to stay!  The only issue I have over the Texans is that the initial Boot Hill Miniatures release are a different scale from the Mexicans (annoyingly).  The recent ones are fine and I can use Artizan for the Texan heroes.

American Civil War

Despite some of my first Airfix wargames being ACW I just can't face painting the numbers of figures you need.  Also, I wanted to do First Bull Run but there are several key uniform types you can't get and with the Perry brothers messing about with nonsense like the British invasion of the 1860s it seems unlikely they will ever do them.  So anything ACW will have to go.  Clears a lot of bookshelf space too!

Old West

I have painted precisely one figure for the Old West (this not Sharon Stone figure) but I might have some unpainted ones somewhere too.  This is very much a possible project for the future, especially with all the excellent buildings available these days.

I'm slightly surprised at how many Americas forces I have been collecting and how many I can't bear to part with but getting rid of ACW and AWI will free up some bookshelf space even if it's not going to effect the lead pile that much.  Some of my ACW and AWI figures are painted or part painted so I suspect that may effect their value on eBay as I would never buy painted or part painted figures.  Maybe I will just chuck them out as no-one would buy any of my painted efforts!.

Matamoros Batallion Completed

I have finished the Matamoros battalion; my first complete unit for the Texan War of Independence.  More about it and more pictures on my Americas Blog here.

More Mexicans, an Afghan, my neighbour's art and the perils of green drinks...

I've been up in the City today, meeting Latin Americans, but got back and finished off my next batch of Mexicans.  These three companies of grenadiers, fusiliers and light infantry complete (for the moment) the Matamoros regiment.  I may give them a more distinctive officer in due course and may also have to bolster their numbers but at present I am happy with a 1:10 ratio, which gives a unit of 32 figures.  I may try to get a shot of the whole unit tomorrow, although I may have to go to London again.

The cazadores are slightly different from the other regular Boot Hill troops I have painted in that they have Baker rifles, black belts and green facings.  These figures also have shako cords which makes them look very smart (rather smarter than they probably appeared).  The cazadores of the Matamoros regiment were the first Mexican troops into the centre of Béxar before the arrival of Santa Anna and his main army to besiege the Alamo.

I also finished off my first of Artizan's new Afghan tribesmen.  More of these on the way soon.  These 13 figures bring my total for the year to 64; so about 15 a month.  Much better than last year!

Talking of painting, while walking through the Royal Exchange today I spotted these two pictures in the trendy art gallery there.  The distinctive design is, of course, the Rolling Stones logo which was done, as were these prints, by my next door neighbour, back in the early seventies.  He worked for many other music acts, including local Guildford band The Stranglers, designing album covers and tour posters.  Sensibly, he kept the copyright and reproduction rights of the famous lips and tongue logo!

Two more splendid visual treats I encountered today were these young ladies persuading me (successfully) to try a cocktail made with a dubious Bolivian drink.   Resistance was futile.  It was like when I joined a gym in the City because Elle Macpherson happened to be there when I was shown around and she told me membership would be good for me.  Needless to say I never saw her there again (the only Australian member I saw regularly was Clive James who was not the same at all).  Anyway, I was told once; "never have drinks which are green; bad things will happen". 

The St Regis in Washington DC.  The bar is at the far end through the arch

This is advice I wish I had followed while staying at the St Regis hotel in Washington DC a few years ago, where they, briefly, had a period where they served absinthe in the bar.  If I hadn't had it I wouldn't have got into a rather awkward situation with the mother of a lady friend.  It certainly did make her heart grow fonder. To be fair I didn't know who she was but she did know who I was and had already had two glasses of the stuff before I arrived.  Tricky.  Especially when the daughter turned up.

Absinthe in Montreal

I have since learned not to drink absinthe with anyone unless I know them really, really well.  The only other hotel I have been to where they serve it is the InterContinental in Montreal, where I had it with S from Vancouver.  Fortunately, she can absorb her alcohol in a rather more robust way than M's mother.   

Anyway, Agwa de Bolivia is made from Coca leaves and after three at lunchtime it felt like it.  No more green drinks for me!  Until the next time.

Paint Table Saturday

I'm looking forward to our three day weekend so hope to get the next batch of Mexicans finished.  If I have time I will also do some more work on the Neanderthals and maybe start the North Star Egyptian standard bearer.  In the background are some of the new Artizan North West Frontier tribesmen (left), Mexican cavalry (centre) and more Mexican infantry (right).  

Since I started taking part in Paint Table Saturday every week, on 18th January this year,  I have painted 41 figures which is half what I did for the whole of last year!  It's really helping to keep my momentum up.  Unfortunately in the same period I have bought nearly ten times that number of new figures.  Oh dear!

Paint Table Saturday and a couple of splendid Kentish women

Paint table Saturday is starting a bit late today as I had to take my son to and from rowing and my daughter to the airport so she can get back to Edinburgh University after the Easter break.  Today, the paint table is overlooked by the splendid figure of Rochester's finest Miss Kelly Ann Preston who is my current wallpaper.  The Old Bat sent me the link to this picture as she knows Miss Brook (as she is better known) cheers me up!

M (right) competing in the eighties.  What a splendid young lady she was!

I had an equally curvy secretary, M, who hailed from Rochester as well, who was a very good 400m runner, and enlivened the Legatus' life considerably back in the mid eighties.  It must be something in the water!

Although I am still working on my last three companies for the Mexican Matamoros  regiment I've decided to take a break from them today in favour of starting work on what will be a long project: the Dolores Cavalry regiment.  I have nine of these magnificent Boot Hill Miniatures figures to paint but even to achieve a 1:10 ratio I will need 20 more!   Also, in a not unusual case of "New! Shiny!"  I have the four Neanderthal's from Steve Saleh's new venture, Lucid Eye.  These are lovely miniatures indeed but very hefty.  The chief is a strapping 34mm from foot to eye.  Hopefully, Saleh will do some more so I have someone to pitch against my Copplestone cavemen.

Mexicans!

Thanks to Paint Table Easter weekend I finished 14 more Mexican infantry for the Alamo.  So, added to the six I had already done, I have five out of the eight companies I need for the Matamoros Regiment.  Mexican units were split between permanente (regulars) and activo (militia).  The Matamoros were regulars so I am using Boot Hill Miniature's marching figures for them.  I have three more companies of four started, including the cazadores and the granaderos which will complete the unit.

Next its an Activo unit for which I will use the charging figures.  I have also based six out of my first nine cavalry so progress is good on the Mexicans.  Today I've ordered my first Texians and a few more Mexican officers.  I've also started painting the Alamo!  I did a bit more on my Mutton Chop BEF too, so it was my best concentrated painting sessions for a while!  Now all I have to do is avoid a foreign trip in three weeks time! 

There can be only one choice for the music to accompany this post: Dimitri Tiomkin's rousing score for the Alamo (1960).  I have owned the soundtrack CD for some time but it contains some dialogue from the film (I hate it when they do that!) and rather too much cantina music and sickly songs from the first half of the film.  Recently, however, I picked up the 3 CD complete score performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic orchestra and very splendid it is too; with significantly more martial content, including fanfares and drum music representing the Mexican army.  With an excellent recording it is mostly superior to the old original soundtrack recording, with the odd exception, such as the entr'acte where the fading drums at the end are more haunting than the new version.

Paint Table Saturday: Riflemen!

I have done a little bit of painting since Salute, although yesterday was mainly devoted to moving (sadly, non-wargaming) things into the new shed.  I did start with a bit of base colour for my new Muttonchop Miniatures WW1 British.  These are absolutely the nicest WW1 BEF figures I have ever seen. Let's hope the range expands to more than the two packs already available.  I am going to paint them as Kings Royal Rifle Corps as that is the regiment my grandfather served in in 1914.

Haddon Perceval Bowen Harris July 1914

Secondly, I got base colours down on the next (and final) group for the Mexican Matamoros regiment including these fine Cazadores with their Baker rifles.  It's nice and bright today too.  Three days to paint!  Yippee!