Re-painting, plastics, Sibelius and the Thirty Years War.

The sun is actually out this morning and so I got a bit more done on the Naval brigade

My posts are starting to be, rather depressingly, only monthly.  Partly this is because the figures I have painted come from periods that have their own blog.  Never mind, as I am actually painting regularly again. So, anyway, here is this month's ramble.

Amazingly, I have managed to stick to one project for a month without getting distracted!  So far I have painted over 30 figures for my Darkest Africa Zambezi campaign, which is based on the Gary Chalk article in Wargames Illustrated last April.  Because there are so many different troop types to paint I should be able to keep my attention on this for some time, I hope.  More on my Darkest Africa blog.

The best thing about this project is that the units are often very small. For example, after I finish the Naval Brigade the next unit ready to go are the Sikhs and their unit is only six figures. I had a few Sikh NCOs from the Darkest Africa NCO pack but needed to get one more pack of six from Foundry, so took advantage of their 20% discount over Christmas to get them and a few more DA figures I needed.  Interestingly, and this has happened before, when they arrived they were the old eight figure packs not the six figure ones that have been up on the website for years.  This obviously shows that these are not exactly best sellers if they still have stocks of the old packs.  I also picked up a big job lot of Darkest Africa on eBay which had some porters, as I found that one of my porters has mysteriously gone missing.  They've never left the house except for my first game at Guildford Wargames club (which must be at least five years ago) and I have checked everywhere else they might conceivably be.  I'll have to ask Mike Lewis if he ended up with his Belgians!

Sarah looking dinky as usual

I have had a whole series of evening events to go to over the last week which has taken up any painting time in the evening.  Last night I had a reception at the law firm where Giles Allison works.  It was so boring I nearly called him up!  I did go to the more entertaining leaving party of a former colleague last week, which would have been great (especially as the lovely Sarah was there) except it was Friday night in one of those City wine bars which was so noisy you had to shout to be heard.  I must be getting old because I do not think this sort of environment is fun any more (despite the presence of some very attractive girls).  Part of the problem is that I just can't hear very well when there are lots of people in a room these days.  Added to which there was the inevitable pounding music (not very far) in the background.  Why do they have music so loud that people have to shout?

Sony TPS-L2, my first Walkman

Over thirty years ago, my Uncle Wally, who was a very senior executive at Ford and a friend of Akio Morita, founder of Sony, presented me with one of the first Walkmans (Walkmen?).  Since then, and a whole string of Walkmen and now iPods, my hearing has taken such a bashing that I wander around the trendy places of the world like a zombie whose only vocubulary is "What?", "Eh?" and "Sorry?.  Tragic, really.  Still.  Mustn't grumble.

The notoriously grumpy Sibelius caught off guard in 1939

Speaking of music I have just read a biography of Sibelius, my very favourite composer.  Why I like such stark music I do not know (perhaps it's something to do with my part Nordic DNA) but he has very much the biggest classical composer section on my iPod.  One thing I did know about Sibelius before I read this book was that he was a compulsive reviser of his compositions.  They would be performed and then years later he would go back and fiddle around with them a little.  Or so I thought.  One thing I learned from the book was that there had been a recording of the original versions of my two favourite Sibelius pieces, the 5th Symphony and the tone poem, En Saga.  I downloaded this from Amazon (cheaper than iTunes as usual) and listened to them yesterday.  Having done so I realised that he didn't just fiddle around with them he chopped them up and re-ordered them completely.  The original version of both pieces contains most of the constituent pieces of both works but what now seems like, in the revised works, a coherent progression of ideas is not there at all.  The 5th Symphony, in its original form stops and starts with none of that characterstic Sibelian evolution.  It's a mess, frankly and I realise that the real genius of the composer was to take his original building blocks and reassemble them to make a much more coherent whole; something akin to clever film editing.  It just shows, as Sibelius himself admitted, that these works don't just spring fully formed from the mind of the composer but, even if the inspiration is there, still need a lot of work.

And what has all this to do with painting model soldiers?  Well, the question of revisiting old work is very much on my mind on this Darkest Africa project.  The Foundry DA figures were the very first 28mm metal figures I bought and painted and, frankly, I wasn't very good at painting in those days (ten years ago).  When I look at them now they are a bit, well, blotchy. I later discovered that I needed glasses for reading and as soon as I got these the faults in the figures were all to apparent.  I wear 1.5 x magnification for working on the computer and reading in bad light (I don't need them most of the time) and use 3 x magnification reading glasses from Boots for painting.  I looked at one of those optivisor things but found that the glasses were just as good and you didn't end up looking like a character from Blade Runner.  So now I will be repainting quite a few of my DA figures to sharpen them up.  I first did this a few years ago and was pleased with the result.

Foundry Darkest Africa Princess.  Painted 1999, revised 2007

Also, at this time, I had not discovered static grass so just painted the bases green and bunged a bit of sand on them. Some people turn their bases (especially the element basing people) into little works of art but, on the whole I can't be bothered, unless it is a character figure.

Khurusan Cuirassiers

Now, I am notorious for starting new periods but am making some effort to get rid of figures I am never going to paint. However, I still have this hankering to start a Thirty Years War army.  This is patently ridiculous as I still have hundreds of ECW figures I haven't painted but I was thinking about it again when I saw a new range of 15mm figures from Khurusan appear on TMP.  I don't like 15mm figures but these looked good and, given the size of many of the battles of the Thirty Years War 15mm would be a sensible way to go.  it's a new range, though, so you never know whether it will get completed (still waiting for those Swedish Cavalry from Musketeer!).

A small part of the model Swedish Thirty Years War Army in the museum in Stockholm

At the very least it would give me a good excuse to go back to Sweden and stay with my particular friend A, who has a lovely apartment in the centre of the old town in Stockholm.  I could then visit the Swedish Army Museum again which has quite a few Thirty Years War Exhibits, as you'd expect.  Most impressive is a model of a Swedish Army from the Thirty Years War made with what looked like 20mm figures.  It was about twenty feet across.

Other than the 15mm figures, however, I have also been very tempted by the Warlord Games Thirty Years War boxes; which are their ECW figures with some extra metal bits.  I really like their ECW range but they are too small to be compatible with my Renegade and Bicorne figures.  Now I know that the clothes of the Thirty Years War and the ECW were different and for historical accuracy I should go for The Assault Group's range.  I bought a few of these but Nick Collier, the sculptor of Renegade's figures as well, has gone for much smaller figures but with big heads.  The Warlord figures are much more anatomically correct.  I  actually had a box in my hands at Warfare last November but put them back.  I think that one of the issues is that I have never painted more than one or two figures from any of the boxes of plastic figures I have bought over the last few years. I don't think its their plasticness per se, as I have happily painted dozens of GW Lord of the Rings figures, but the fact that you just end up with an overwhelming number of figures in one go.  Given that I paint six figures in a good week a box with 47 figures in it engenders a feeling of utter helplessness.  Even so...

Finnish Thirty Years War Hakkapeliitta

One interesting snippet from the Sibelius biography I read is that one of my favourite Sibelius pieces, the central movement, Scena, from Scenes Historiques No 1, actually depicts the activities of Finnish Troops in the Thirty Years War.  Originally a four movement piece written for a Finnish Press Pension Fund benefit concert in 1899, the fourth movement, Finland Awakes, became so popular that it developed a life of its own as Finlandia, Sibelius' most famous composition.  Scena has one of the most rousing climaxes of any Sibelius composition and is appropriately martial.

Finally, talking about plastics I have been following, with increasing disbelief, the utter nonsense (much of it slanderous and much of it racist) being talked about Wargames Factory on TMP.  Its always sad when a company with good ideas runs into trouble and it seems the issues that they have had with their suppliers are very much akin to what Airfix suffered when its French suppliers were unable to deliver a few years ago, which ultimately led to them going bust.  For my part, I just ordered a few packs of their Zulus off eBay, just in case.  Plastics really do have a role in building mass armies like this which is why I am sure that I will get over my aversion to painting boxes of plastics when the Perry Miniatures plastic Mahdists come out.

Hurdy Gurdy

I took this picture of some model Thirty Years War Swedish Pikemen in the Army Museum in Stockholm on my last visit. The figures are 1/6th scale, hence the amazing detail.

I’m feeling a little Swedish at the moment. This is not surprising as I am part Swedish, with family originating in Malmo on my mother’s side. Maybe partly this can also be explained by our recent snow in Surrey with lots of people taking to cross-country skis.

Lars-Erik Larsson (1908-1986)

Also, I have been listening to a lot of Swedish music lately; notably Lars-Erik Larsson’s first two Symphonies and his wonderful piece Dagens Stunder which is like jolly Sibelieus. I am also working my way through his 12 Concertinos which were written to be performed by amateur players with rather more experienced soloists. Very similar in conception, in fact to Carl Orff's Carmina Burana which was designed for amateur choir and orchestra. My friend from Stockholm (who introduced me to Larsson's music: he is virtually unknown in the UK) is over in London this week too. Unfortunately, I am in Qatar so I will have to catch up with her in Stockholm later in the year; which is always a pleasure.

My not very Swedish view as I type this. Palm trees in February is always a good thing!

All of this Scandinavianism is being reflected in my painting plans as well. Not actual painting, as I am in Doha (which is about as opposite to Sweden as you can get) but mental painting. I recently finished ten more Great Northern War Swedish infantry and, as a result my first two regiments are starting to look well on the way to being finished. Given that the Musketeer figures are so easy to paint I am inspired to just get on with them and finish them. I recently picked up quite a few more for a good price on eBay which included the flag for the Jonkoping Regiment whose red facings will make a change from the yellow ones of my first two regiments. This however, means that I will be working on three regiments at the same time. Next I would like to do some Russians but we are all still waiting for Musketeer to come out with their long promised pikemen (let alone Grenadiers).

I was initially attracted to the Musketeer figures by the striking blue and yellow uniforms. Some years ago for the same reason, I bought a lot of the Revell Thirty Years War plastics. As a set they probably remain the best plastic figures ever produced. I painted quite a few and even started to buy some of the Tumbling Dice 20mm ECW metals to fill the gaps (especially as regards pike men). I started thinking about the Thirty Years War again with the announcement of the new Warlord plastic ECW figures. They claim that they are suitable for both ECW and Thirty Years War but, in fact, there are quite a few differences in the fashions of the period not least of which is headgear, baggier trousers and the length of jackets. Recently, however, The Assault Group have released some proper Thirty Years War Swedes and I have just ordered a couple of packs to see what they are like. They are sculpted by Nick Collier who did the wonderful Renegade ECW figures. I expect them to be slightly smaller than the latter as, apparently, he wasn’t that happy in being asked to sculpt them so large. I gather that the Warlord figures will be compatible with the Perry ECW figures which are much smaller than the Renegade ones. For ECW I will stay with Renegade and Bicorne, I think. I am trying to finish some of the part-painted figures on my workbench and have four Renegade Musketeers to do to complete my second ECW Regiment so I hope to do this as soon as I get back from my current trip.

Armémuseum and Historiska Museet, Stockholm

I've just spent three days in Stockholm, which is one of my favourite cities in Europe, if not the favourite. One hundred museums, excellent restaurants, attractive buildings, heart-stopping blondes and water and boats everywhere. Perfection. And, of course, everyone speaks English. Not just good English but often accentless, idiomatic English.

Although I had a busy couple of days: two presentations and chairing a workshop, I did manage to get some time on Friday to visit a couple of museums I hadn't been to before. The number one museum is, of course, the Vasa museum: an experience that is just gob-smackingly staggering but I went there on my last trip so, having picked up some Musketeer Miniatures Great Northern War figures at Colours, I decided to check out the Army Museum.

The museum is on three floors. The third floor goes from the Vikings through to the beginning of World War 1. This is a lot to cover especially given the fact that the Vikings, Thirty Years War and Great Northern War would deserve a floor each. In truth, the early periods are only represented by a few items each.

The museum mixes original artefacts in display cases with (brilliantly done) scenic tableaux using reconstructed uniforms and equipment, like this Thirty Years War encampment.

They also had a model of a "small army of the 30 Years War": 5,800 30mm figures! This is just a small section; the whole display was about 40 feet across!

There was also this small section of a pike block using Action Man sized figures. Click on the picture, the detail is superb.

I was looking forward to the GNW stuff and they had a stunning life sized representation of three Swedish cavalry charging. Just got to wait for Musketeer to get their cavalry out! I'll post more about this when I get some figures finished.

The second floor covered the period from 1914 to the present day and was a little less mainstream in content (the Swedes, sensibly, haven't fought anyone for years) but there were some more great tableaux and a series of rooms full of weapons of the Swedish Army from 1600 to 1860. From this I spotted a little detail which I incorporated into the musket of my first GNW figure!

On the ground floor was an artillery display with lots of colourful Swedish cannon plus some more modern weapons.

A short walk away from the Army Museum was the Historical Museum. I only had time to look at the Viking and prehistoric sections but there was a lot more to see.

The Viking collection was extensive with military items such as spear heads, swords and shield bosses as well as some of the famous rune stones depicting Viking warriors and their ships.

My favourite item was a model of the Viking town of Birka. One day I will build a model of a Viking settlement!

The earlier stuff was interesting too, with some 7th century helmets from Vendel and some fine Bronze Age swords: from the same period as my Foundry Bronze Age warriors!

Entry for both museums was very reasonable: SeK40 (£3.00) for the Army Museum and SeK50 (3.75) for the Historic Museum. The Army Museum display captions are all in Swedish but there is a reasonably good summary of the museum in English freely available. The Viking section of the Historical Museum was labelled in both Swedish and English but the prehistoric section was in Swedish only. Even the Swedish I could get a sense of, English has a lot of Norse in it after all, or maybe it was my 12.5% Swedish genetic material!

I walked back through the Royal Palace where the guardsmen wear a nineteenth century style uniform. The spiked kask was introduced into the Swedish army in 1845 and was modelled on the Prussian uniform. Ironic really, considering much of Prussian military doctrine was modelled on the Swedish approach from centuries earlier!

All in all a very good day and a rare opportunity for me to get out and see the city I am visiting.

Finally, I must thank my Swedish friend, Anna, for loan of her PC in a crisis, a guided tour of the Old Town, dinners in interesting restaurants and much else (her delightful companionship not least). Also, I thoroughly recommend the Grand Hotel as a splendid place to stay. Writing up my notes whilst watching the boats and drinking Pol Roger was very pleasant!