With my interest in 10mm World War Two wargaming finally coming to an end, at least until I play another instalment of my "Battle Of The Bulge" campaign, I thought I'd focus on a slightly larger scale for the coming month by completing my initial Confederate Army for Epic Battles Black Powder. I've rather frustratingly been trying to finish these 15mm plastic Johnny Reb soldiers by "Warlord Games" since they first appeared on the cover of "Wargames Illustrated" over eighteen months ago, But frankly, the time they take me to paint all their tiny, super-fiddly details soon becomes soul-destroying if I'm not too careful.
Happily though, my enthusiasm for the American Civil War range has been buoyed by the project's finishing line being very much being in plain sight. I only have twenty of a Florida-based company left to complete, and many of the troopers have already received a lick of paint here and there. In addition, the force's sole cannon crew isn't that far behind being ready for some varnish either, having been started approximately a year ago. Admittedly, because I've split my ten-stand sprue up into two different regiments I do fancy adding a second (straw-hatted) lieutenant colonel to my force, as well as an extra artillery battery. However, I'll only see to these once my core army is done and dusted.
With so many eye-wateringly small figures in my sights, I thought I'd compliment this plan by pigmenting some significantly easier 28mm sculpts, and resultantly have already 'nailed' three more metal models by “Black Tree Design", Available from the manufacturer's "Doctor Who" range as DW1013 - Autons boxed set, these classic monsters were undercoated in "Vallejo" Heavy Blue and shaded with plenty of "Citadel" Drakehnof Nightshade.
I then dry-brushed the trio with (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Blue, before 'picking out' their belt-buckles and hand-gun barrels using a combination of "Vallejo" Gunmetal and "Citadel" Nuln Oil. The extra-terrestrials' hands and featureless faces were treated to a couple of coats of "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone, and subsequently washed with some watered-down "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade. Lastly, their fingers, ears, nose, mouth and eye ridges were 'highlighted' with some additional thin lines of "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone.
Encouragingly, my hobby productivity is definitely back on the rise, courtesy of a number of British and German tanks by "Pendraken Miniatures", as well as a sudden obsession with the Nestene Consciousness from Jon Pertwee's tenure as the travelling Time Lord. Ordinarily, I would find such a mix of genres and sizes distinctly distracting. Yet for some reason, the combination has surprisingly helped motivate me to my second best July since I started recording my output a decade ago.
As to the future, I've already mentioned that I fully expect to at least finish enough "Warlord Games" ACW Epic Battles figures to finally get a low-point game of Black Powder in, and depending on when within the next four weeks those models are completed, I could actually be tempted into doing even more units. I also haven't quite shaken my "Doctor Who" itch, so I expect to crowbar a few more "Black Tree Design" monsters into my painting queue as well...