Scenic Effects

I worked a half-a-day on Good Friday and decided to base all of my elements that we ready for it. I was originally going to base my entire army at the end and planned to take one full week basing my stuff. Well...........24 hours later and nearly 75% of my army has scenic effects applied to them. I was going into Friday evening with mixed feelings. First of all, I was getting quite burned out of highlighting blue and black and took the basing project as a nice break. I was worried about whether or not I would be able to complete my overall task but when I finished in an evening it excited me about completing my project. So, the 'distraction' ended up reinvigorating my willpower to finish my infantry. So, I have 18 days in which to finish highlighting 60 miniatures and base them. A very possible goal if I don't have too many life issues get in the way. Enough of the blather. Here are some pictures........

Infantry and Artillery Brigade Commander

Artillery Pieces

 Casualties - Disorder Markers

Casualties - Hit Markers

 114th PA Regiment - Zouaves - 3 of 5 stands 

63rd NY Regiment - Irish Brigade 

6th NY Cavalry

 6th NY Cavarly - Dismounted

Building a slice of Gettysburg

Just before Christmas last year, Rob Chandler and I brought our Salamanca table (form our 2012 game) from the Battlefront Miniatures office in North East, MD, down to Dropzone Games (in Glen Burnie, MD) so we could build a few new ridges and add a bunch more flock to the table. Mid-summer Pennsylvania is a little bit greener than mid-summer Spain ; )

Anyway, on Thursday we had the chance to finally put flock on everything, and it turned out to be a LOT of flock! We used the contents of three of the GW Scenery kits (all supplied by the awesome guys at Dropzone), plus about half a shaker of some dark green turf from Woodland Scenics.

Rob and I were pretty excited about the look of the table, so we just had to put all of our painted models on the table. To be honest, we started with just one regiment, but couldn't help ourselves. You know how it is...

Here's a shot of my dismounted cavalry troopers crouched behind their picket fence, horse holder in the background.

Two regiments face off at almost point blank range. Not particularly "realistic", but good for photos.

And a final shot with Rob looking over it all.

More photos next week once we have everything else in place. We hope you like it so far.

Cheers
Dave

The Old Dominion State

I've been so busy painting I have had no time to setup my photo booth and take some proper pictures.  But work on the boys of Virginia has continued with two more infantry regiments and an artillery piece completed. The cavalry is half done (horses finished, now for the riders) and then I'll be moving on to the command stands, the final infantry regiment, dismounted cavalry and some disruption markers probably in that order. I've got 4 week left so that is plenty of time, right?

First up are the men of the 47th Virginians

 

 My third regiment is the 55th Virginians. This regiment was made from the new Perry plastic confederates box set.

I also completed my one gun for my contribution to the confederate cause.

 

All in all I'm happy with the product so far even though I would much rather have been further along at this stage.  Although this has been a marathon painting project for me, I'm very excited with the results.  Plus, it has shown me that, given the incentive, I can get a lot done.  Who knows, maybe this will get me back to painting some larger army projects for a change.

I'll leave you with a little period music for inspiration:
http://youtu.be/a-3WAhbulFs?t=40s

 

 

One Step Closer to a United States

I have had a busy few weeks including a trip to Tennessee to purchase my American Civil War reenacting clothing and equipment followed by a TV filming. More information to follow........

Here are a few pictures of myself at my first day of American Civil War reenacting. We are in Resaca, GA at the site of the future Battle of Resaca to occur in May. 

A borrowed musket, cartridge box, and cap box. I am learning the drums so eventually the borrowed tools of war will not be needed. I know. I know. Too old and too fat for the drums but I have always wanted to learn a musical instrument. 

I liked this pictures showing the differences in uniforms between the sack coat and frock coat that the 1st Sgt is wearing. You may also notice the difference in blue between the coats in the foreground and the corporals coat. 

Once I put away my big boy toys it was time to pick up the brush and paint my little boy toys. 

I have been averaging about 6 completed miniatures a day and need to maintain this pace in order to finish everything in time. Not an impossible task but will challenge my mental willpower painting all this blue and black. :) 

I managed to finish one regiment of the Irish Brigade and all of my dismounted cavalry. My biggest challenge is finishing my Zouaves so I decided to tackle them this weekend. Hopefully I will have 12 done this evening and another 12 completed Monday and Tuesday night. This will leave me 2 x 30 man regiments to highlight and 1 x 24 man regiment to highlight. 

Here is 6 of the 12 dismounted cavalry. I took these pictures at different distances to see which one would look better. I am still trying to get a handle on photography. 

Here are the other 6. No I didn't just move the original 6 in different positions. I actually do have 12 fully painted dismounted cavalry. :) 

63rd NY Regiment in line marching to battle. 

Again, I just tried taking pictures at different depths to see which ones would look better. 

63rd NY Regiment in march column. 

63rd NY at a different angle. This is there good side. :) 

First Glimpse of the Iron Brigade

In order to keep me motivated when I'm so close, but yet so far, I decided to take a couple of shots of the assembled Iron Brigade thus far.

Here are all the boys, two regiments in firing line, three regiments in march, one squadron of cavalry (both mounted and dismounted), plus my command base and a few casualty markers. 173 models in all.

And here's a closer look at the last regiment to be finished, sandwiched in between the only two completed units ; )

Only a month to go!

Cheers
Dave

New Addition to the Union Ranks

We are at the stage in the project where you, the viewers, will start to see lots of toy soldiers hitting the 'done' pile. Even though my progress was slow getting over the hump of base coating my entire army; I am starting to get closer to the finish line with each brush stroke. 

I have completed the 6th NY Cavalry Regiment. It will definitely be a first since I painted too many cavalry for this project but I wanted to have a unit of 12 for future gaming. 

I finally finished the 3rd gun and I realized the new pumice I was using was not the same color of the original pumice I ran out of. No matter since this will be painted over but the texture is slightly different. Probably won't be noticeable when everything is flocked and grassed but sometimes my OCD gets in the way. :) 

I was really excited to see the colors put on some painted miniatures so I jumped right into the command stands. Here are two command stands done for the Irish Brigade. Those green flags will look great on the table and distract everyone from my so-so paint job. :) 

Finally, I have my remaining casualty and disruption markers. I am short casualty markers since I will have 5 infantry regiments and only 3 casualty markers so I guess I will have to make sure my brigade doesn't take any hits. 

I really need to work on my picture taking abilities but one thing at a time. I need to get my army done first. :) 

Krone