My New Shooting Leave Victorian Warfare Blog

Hi,

This is just a quick post to let you all know that I started a new blog based on 19th Century Victorian Warfare. It's called Shooting Leave, a name taken from the times when British Officers would 'take leave' traipse around the Empire often at their own expense and at extreme personal danger to map out and spy in the furthest reaches of Empire and beyond.

i thought it a good name for a blog featuring battles of the Victorian era.

If you like, you can pop over and see what all the fuss is about HERE!

Cheers for now.

Interlude; John Jenkins Designs Vignette: General Gordon's Last Stand

I've just noticed this striking vignette on the John Jenkins Designs website featuring the Anglo-Sudanese conflict.

I simply has to include them here as they look so, well, marvelous:

The archetypal depiction of Gorgon's Last Stand

A Close Up of Gordon Pasha's Last Moments

Cheers for now.

First Base of Beja Complete!

Well, not quite the first base. I've got another six metal Beja which I'm starting to paint up right now that will me mixed and matched with the first and possibly the third plastic base. I find that many of the plastic mini's have a similar stance in that they all seem to be leaning forward a little so it's imperative for me to have more variation in the units, thus adding the metals.

I'm quite pleased with how they're come out given that this was a run through to see how what was possible and that a certain amount of detail had to be added by hand.

I sent for a reddish skin tone on the first unit as the colour of the skin tones in and around the Red Sea Littoral could vary from tribe to tribe (within tribes too one would imagine). I may try a darker tone next time but as I have 30-36 of this batch to do I'll worry about that later! The mini's haven't been varnished as of yet as I prefer to do them in batches of about ten. Saves quite a bit of time.

At present, the miniatures have no concrete spot on the base so I can play around with the composition more when I've got the metals painted up and come up with a more dynamic scene.

Without further ado, here's the 'first' base:

Basing Figures; The Sudan

Hi,

I was at the local model shop with the idea of picking up more Plastic Mahdists by Perry Miniatures and as I was browsing around I notices some fine Ballast which, I thought would go rather will on the bases of the mini's for my Sudanese project. It really is quite fine stuff and will mix well and add a bit of contract to the larger sand crystals on each base. I'll be adding rocky bits as well as Silfor static grass (when painted) etc. should make the bases look as interesting as the minatures.

The first couple of bases will be ready very soon so you'll be able to see the results quite soon. The Ansar have taken a little more time to paint than I had expected but I'm feeling my way through the first batch and they should come thick and fast after the initial lot are done.

Cheers for now.