Back to the Grindstone

 Apologies: And things to come

    I must begin by apologizing for my lengthy hiatus as I have been MIA the better half of the year, as I have been moving house and was missing a work table for some time, and then was caught up with other projects. I have quite a few projects in the works, and a have completed a few 

    Here are a few images of a Spitfire I've completed (in 1/72 by airfix, 1/72 as the models are not too large and not too expensive, meaning I can field plenty more) I plan to buy and finish an additional 3 to have a complete squadron of Spitfires as I have been working on rules for a wargame in 1/32 that is vague enough to be used from the pike and shot era to roughly modern day, while still being detailed to provide a proper tactical game. Now that I've got the rules for the base game down, it's on to the more advanced things, air combat, naval battles and support, and armored support. One day when the game is complete I hope to share the rules with all of you, I also have plans to publish battle reports here for you all to get a feel of the game. I will use this spitfire and a BF 109 I have in the works to begin testing the air combat rules, before then moving on to figure out how to tie land and air together.

    And here is a M41 Walker Bulldog (in 1/35 by tamiya,  in 1/35 as the offerings for tanks are much wider, this will be used in a Korean war game far in the future when I have enough figures) overall a really fun and easy kit to put together, there were no fit issues and not to many parts so everything went together like a dream. All of this combined means I finished the kit in one day, something new to me. 

    Until next time, keep on keeping on.

Current Project: Spotting Balloon

My project at the moment is a spotting balloon for use in wargames. Now when I first had the idea of making this, the thing keeping my from starting was, how am I going to make that actual balloon? A rather important part, so I thought about it. Ideas of using paper mache or maybe even using one of the models available at the wonderful http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/ but they just weren't going to give me the "toy look" that I wanted to go for. Then lo and behold, I laid my eyes upon the styrofoam ball I had lying around from some long forgotten project, so I got to work.

I began by painting on a few layers of white glue to the ball to give it just a little more strength, then began to paint the whole thing white before I realised that was a little ridiculous as I was just going to go over half with black anyway. So I taped off the stripes and got to painting 

Here we see the basket (and the mess created during its creation), constructed out of foamcore, and two of its future inhabitants. I would have liked something more wicker like, but couldn't think of a way to go about it, so I settled on a wood plank look. 

And here is the current state of things, the basket needs an interior paint job and the balloon could use some touching up in a few places. Overall looking good. Making the net that holds down the balloon and the tethers that attach the basket, a rather important step, and it should be ready for the table top!

Welcome!

                   Welcome to my blog! here I will be sharing anything to do with 54mm scale toy and model soldiers. I focus mainly on Victorian and WW1 era models, but do delve into other eras. Here I will feature painted models, dioramas, and wargames using a homebrew rule system I have been working on for the past few years. I do hope you enjoy my coming content!