Trundling on...slowly!

Hello, hello, yes I'm still here. The summer is winding down - though the UK is experiencing an Indian summer of course - and autumn and winter loom. Does that mean more painting on the horizon? Hopefully.

Still, I've had the brushes and tools up and down. And off the painting table is a start on support weapons for the Spanish civil war. First up, an army Chaucat light machine gun.



Two prone minis in plain green uniforms? Yup, nothing too taxing.

The gunner is wearing the Spanish gorillo cap. I've piped it in green instead of the typical red to denote the unit as either light infantry or mountain infantry. I went this way with my general aim being to collect forces suitable for the Northern front. I used the blanket rolls to break up the endless green, and avoided a grey-green painted helmet for the same reason.

I've a couple of packs of infantry to join these two at some point, once I've finished off the beret'd Requetes!

Also, as the troops have started hitting the table up at the club, it was time to finish off some markers that I'd made up for Chain of Command. Four more large explosions taking me to eight to lay out barrages. And 40 or so 'pin' markers to give a cinematic impression of incoming fire. This idea shamelessly taken from the esteemed Mr Curt Campbell of Analogue Hobbies:
http://analogue-hobbies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/pin-markers-and-28mm-early-war.html

Not all pictured obviously. You'll have seen the unfazed Requetes before! 

I think the smaller markers work better, the taller ones, I realised later, being about waist height on a mini: probably a bit much. No doubt I'll need more in future and focus on making more little ones. 

In other news, those fine upstanding gentlemen Evan and Millsy are having a seventh - yes, seventh - blogiversary giveaway. There's some fine and very 'on trend' prizes on offer, so check it out:

http://canisterandgrape.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/happy-7th-amnesiaversary-or-remember.html

And the winners are...

Well, it's time to draw some winners from this week's giveaway.Thanks all for your interest in the giveaway, I made the draw using the most useful 'random.org'. Without further ado:

The winner of The Forgotten Front is....



...Ray! Of all bloody people! ;-) Congratulations Ray, of the endless luck.

For Waterloo Recollections...



...Dave Docherty! Congratulations.

For A Model Victory...



...StuartS! Congralations - I'll bring your prize to WW next time I make it along.


If Ray and DaveD could drop me an email with your addresses through kontactr on the right, I'll look to get your prizes into the post early next week.

100 Followers: A Fine Excuse to Pay it Forwards

I recently had the great pleasure of seeing my follower count edge over the 100 mark, which calls for a celebration. I did manage to catch me hitting both 100 and a page view milestone:



Oh go on then, I think we can celebrate with a long-overdue giveaway...

I've decided to gather up a few books that I've acquired and pass them on within our fine community. As is tradition with these things, the following rules apply:
-You must be a follower of this blog
-One entry will be awarded for comments below. Please note/rank the books you would prefer to make it easier for me to distribute the prizes
-A bonus entry may be awarded to any that make a meaningful comment on a historic post of mine. There is a 'link within' widget at the bottom of my posts, or you can browse the archive to your hearts content. A maximum one bonus entry each is on offer and I reserve the right to discount any comments that aren't interesting/witty/relevant etc.
-As this is marking my current followers, no bonus entries for pimping I'm afraid (though you're welcome to tell people if you so choose!)
-The giveaway will run until 2359 on Sunday 26 January.

No doubt you all want to know what's on offer:

First up, 'The Forgotten Front 1914-18' by Ross Anderson. A detailed look at British, Allied and German campaigns in East Africa. I won this in a giveaway by Dave at One Man and his Brushes and rather enjoyed reading it over Christmas.



Next, 'Waterloo Recollections' edited by Frederick Llewellyn. A section of reports, letters and accounts of Waterloo. While it doesn't offer the modern historical style overview and meticulous research, it is an interesting read of accounts from people that were there. I was kindly given this by my first Secret Santa, who remains unidentified.



Finally, 'A Model Victory' by Malcolm Balen. A slightly different take on Waterloo, looking at how history is decided by the victors with its focus on the battle and subsequent story of the Waterloo Model that was finally finished by William Siborne in 1938.

Feldpolizei: Now with Checkpoint

You've seen these two chaps recently, but on return from holiday and not having picked up a brush for nearly a month, I fancied easing back in by painting a few quick bits from the pile. So here we have a checkpoint for my German feldpolizei, a little piece of terrain or fun objective. This is a simple little 4Ground kit.


Halt!

Hopefully I'll bring you some more sizeable updates once I get back to full painting speed.

Also, Ian at The Blog With No Name is having a 500 posts/second blogaversary giveaway, so swing over and check it out if you're interested in such things.

Pulp: Building an Arab market scene

As I've been harping on abor all month, the post-Salute challenge was to build a market scene for some Pulp games. No easy task alongside a stack of other projects!

The start was to see what was out there to buy. The best priced were Black Cat, who sell an amazing variety of thing:, two stalls for £10. Conveniently Black Cat also do loads of different trade goods which came in useful. The stalls themselves were fairly solid pieces of textured resin to give a covered table and canopy. While they arent particularly innovative or detailed designs, they look the part and painted up pretty well. The stalls come with a metal topper piece covered in goods, I left these off and added single loose trade goods instead. The one on the left ended up being a bit bare ad cold do with a couple more pieces when I get chance.



I figured that I could make the outlay go twice as far by building table legs under the weighty metal stall toppers. Dead simple: two sizes of balsa wood and a small piece of foamed PVC underneath to give structure. So we've an antique armaments stall and a few sellers of various foodstuffs on my slightly wonky stalls.



With these purchases giving a good start, I turned to a scratch build for the next. Yup, it's Abdul peddler of rumours and rugs, for all your finest quality floor covering needs.



Simply two bits of dowel, 'rope' wrapped around to make two lines made from leftover scale barbed wire. The rugs themselves are a quite excellent freebie from Adventures in Lead, printed, carefully cut out and with the backs and edges painted in a suitable colour to hide the sharp white of the paper. Folded in half they were just glued overlapping on the lines. There are plenty spare rugs to lay in buildings to add more period flavour. I'm really pleased with how this came out.

And finally, a pot merchant. A selection of metal pots from Black Cat's trade goods, two large and one small pack, very reasonably priced hunks of metal at £2 a set. Based with another rug added, sorted!



One day I might add a couple more stalls: does anyone have any suggestions for me to have a go at? For now, the scene is completed with scatter terrain that I've plenty of already: boxes, sacks of grain, a fountain, civilians, walls and buildings.



On another note, Mike at Trouble at t'Mill is running a series of giveaways, here's the link to day three.

A series of giveaways...

...by Tamsin at Wargaming Girl. Get yourself over there and check it out, it seems she will have something for everyone over the course of the next few days.



It is traditional that entrants spread the word so others can enter, to boost their own chances and to build up those page views! That is the purpose of this post.

Update: day three is now up and it's a good one!

No progress for me to post up, though I'm itching to crack on with more Sudan as my last batch seemed well received! But I really must finish the half-built and painted market for some Pulpy fun with Gharak next week.

Great Giveaway at Loki's Great Hall

As the title really, do head over and check it out. Loki was be of the brave Ronin and s a quite excellent painter and terrain builder. 

Apologies to those who have stacks of these in their blog roll, but don't we all love a giveaway?!

Normal service to be resumed soon.

And now for something slightly different

After the loveliness, some grislyness.

I previously used tiny dice to mark combat damage, which did the job but weren't very evocative so knocked up these wound markers, inspired by Anatoli and Curt's efforts. Simply 22mm round clear plastic counters from em4 with your choice of red blood. I tried out Tamiya clear red, which is very shiny, opaque and bright, but gives a good icky colour if you add some chestnut or black ink. I mixed up a few different colours in layers.

After initial tries, I realised that both less is more and more is more: they look much better with less coverage on the counter, but to get the best effect I blobbed the paint on thickly, rather than brushing it carefully - the bristles left streaks due to the thickness of the paint.

They are quite shiny, but that doesn't seem to have come out in the photo.

On an entirely unrelated note, Ian at The Blog With No Name is having a series of giveaways at the moment, well worth swinging by.

Analogue Hobbies Challenge: Coming to a Close

With a sigh of relief, the Painting Ronin can lay aside their brushes. Three months of some quite amazing work in the name of points, sharing, camaraderie and prizes.

First up, my deepest appreciation for our host and guide, Curt. To make so much time to run this competition is a gesture of great kindness, it truly must have been a Herculean effort. But rest assured, it is deeply appreciated by me, the rest of the Ronin and the rest of our hobby blogosphere who could watch the fun unfold. Curt, I salute you as the jolly nice chap that you are. Hopefully, 50-odd colourful (and greyscale) Samurai will be reward enough, in the end.

On my performance, I managed a miserable 365 points, well below my 500 last year and 550 target. I just ran out of steam in the end and was too distracted by othre commitments. But I'm pleased with what I did finish. My focus was on Pulp and WWII, with a smattering of other genres . My entries over the past month are below. First up, a second batch of Artizan Greatcoated Germans. While they need a little grubbying up, I'm pleased with how they came out, a few lessons learned from the first batch.



Just the one camo smock in an autumnal scheme

The whole bunch together

Next, a few French Foreign Legion in khaki, to make an appearance in a North African Pulp games. Artizan Designs once again, I think these were a 'useful somday' bargain bin or eBay find.

A pair of ladies, one Pulp adventurer from Hasslefree and one armed Victorian lady from Mutineer. I actually had three ladies on my final entry, The third was the one I was most pleased with, but painting her went right to the wire so I will add a couple of finishing touches before posting her up here.

So now the dust has settled, there is voting and prizegiving to be done. One prize is awarded for the 'People's Choice', so do head on over to Analogue Hobbies to vote on your favourite entry.

Finally, a quick shout out for another Easter giveaway at Sippin' on Paint Water - head over there if you want a chance at some mysterious goodies!

Another big giveaway...

...no, not from me, but over at Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher.

ToaTS is giving a bumper series of superhero-themed prizes to celebrate 100,000 hits. Congrats on that Hendybadger!

If you like superheroes, gaming with superheroes and winning stuff, then I suggest you head on over and enter.

I realise I've not blogged much of interest recently, apologies for that. I've a busy week, so don't expect any meaningful painting progress until after the weekend. But, I do have gaming activities scheduled on Wednesay and Thursday, pretty uncommon for me.

Giveaways galore at Frontline Gamer

Frontline Gamer is in the middle of a series of giveaways as he hits new follower targets. Not only that, he's very insightful hobby blogger, if occasionally controversial. So his blog is well worth checking out on it'd own merits:

Frontline Gamer

All quiet on the Blogging front

Is it me or is it quiet around here? The Gaming Blogosphere seem to have been a bit quiet lately, but perhaps I'm just missing the regular Challenge updates of recent months. Or maybe the weather is perking up so we're all spending less time at our hobby tables and more getting some sunlight?

I received two packages this week, both from DaveD. First off a book he gave away on his blog: Hell Riders by Terry Brighton. I look forward to an illuminating read about the charge of the light brigade. Secondly some plastic round shields, after I asked for spares to equip my Vikings the other week. Many thanks to DaveD for sorting me out, Vikings without shields was a sad state of affairs.

So, here is a shout-out to DaveD of One Man and his Brushes, for being a thoroughly nice chap. Check out his blog here:
http://onemanhisbrushes.blogspot.com
Lots of eye-candy here, I particularly like how DaveD does his horses.

With Salute fast approaching I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Giveaway: Sipping on Paint Water

It seems to be the season of giveaways. To help reward the kindly folk (and give me a chince of winning), do check out the Sippin' on Paint Water blog here:
Sippin' on Paint Water

And a repost for the link-lazy:
----------------------------

Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods, and that oh so joyous holiday of Easter is fast approaching. To celebrate I thought I would share an Easter basket with one of my lucky followers, but this is no ordinary Easter basket, this basket will be filled not only with normal items of chocolate bunnies, pastel colored eggs and jelly beans, but with all sorts of mini goodies.

Imagine less eggs, and more things you might
actually want.

RULES
You must be a follower of Sippin' On Paint Water by April 8, 2012.
You must leave a comment on this post, 'Easter Basket Giveaway'.
If you win you will have to disclose your address, The Easter Bunny may 
know where you live but I don't.

There you have it, very simple, I hope the promises of chocolate and minis is enough to lure you into following. The winner will be announced on Easter Sunday, and hopefully I'll have the basket in the mail the next day. I'll even throw out a bonus way to get your name in the drawing twice, reblog this and I'll see to it that you get a second chance at the prize, want a third chance? Then email me a pic of a mini you have painted like an Easter egg or an Easter egg that you have painted like a mini, IE a Space Marine egg. Just send the email to: cbhollowell at AIM dot COM. If I receive enough submitted  images I may make a special post to showcase them in all their pastel glory, good luck and happy Easter, thanks for reading and stay thirsty.