Ottomans Done

Ok, I decided that enough was enough and I am calling it on these guys, as done.

I have a bunch more to do as the start of a DBMM army, but I now have these ones ready to go for Landwaster in two weeks time. Perhaps some kind of a record for me having them ready with so much time to spare.

The bulk of the army

Psiloi and Artillery

Janissaries

General with his Drummer

 

Cavalry

More Work on the Ottomans

Made some significant progress with the Ottomans. I am finding that they are a lot darker than I wanted though.

 The flags still need some work.

Ottomans, Villages and Bears

Some weekend painting was squeezed in between gardening and other such duties. More progress on the Ottomans, a Normandy farm complex in 6mm, and some 1/1200 planes for use in Shipwreck games.

Ottomans - starting to look the business

The General and his drummer

Spahis

1/1200 Su27, a Shackleton, Nimrod, Victor and others

Early Warning and a Bear

Normandy farm complex

Ottomans in Progress

Some time ago, (several years), I won a Venexia DBA Ottoman army in competition. The Venexia figures were originally supplied by Vexillia in the UK. (A plug here, Martin who runs Vexillia is an excellent bloke to do business with, prompt, responsive and extremely helpful).

The figures themselves are more like18mm than 15mm - so quite large, and most require assembly, not just spears and shields but also whole weapons arms and some figures such as archers are split at the waist. They have loads of character, and paint up well though.

On getting them home (again; some years ago), I assembled them, based and undercoated in black. Since then, they have just been sitting around, getting in the way. David Lawrence runs DBA competitions locally, and one of these, 'Landwaster' is coming up very soon. I wanted to bring a new army, as committing to bringing something new is a very good way to get myself motivated to paint something. The Ottomans fitted the bill. So here's the work in progress.

Four cavalry, four light horse, one artillery, two 'Psiloi' (light infantry) and one Janissary bow.

Progress is patchy - because I keep seeing other bits I should do, but it's steady. These guys should be ready by 17 November, and the big test at the Austrian Club.

Later I hope to expand them to a full size Ottoman army for DBMM. Vexillia no longer carries them, instead, Sergeant Major Miniatures in the US are now the only supplier I know of. I am looking at what I might need to add to the mix.

NWE British - now with added Decals..

An evening spent peering over teeny weeny tanks later... 

Essential equipment..   sharp scissors, very sharp knife, brush and tweezers.

So I grabbed my humbrol varnish and varnished the relevant bits on the model - scared myself with how shiney they were. Then used scissors to chop the GHQ sheet into the relevant bits, scored the parts between the decals (because they are printed on a single film) grabbed them with the tweezers, immersed in warmish water for maybe 10 seconds.

Then used a soft brush to pick them up and apply them, blunt tweezers to move them about. Applied Tamiya decal set, and when dry this morning, sprayed with an artists matt varnish.

Here's the results.

Command, Recce, 6lb AT, Mortars, FAO, and Cromwells,

SPG & Shermans

Front on.

I am pretty happy. I also took a graphite pencil and really marked up the paintwork, tracks and wear points on turrets and hatches. I am now considering whether to paint or use the GHQ decals for British armour.

Lead Audit - 9 months in

So a little banter between myself and Thomo the Lost via email, and the subject came up about how much stuff I had painted/ordered, especially with Brigade Models sale now on. expected any time now for Christmas

9 months in, and looking back through my orders for the year..  I wasn't as good as I thought. The tally was as follows:

Rules & Other stuff

Maurice + Cards

Airbrush & Compressor

1/48 scale F111 kit (does this even count?)

Shipwreck rules

Litko Markers

1/300 decals (British & German tanks)

Miniatures

Medieval German army (eBay) –  but at least it was all painted, so didn’t add to the lead pile

Lancashire Games Goths for DBMM (sale price ;-)

Navwar - 3 Fleets for Shipwreck (and gave one away)

TSS & Magister Militum - planes & helicopters for Shipwreck

5 packs of GHQ (but 4 of those were on special) - 24 AFV

13 packs of Essex Chinese (so my Sui can do duty as Early Tang)

Ok, so my 'no new lead' pledge has kind of faltered, but I really do think I am going pretty well.  

I have painted up 44 x 1/3000 scale naval vessels, plus aircraft, in 6mm, GHQ, 62 x Late War German vehicles, 47 x Late War British vehicles, accompanying infantry for both, a DBA Rajput army, finished up the DBMM Sui in January, (did some more in June).

The plan is to do a DBA Ottoman Turkish army using the Venexia figures I have lurking around undercoated for Landwaster in November, and try to get started on the Goths. Interspersed with this, I will also try to paint up a 1940 French battlegroup for BKCII.

Overall, nine months in, not as disciplined as I wanted, but not too bad, by my standards.

Panzer Grenadiers Part 2

I had posts noting that the camouflage was invisible in the previous pictures.. hopefully these are clearer.