Category: Musings

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is actually a couple of figures.  As mentioned at the outset, the Footsore  Baron’s War range of 28mm figures comprises of more than just knights and here we have my first Crossbowman and Spearman.  Individually these little chaps are nowhere as exciting at the knights to paint or look at but hopefully once they are all done they will swell the numbers and make the eventual army look all the more impressive.  Well that’s the plan!

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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Here, There and Everywhere?

Just a couple of weeks ago I had occasion to welcome a few more countries to have visited my blog.  New countries don’t come along very often these days but it seems they arrive like buses when they do.  Time now to say a big welcome to the Lebanon and St Vincent and Grenadine which takes my total now to 85.

There seems to be some dispute over how many countries there are in the world according to a Google search I made but the general consensus is 196.  Whatever the accuracy of the total figure the fact remains TIM has yet to reach out to over half the world.  Looks like I’m going to have to travel to some of the missing places and logon to my own site if I’m to make greater progress.  Not sure just how much I fancy the Middle East and swathes of Africa though.

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Give Me Five

“Cool” is something we probably all get but is, well for me at least, hard to explain.  I don’t think you can simply choose to be cool you simply are or you aren’t.  Although I am a legend in my own pants the reality is I would have loved to have been cooler than I am.  If I could choose who I would want to be as cool as within the world of acting then any on this list of my top 5 classic actors would do.  Next week I might take a look at the music world.  In no particular order:

1. Clint Eastwood
2. Steve McQueen
3. Paul Newman
4. Sean Connery
5. James Dean

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“The Galway Girl” by Fiddler’s Green.  This popped up in my YouTube presumably because I’d been listening to the Ed Sheeran track called Galway Girl recently.  The songs are not the same however and this is not the original version of this song either, that was performed by a chap by the name of Steve Earle and is a classic in its own right.  Anyway I had a listen and found myself hooked.  If I couldn’t be English then I’d choose to be Irish I reckon.  As much as the girl in the video is stunning with her red hair it would have made more sense to have gone with someone who matched the lyrics.

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Prime Suspect” starring Helen Mirren.  Borrowed the box set from my mum and dad and just watched series one.  Hard to believe it’s 30 years old now.  Amusing watching how the world has changed with things like smoking in the office for example.  Classic TV though and looking forward to working my way through the rest.

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Remember …

Always love a women for her personality, they have like 10, so you can choose.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is of a Baron’s War Footsore Sergeant, the first of four which comprise of pack No:1.  More than a peasant less than a knight would be my description, certainly from a painting perspective.  As he isn’t a knight as such I thought I would make up the heraldry using the rules I shared a short while ago.  The shield design is a “Pile” with a star denoting this Sergeant as the “third son”.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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Give Me Five

Not sure what prompted this, probably the fact that my daughter has now finished school which had me reflecting on my own school days many, many years ago.  It occurred to me that there were lots of things I did at school which I have never done or used since.  Here is my list of five.  Feel free to add, could make for quite a list!

1. Used a ruler to draw a margin on every page I write on
2. Ended the day by putting my chair on the desk for the cleaner
3. Ever climbed Gym Ropes
4. Played (or tried to) the Recorder 
5. Used Pi 

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The Knights On TIM’s Modelling Table

Now it’s not very often I invent something, in fact I will go as far as to say I have never done so.  However, confronted with a problem I needed a solution.

The problem I was having related to my mounted knights.  When it comes to mounted figures I generally drill a whole in the bum of the figure, glue a piece of paper clip into the whole and then press the other end of the paper clip into the end of a cork which I then hold to paint.

Now this method has its pros and cons.  On the positive side I am forced to drink more wine in order to have a fresh supply of corks.  On the negative side the corks often have a slightly curved bottom to them and they easily topple over which is far from ideal.  This matter required some thought. 🤔

What followed was hundreds of man hours spent on numerous blue print designs based on mathematical and geometric theorem together with test model, after test model.  The end result, a superb example of modern engineering and ingenuity if I says myself, has now been patented and will be going into mass production in a matter or weeks. 

I use a specific clamp from my collection to hold horses and using the latest technology added  a drawing pin to the base.   Before and after images below display this perfect piece of engineering.

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“I Love To Boogie” by T-Rex.  As a kid I did love T-Rex and Mark Bolan. Sad he died so young, killed in a car crash in Barnes not so far from where I used to live and I would pass by the site on my way to watch Chelsea play every other week back in the day.

Unsure what track to go with I settled on this dance mash up because it has a brief glimpse of dancing knight’s from Monty Python’s Spamalot!

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This week TIM has been watching …

“The Pact”, a six part BBC series set in South Wales.  Notwithstanding that I predicted the ending, all be it within the last half an hour or so, this proved to be very watchable.

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Remember …

Everyone is beautiful, but sometimes it just requires the right amount of alcohol to see it.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is another “Two Handed Weapon Knight” from the Footsore Baron’s War range.  The little chap has been painted in the colours and heraldry of Roger Bigod who was one of the Magna Carta Barons in the year 1215.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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WordPress Notifications

In case it isn’t just me I thought I would share the following experience.

It took me more than a week to realise that very few emails were arriving in my BT email account advising me of Likes and Comments.  In itself it wasn’t a big deal, I just needed to check out the comments directly on the blog instead.  It bugged me though so I got in touch with a WordPress Happiness Engineer.  It would appear that BT seem to have a very high level of what they consider to be Spam, not that the emails are going into my Spam folder, they aren’t even reaching me in the first place.  Why has this just started to happen? Buggered if I know.

My Happiness Engineer suggested I change my email address to Gmail as they have a higher Spam threshold and allow greater control to be employed by the end user.  Having made the change it looks as though the email notifications from you guys are now coming through. On the downside, we all knew there had to be one, my Site Icon disappeared and was no longer being shown despite all the various boxes being correctly ticked in my settings.  More emails to a another Happiness Engineer has now hopefully resolved that. 🤞

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The Knights On TIM’s Modelling Table

This week the cavalry arrived, literally.

In addition to around 100 various foot figures still to do I have now given myself a further 16 mounted figures to paint.  Cleaning has been done but not the priming.  I also need to give plenty of thoughts to how I intend to paint them in terms of heraldry.  Fortunately I am in no rush so will continue to paint the foot figures that I have plans for.

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Give Me Five

We’ve all had those moments when we would like to take revenge for an injustice we have been dealt.  Alas the thought of criminal proceedings holds us back and we are left trusting in divine intervention striking down the bastards who upset us.  On a personal level I had hoped Covid-19 might have proven to be one of Big G’s “mysterious moves” but indications so far aren’t encouraging as my nemesis Mad Martin remains a live .  No such problems, however, stand in the way of our silver screen heroes who do our bidding for us.  The fact that this film genre was the toughest yet rather tells you just how many films are out there and how much the genre is a box office hit!  In no particular order my top five revenge movies (it could have been a top 30!) are:

1. Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)
2. Gladiator (2000)
3. Death Wish (1974)
4. Straw Dogs (1971)
5. Inglorious Basterds (2008)

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“The Beverley Hills Cop” Sound Track album.  Not sure what prompted this bit of nostalgia but I did enjoy the music and subsequently the film.

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Beverley Hills Cop” starring Eddie Murphy.  A blast from the past but just as enjoyable.

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Remember …

Being kissed while you’re sleeping is one of the purest forms of love unless you are in prison.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature (or should that be this weeks knight?) is one of four from the “The Knights with Two Handed Weapons – Pack 1”.  Applying the heraldry rules I decided to make up my own on this occasion and went with two white Chevrons on a red background.  It is possible, might even be probable given the colour choice, that the simple design does actually align to a real knight.  I will undertake a search at some point but if it does then it is purely coincidental on my part.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Knights On TIM’s Modelling Table

Last week I found this image on Pinterest.

As best I can tell at the moment these Baron’s represent 25 of the key figures in the Baron’s War.  Therefore if I am to be true to the history then these shield designs and colours are the ones I should be going for.  The problem as I see it however is that yellow and red completely dominate.

It maybe there is a reason for this colour dominance, perhaps there are family connections which tie some of the Baron’s together?  Perhaps it’s just coincidence or simply a restricted colour pallette given the available paints and dyes of the day?  Whatever the reality I will be deviating from it.  I will do some for sure, I have in fact already by chance done the blue and yellow of Richard de Percy, but I will look outside of these for more interesting options where I can.  I will still aim for true heraldry but if the geezer fought in a different campaign then I will employ poetic licence if I think the end result will look cool.

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Give Me Five

Now when it comes to films I do like a good saga.  A film of three hours of more is is just my cup of tea.  Watching a film like that on a cold winters night with the fire blazing and single malt in my hand makes for some perfect escapism.  One of the other things I like about some of these films is that the scenery can often steal the show.  So this week I have gone for my top five films where the cinema photography has for me made a film truly epic.  In no particular order:

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. Legends of the Fall
3. Dances Woth Wolves (extended 4 hour version)
4. The Last of the Mohicans
5. Doctor Zhivago

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“Downtown” by Petula Clark.  This song was released in 1964 when I was seven years of age (was it really that long ago?) the same year that Zulu came out at the cinema.  When my brother and I were taken to see Zulu (I had to sit on the upturned folding seat so I could see the screen) it was, as I recall, a dark and dismall winters night when we all set off “Downtown”.  Although this song is not directly linked to the film I have always put the two together.  Everytime I listen to it this track conjures up the most evocative images of that time in my life and will simply always remain one of my favourite tracks of all time, not so much for the song itself but the memories.  Now where did I put my Zulu DVD ….

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Glory” starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman.  An excellent American Civil War film and one which I hadn’t watched in a long time.

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Remember …

When someone says get a grip, as tempting as it is, they don’t always mean around their neck.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is one of the four which comprises the Footsore “Foot Knights with Two Handed Weapons No: 1” pack and he has been painted in the heraldic colours of “John de Berners”.  More on the project below.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Knights On TIM’s Modelling Table

This week I spent some time reading and digesting the Wargames Illustrated article I made reference to in last weeks post.  Not surprisingly it turns out there are various rules which need to be applied where heraldry is concerned.  These rules are useful both in terms of making up your own scheme and deciphering real examples.  Now let me say at the outset I am no expert on this subject but I am aware that many of you perhaps are.  Apologies therefore if I am trying to teach anyone how to suck eggs and if I have any of this wrong then I am more than happy to be corrected.

The first rule I took note of was on colours.  It seems the colour palette is restricted to five main colours namely Blue, Red, Green, Purple and Black.  I assume there is scope within each colour to vary the shade but what is significant is you have to put a colour with Gold (can be yellow) or Silver (can be white).  Accordingly any of the five colours can be used alongside either Yellow or White but you cannot have Red and Green together or for that matter Yellow and White.  The good news here is that by good fortune the few knights I have done so far conform to this rule.  Is the rule flexible?  In truth I have no idea but I’m happy to stick with it.

It seems you can also add “Furs” to the design of a shield too and the first image below gives some examples along with the colours referred to earlier.

One of the next things I discovered was “Field Ordinaries”.  It would appear that shield designs generally use these layouts.  I have seen exceptions so I’m guessing the rule can be ignored to some extent, most likely determined by who you are (think King John and the three lions) but this is something for me to try to learn more about.  However, for my purposes Field Ordinaries coupled with colour choice will provide a huge number of heraldic options.

In the unlikely event that I should ever run out of heraldic shield options given the possible combinations from the above “rules” I can always fall back on the “English System” below.  With medieval families being large in number then shield designs can be used again but with the modification of adding a symbol relevant to the first through to ninth son.  Although I was unaware of it at the time, the red line on the figure I painted above of John de Berners defines him as the “First Son”.

All in all I have an almost limitless number of painting options.  I suspect further research may even throw up more but for now I have plenty to be getting on with.

For those of you who are into your Space Marines and the such like a thought struck me while I was writing this.  Heraldry has been around for a thousand years so what’s to say it wont be around for thousands more?  If you are stuck with ideas of symbols to use and how to define your hierarchy it occurs to me you could do worse that revert to some of the above.  In anticipation of abuse please be advised I am now ducking out of this one!

As a footnote please note the images used above were taken from Google and not from the magazine article as I am no expert on copyright law.

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Lies, Lies and Statistics

I don’t tend to put much store by my blog statistics, mainly because mine aren’t that great!  I never created this blog with the aim of conquering the world and I continue to not be disappointed.  What has surprised me though, and periodically continues to do so, is just where my blog has been viewed.  As things currently stand it has now been accessed in 83 countries with Algeria, Ecuador, Brunei and Guatemala having been just recently added to the list.

Now I am very aware that some of these countries have only ever given me the one hit and I feel certain that hit was purely by accident (the inevitable search of a testosterone filled teenager googling “models”) but I do get a kick out of knowing a post of mine has popped up somewhere new in the world even if it did come as a disappoint to someone feeling horny.

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Give Me Five

The end of the UK Lockdown continues to gather pace.  If things continue to go as well as they have then the country will return to near normal by the middle of June.  Inevitably there will be signs of the aftermath but we’re talking mask wearing rather than bombed buildings.  Despite the horrors the pandemic has brought to a great many, and still is to vast swathes of the world, there are somethings I will miss.  ln no particular order my five are:

1. The Quiet roads
2. The additional time spent modelling and painting
3. The time at home with my kids due to work and school closures
4. Re-connecting with people I haven’t spoken to in years
5. Having all my football teams fixtures televised live

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“Pinball Wizard” by The Who.  A classic track instantly recognisable from the intro by those of us of a certain age.

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Mississippi Burning” staring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe.  A classic and very powerful film in which the performances of Hackman and Dafoe are simply outstanding.  A film I have watched many times and that never fails to be move me.  Based on a true story.

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Remember …

Alcohol is never the answer but it is a good way of forgetting the question.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is the next installment of my Medieval Army.  As with all these figures they are from the Footsore Miniatures Baron’s War Range, in this specific case the first of four figures which comprise the “Foot Knights with Two Handed Weapons, Pack 2”.  The freehand heraldry is that of “William Bisshopsdonne”.  As and when I get all four of a particular pack completed I will post a little group shot.  At the moment though I am choosing to work in a somewhat random way so right now I have no idea when the first group shot will be.  I suspect a but like buses one or two will come along at once!

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Knights On TIM’s Modelling Table

Over the last week I was able to pick up some useful information in relation to knights and their shield designs.  A link I found – Glover’s Roll – was particularly useful in providing designs as well as names.  Some look very much easier to paint than others so time will tell just how adventurous I get.  I also found a wealth of images on Pinterest too all of which has led me to another decision. 

Although the figures I am painting are all from the Footsore Barons War range I’m not hung up about every heraldic knight I paint having to be a participant of that precise period and/or campaign(s).  Whilst my OCD will, for example, insist that my bases conform to a level of uniformity I’m relaxed about the accuracy of participants.  What does matter though is that the heraldry is accurate and that the figures are painted well enough to give a colourful display and wow factor when they are displayed.  At the end of the day I see models as a representation and, a bit like Hollywood directors, there is room for poetic license.

Another thing I picked up on last week was an article published in Wargames Illustrated entitled “A Wargamer’s Guide to Heraldry”.  I’m not a subscriber to this magazine but getting hold of the March 2021 issue seemed like a good idea.  I haven’t had a proper chance to read it yet but at first glance it appears to contain some very useful information for a novice of the period such as me.  More on that next week.

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Salute 2021

April is normally the month when the South London Warlords hold Salute.  Understandably it was never going to be held so early in the year with the various Covid restrictions in place.  The good news was the organisers were aware of that and so they pushed the date back to later in the year.  The bad news for me is they chose the same weekend in November as the IPMS Small Scale World show in Telford! 

I’m sure I am not the only one who enjoys attending both events but alas this year I have to choose.  At least it wasn’t a difficult decision.  Telford is the bigger event and held over two days but more to the point my hotel booking from last year was rolled over to this one so Telford it will be, assuming the event does go ahead!

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Give Me Five

With lockdown restrictions in the UK starting to relax I thought this week I would list my top five things I am looking forward to (fingers crossed) in due course.  In no particular order:

1. Attending a model show (Telford if nothing else)
2. Going to the cinema, hopefully to see the latest Bond movie at last!
3. Getting away for the weekend
4. Meeting up with family 
5. Going out for a meal and eating it inside!

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“We Will Rock You” by Queen.  It’s been a while since I listened to a bit of Queen so it was high time that I did.  So many tracks to chose from but I just love Brian May’s guitar solo at the end of this one.

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This week TIM has been watching …

Line of Duty, Series Six.  The last episode was shown a little over a week ago but now that all the episodes are now on BBC iPlayer it was time to sit down and binge watch the whole of series six again.  As UK TV dramas go this one captured the nation more than just about anything and had everybody trying to work out the likely outcome.  I wont spoil anything but if for some reason this series and the previous five have passed you buy then lucky you as you now get to watch the lot.

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Remember …

Five out of six people agree that Russian Roulette is completely safe.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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I’ve just realised this is my 100th Miniatures & Musings post.  Some how it has just crept up on me, if I had been more with it I would have tried to present a better figure to mark the occasion.  As it is this week, and I think I will be saying this for some considerable time to come, we have the next figure in my army.

This Baron’s War figure is one of the four figures which appears in the “Foot Knights Pack 2”.  As much as possible I want to paint the shields with authentic heraldry, something which I have done here.  The chap in question is one Henry de Percy.

More on the project below.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Knights On TIM’s Modelling Table

The feedback I received when I announced my army project gave me much food for thought and over the last week or so I have made some decisions.  Of course these will inevitably change!

First up my intention is to just let this army evolve naturally.  As some have said, let it grow organically.  I shall work my way through the 90 or more figures that I have flitting from pack to pack as takes my fancy and if more figures are released purchase those as I please.

Secondly, I want my knights and figures to be authentic for the period.  For the knights this particularly applies to the shields where the heraldry needs to align to a true knight.  I don’t know how easy that will be but I will do more research and see where we go from there.

Thirdly I have consider how big I want this army to be.  From a gaming perspective you have given me some great numbers and should I ever sell this lot then such information will be valuable but I am not a gamer … yet!  I say not yet only because one day I will be to old to paint so may be that’s when I’ll look at taking up that side of the hobby.  My aim for a 100 figures is ambitious I know which is why my new target of 200 or more is even more crazy.  I want the end result to blow my mind and any one else’s if that’s possible.  For all the bravado I’ll probably call it a day after 25 or so but for now it is a very serious intention.  This after all is a long term project.  Well not that long, I’m getting to old for it to take that long and besides I have other stuff to do as well!

Fourthly I have settled on how the bases will be which is just as well as I have done two figures now.  There might be some slight variation but generally what you see above is pretty much what you will see most of the time.  My OCD will not allow me to deviate otherwise before I know it I will have two armies on the go!

I still need to think about the idea of a story line, an idea which I like but is somewhat alien to me.  I also need to think how I am going to present these figures on mass in a display.  A mat isn’t good enough and with the figures being individually based it wont be a diorama.  The idea of tiles is something I think I shall start looking at and they will be easier to store.

All in all plenty to do and plenty more to think about as this evolves and takes over.  The good news is I haven’t got bored yet!

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Give Me Five

This week I thought I would consider my top 5 sports films.  I thought this would be easy but I have left some truly excellent films out.  In no particular order:

1. Rocky (Boxing)
2. The Natural (Baseball)
3. The Damned United (Football/Soccer)
4. Chariots of Fire (Athletics)
5. Rudy (American College Football)

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“Brown Sugar” by the Rolling Stones.  Call me naive by all means but when I sing along to a song (I can already hear SWMBO saying “please don’t!”) and even when I get the lyrics right, I barely take much notice of them.  It’s all about the music, the beat, the tempo – the lyrics are just there almost in the background.  I never analyse them and of course when I was a lad we didn’t have YouTube so we sung the wrong words for years!.  This was very much the case for me with this track, one of my favorite tracks as well I might add.  I don’t listen to the radio a great deal, only when I am in the car and due to lockdown it has been a while since I’ve been any distance of note so, given the lyrics of this song, I wonder if it is even played anymore.  The track was never banned that’s for sure.

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This week TIM has been watching …

“The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair”.  I read the book a good while back and loved it.  Very well written and very different too.  Twist and turns along the way made it hard to put down.  Then I discovered the book had been made into a mini series so it became a must watch bit of TV.  On balance it was a good series and kept true to the book as best I could recall but as you do when you read a book you form a mental image of the main characters and the actors cast, as good as they were, just didn’t align to my image.  Still enjoyable though.

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Remember …

If you sneeze and fart at the same time your body takes a screen shot.

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TIM

For the first time in quite a while I came close to missing a blog post.  Having been fully absorbed by my army project I became completely side tracked and suddenly Saturday was almost upon me and I had nothing to offer.  Fortunately I remembered that I had an almost completely painted dwarf which I had set aside and the day (well post in this case) was saved.  Ho-ray for dwarfs!

The figure in question, Borin Ironbrow by Reaper, was originally bought for my recent Diorama Lite post but in the end I decided to go with a different figure.  Although I liked the figure I didn’t think he was the right fit for my little diorama.  Now he has been lovingly given a little base of his own.

The figure is from the Reaper Dungeon Dweller range and is a very crisp and clean casting. Compared to some Reaper figures the level of detail is relatively plain but it was none the less a nice little one to do.

The biggest challenge was getting him completed in time for this post, a problem I think I will continue to experience with other figures which aren’t part of my army project. In an ideal world I would like to produce something each week for Diorama Lite on Monday, a mid-week figure for my medieval Knight army and a figure from another genre for my Saturday post. It is clear that balancing this through the spring and summer is going to be a challenge.  What this week has taught me though is that modelling and painting time is becoming stretched, mainly due to the time of the year and my release back into the wild following Covid lockdown.  Add into the mix my desire to do more and more on my army project and it is becoming clear that three posts a week is going to prove a significant challenge, at least until the return of the winter months.  For now I will continue as I am doing, if only to clear some of the lead pile, but I suspect blog changes are a foot.

Images of Borin below.

TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is the first in what is sure to become a very, very recurring feature of my Wednesday posts and maybe some Saturday ones too, a figure painted and based which goes towards my medieval army project.  All the figures are from the Footsore Barons War range and this is one of the four figures which comprises the pack titled “Foot Knights 1”.

The paint job was pretty straight forward and as I have no plans to use decals and have never had success with masking tape all my work on shields will be freehand.  The aim will be to try and get more adventurous but I will be driven by heraldry as I learn a bit more about it.  As much as possible I want my knights to be authentic.  As far as basing goes, whilst there may be some slight variation this will be the standard.

More on the project below but in terms of completed minis we’re up and running.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Knights On TIM’s Modelling Table

As headings go it’s not a great play on “The Knights of the Round Table” but it was the best I could come up with.  So, an update on the project.

Firstly a big thank you to those of you who very kindly provided encouragement for this project along with words of advice and valuable details on figures and numbers for an army.  I have taken it all on board but for now I thought I would focus just on painting, specifically for now foot figures.  I have every intention of doing mounted Knights but that will come later.  Whether I do the whole Baron’s War range of mounted figures remains to be seen.  I’ll see how the range grows because it appears to be expanding quite fast, by which I mean quicker than I can paint.  For now though and with Footsore offering a 20% discount when you spend over a hundred pounds I thought I would take advantage of the offer while it it lasted.  After almost no deliberation whatsoever I piled straight in and pretty much bought the lot.

As things currently stand I have purchased packs of Levy’s, Crossbowmen, Spearmen, Bannermen and Musicians, Bowmen, numerous Knights and various Character figures giving around 90 figures to paint.  Whether they all make it in to my army remains to be seen.  Although I will make the effort to clean and prime all the figures in one hit the painting will not be in batches.  I don’t enjoy production line painting, regardless of time efficiency, so I fully expect to adopt a random approach.

Here’s a quick look at some of the figures on parade.

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Give Me Five

Not sure what inspired me this week, nothing I can recall watching or listening to for sure, but I decided to try listing my top five movie villains.  Not an easy choice but after some deliberation I settled, in no particular order, on the following:

1. Darth Vader (Star Wars Franchise)
2. The Joker (Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight)
3. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs)
4. Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes, Schindlers List)
5. Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes, Harry Potter Franchise)

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“Voodoo Child” by Jimi Hendrix.  In response to my Give Me Five music intros in TIM’s Miniatures & Musings No: 97 my brother kindly emailed a couple of links to some classic tracks of which this was one.  Well worth a listen to on a high volume and after a few beers.

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Red Joan” starring Judi Dench.  A good film “based” on a true story with an interesting justification for being a spy and giving away official secrets.

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Remember …

If you are having a bad day things could always be worse.  You could be a Siamese twin attached to a gay brother whose on a date and you’re the only one with an arse.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is again from Hasslefree and goes by the name of Dakota.  Originally I bought her to go with a zombie theme I had running around in my head but then I lost my way.  Just to many ideas right now which in some ways is a nice problem but on the downside I find myself losing focus.  I’ll put it down  to age.  In the end I settled for a quick and simple base job with an old rusty barrel hopefully conveying a bit of an industrial and post apocalyptic feel.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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Time To Build An Army?

After much deliberation I have decided to do something I have never done before, I’m going to paint an army.  I’ve never been against the idea but I couldn’t settle on an historical period.  I had other concerns too.  Would I get bored?  What would I do with the army once complete?  How would I store it?  How would I display it?  In truth I don’t have the answers to all those questions but have decided to build one none the less and I’ll figure things out as I go along.

So what has changed my mind?  You may well ask.  The answer is several things.  Nostalgia, Table Top World, freehand painting and Ebay.

Nostalgia — some of you may recall from past posts that I have mentioned Britain’s Swoppet Cowboys and how they played a part in getting me into modelling and dioramas when I was a kid.  Well Britain’s also did Swoppet Knights but these were much more expensive (they sell for a small fortune on Ebay as collectors pieces these days) so I never had any.   As much as I loved the cowboys I would have loved a castle full of battling knights.  An army of cowboys isn’t really a thing but an army of knights is.

Table Top World – If you haven’t seen it they do an amazing Castle.  It costs a fortune, it’s huge and being modular can be made as big as you like.  How cool would that be?  In truth I will probably never find out because I have nowhere to put it but I am going with the Field of Dreams approach, “If you build it they will come”.  I’ll build the army first and see where I go from there.

Freehand – Heraldry provides a great opportunity for some freehand and I would like to see what I can do on that front from time to time.  There is also a great deal of freedom when it comes to the use of colours too.  I’m not sure I could ever paint a modern army, I think I would find it far to dull and repetitive.

Ebay – I see this as my escape clause.  If all else fails and I never finish the project or have no idea what to do with it when it’s done I can sell it.  In short what is there to lose?

Obviously you will have gathered my army will be one of Knights but it will also feature Archers, Levy’s, Crossbowmen, Spearmen and whatever else exists now and in future releases in the Footsore Barons War range.  Those of you who liked the knights I had previously done have a lot to answer for.  If you get bored with this project before I do you only have yourselves to blame!

So, does this signal the end of painting Knuckleduster Cowboys, Reaper, Hasslefree and other figures?  Not at all.  My army is just another project to dip into but one I am looking forward to doing.

I do however have one question for you and would welcome your wargaming thoughts.  How many figures would I need to paint and base before I could claim it’s an army?  In my head I have settled on a nice round figure of 100 but do I need more or less?

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Give Me Five

In keeping with the tone established above I thought I would select my top 5 films within the broadly speaking medieval genre.   Not quite so tough this week but for me all now essential viewing and research.  As usual in no particular order:

1. Excalibur
2. Kingdom of Heaven
3. Braveheart
4. King Arthur
5. The Name of the Rose

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“She’s Got The Look” by Roxette.  There’s a lot to like about this track and video but I was particularly drawn in by the lyrics. 😉

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Keeping Faith”.  A thriller series set in Wales (that’s Wales the country just to be clear!).  Having binge watched series one and two I am now on to the final series.  Not the best of some of the great TV shows currently available but well worth a watch in my opinion.

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Remember …

Even if you are useless you can be used as a bad example.

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TIM