Even more Sailors?

Surely not! What is happening to my personal best of one miniature a month? :D As you can see I painted another three of these fellas. Sadly not as many as I wanted them to be, but last week was a killer at work. So I kept myself busy with some barrels (some you can see on the top picture) from the magical hands of Elladan, a pile of wood from a shop called Rustyrail (http://www.rustyrail.com/  Beautiful stuff for a good price. The car wrecks are quite a good fit... Maybe a bit on the large side, but still very good) and some wicker fences from Daemonscape on Ebay. And then on Sunday I started these three. The blue is still a bit shiny, but I think it also has to do with the nature of the dark colours on a flat surface. The blockhouse is a Pegasus Izba by the way.

And here is a group shot. As you can see I've added the ship's name on the cap. Lt. Hazel just pushed the right buttons and I tried it (he just told me to do it, basically. :D )

Well, it seems I'll have my troop ready relatively fast (by my standards).

Thanks for reading!

Songwriting

I want to write a song... It should be to the tune of "Hungry Eyes" (Hey, don't blame me... my girlfriend loves Dirty Dancing) and go something along the lines of:

...sailor eyes
How do I hate you you tiny, beady
sailor eyes...

That's all I got...

Seriously, why are Copplestone eyes just a ball of pewter? What a pain to paint!

Back to work! ;)

The riddle of the varnish solved!

I found out why I have been unhappy with how my matt varnish turned out lately. Some time ago I bought Humbrol Gloss Coat in a bottle. I thought it was the same as the No 35 gloss enamel paint just in a bottle and larger quantity. It seems that is not the case. The bottle seems to hold a simple varnish, while No 35 is an enamel paint (as the Humbrol web page states). I painted a test surface yesterday and varnished it using No 35 for one half of the surface and Gloss Coat for the other half. Today I brushed on my Soluble Matt Varnish by Daler Rowney and the result is revealing. The No 35 side is perfectly matt... the Gloss Coat side still has a sheen to it. There you have it... Back to No 35.

Russian Sailors Maxim

I have been poorly most of the week and therefore I tried to paint a bit while I felt like it. This is the result. Again... not my best work. The faces feel rushed and the sheen on the blue shirts is annoying. I don't know what it is, but I am suspecting my new Humbrol Gloss Cote. I didn't buy the usual Nr 35 in a tin pot, but rather the 28ml bottle. I think they are supposed to be the same product, but strangely only the miniatures gloss coated from the bottle seem to have a problem with my matte varnish. Maybe 6 hours of drying time for the gloss cote is not enough even if the bottle says so. Anyway... I'll give it today to dry some more and will give the shirts another coat at night.

By the way... This is my first historic heavy weapon. :)

Here it is:

Some more commandos

Last week I finished three more commandos. One of them is carrying a flamer. I am not that pleased with these three... Especially the flame-thrower carrier's five o'clock shadow seems silly. Yet, I felt unable to correct the faces. They'll have to do for now and I'll have to practice more about how to do the five o'clock shadow. :(

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Mark Copplestone!

My sailors are here! Ordered a short week ago... Mark Copplestone delivered. I got a ten man sailor team now, my command and a lovely Maxim. Didn't have a lot of time today, but I started cleaning and assembling the Maxim in the last hour of my day. Sadly I will be too busy this week to paint, but I can at least work a bit on cleaning the miniatures from the occasional flash before going to bed. :)

Btw... I just had a look at the Tugboat by HLBS (http://www.hlbs.co.uk/product.php?id=758)... I am wondering,whether or not it would be crazy and completely unhistorical to get one for my sailors. I'll need to see if I can find some sources on that. Should you know... shoot.

See you soon...