Not sure if Iuploaded thus one but this is the finished Peninsular project. These were a joy to paint.

After Christmas

None of my boxes arrived from Australia so I had a miserable stocking this Christmas. On the bright side I have had a pretty relaxing festive season. I have had the girls all by myself (with all of the rallies) while my wife is stuck in Dunedin working. We managed to go on our usual biking extravaganzas plus we added one more that took us behind Puketapu and to the beach.

My New Year's resolution will hopefully be a complete 7 Year's War Prussian army towards the middle of the year and a slow finish of my Pennsular War Brits as soon as Hat release their Dragoons.

2013 is set to be a pretty exciting year for all of us as Josie moves in to Year 10 and Tory starts Intermediate.  I will have little to blog about but I hope to post as many of my" work in progress" shots as I can.

One Day Till The Holidays Start!!

I am back after a few days of no blogging. I promise that 2013 will be a better year for blogging.I promise that 2013 will be a better year for blogging.I promise that 2013 will be a better year for blogging.I promise that 2013 will be a better year for blogging.

This year Santa is bringing me... Hat Napoleonic Command X2, Wurtemburg Cav X1, Brunswick CavX1, Waterloo British Artillery X2 (Imex - a brand which I am not particularly familiar with), British Command Peninsular War X 2.

Not such a great year for buying new figures after this year's British Peninsular extravaganza but not too shabby either. Again this year I am sourcing from Australia since most shops in the South Island don't stock Hat products.  Photos pending....

Oh my God!

I can still log in! So... ummmm.... Time to post something which might interest the blogging community... well.... ummmm. I'll think about it some more.

PS...

Happy Queen's Birthday to all 10 who follow this sparse blog! Long may she reign over (most of) us!!!

Rodents in the House

Over the last few weeks we have had two rabbits in the house. One is Josephine's and it is called Holly and the other belongs ot Victoria and it is called Button. Over the course of the last few weeks, I have also discovered that the little buggers shit all over ther the house. The girls like to keep them inside and play with them after school and the rabbits seem to take the opportunity to deficate in as manu parts of the lounge and kitchen that they can. The carpet is constantly strwn with hay and rabbit pellets and there is a pervading "petshop" smell arounf the house. I secretly long to have a hungry cat to solve this problem that we have created...

Nothing much to post

Well our school was audited a week back and we guess it went pretty well. The report won't be out for another couple of months. Most of my meagre blogging seems to be on Facebook since it is more convenient than Blogger. Not sure what I will do with this blog. It might just end up being a repository for my war game pics. Anyway....I'll post a few more pics of my rapidly expanding British Peninsular War army in the coming weeks. I am about 70% finished my 2nd batch of 200 figures. This means that by August I should have about 800. At that point I think I will take a rest from the Brits and move on to Portuguese or Spanish. The Portuguese had very similar uniforms to the Brits so I might need a few more boxes of the Peninsular War Brits. The Spanish aren't due out till next year but I still have plenty to keep myself busy. I am going to start on some artillery before the end of the year and I still have a pile of light cav to get started on. Endless painting for year to come!!

Ok, here one for my friend Kevin!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWnt2qwwWQY

Victoria gets 3 minutes of fame!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150861210728718&notif_t=like

First Cold Snap of the Year

We have both of our heat pumps on tonight as well as our electric blankets. Although it is not extremely cold (8 degrees) it feels  a lot colder becuse of the great run of weather we have been having. We have placed an electric Korean floor blanket as an electric blanket for Josie's bed and it seems to be working really well. Luckily Mari's sister left it behind when she went back after her visit a few years ago. We have prepared for winter by buying a few metres of wood as our main buring material and a few loads of pine for fire starters. I am not really planning on using these until June?? if I can help it but knowing the fickle nature of the weather this far down the island we could be forced to use it at any time. I walked down to school today in a heavy jacket and woolen hat. The wlak didn't warm me up enough to take off either of them. This doesn't bode well for the coming week.

Painting Frenzy

My figures arrived on Tuesday and this is how far the first batch has come.  I fell upon them like a famished man and have been happily spending hours at the painting table ever since. In three days I have done the red coats twice, white trousers twice, flesh and guns. This is on 8 sprues of 24 figures by the way.  I have examiner training tomorrow which is going to seriously cut into my painting time but I am pretty sure I should be able to fiish all of the black on the figures by the end of Sunday. I still have another 16 sprues eagerly waiting for me to get my hands on them out in the dun porch. By the end of the next three months my Peninsualr army should be marching!

Zen and the Art of Toy Soldier Painting. I am not the best painter and I am always happy to admit it. One of the reasons I paint is the chance for relaxation and reflection. My wife meditates to conect with spiritual yogis and other new age hippy things but at the end of the hour or two per day the only thing she really gets is a sore arse. I also get a sore arse but I also have a little and pretty project just that little bit closer to conpletion. Many an hour I have spent pondering life whith paintbrush in my hand- what a pleasant way to spend an evening!

The Spray Can

I bought a spray can today to see if I could base coat my massive number of figures that way. The end result was that I base coated about 500-ish figures pretty well. I might have to go over the rest to touch then up but they are looking pretty fine. That has saved me at least 2 weeks of painting. Tomorrow is ANZAC day so after the dawn service I will start the red base coat for the jackets and go from there. Th eweather has been remarkably fine over the last couple of weeks So we are all hoping for a nice global warming winter. My bro from Auckland is coming over tonight. He has been down for the funeral of his mother in law. She was a really nice lady and her funeral was sweet. Both grand-children stood up and gave really nice eulogies in speech and song which added to the flavour of the whole proceedings.
Anyway, looking forward to painting over the coming months.

I hate the tax man.

If indeed the tax man is a man then I hate him. Recently I have found a thing called Terminal Tax has been applied to cut away my bank account. Already I am paying off extra tax on an overpayment of Family Support from a few year ago. Just when I pay off my student load another bill of the same size arrives. Life seems so unfair!!! $10,000 isn't just in my pocket as loose change Mr Key!!!!!

We all got presents

Santa bought us some early Christmas presents. I got 6 boxes of Peninsular War British Infantry for my winter painting extravaganza ( I need to paint about 15 boxes) and Mari got the old IPad 2 which was on special at Bond and Bond. Add no children to the mix and everything is looking MIGHTY FINE!

No Kids!

Well the 4 day weekend is over and the kids are up at Nanna's house. Yay! For the next week we are back to wedded/no kidded bliss. Unfortunately when we got back home we couldn't find any alcohol so it looks like I will have to get straight down to ironing my shirts for the next week.  I think we have another long weekend coming up for ANZAC Day pretty soon. That makes this year better already than all of last year when all of the day off days fell in the weekend.

Four Day Weekend Coming Up!

Yay! Over the weekend I plan to finish the forest that I have been working on over the last few days. That will mean that I will have finished four pieces by Tuesday. I have been working in a European fur tree forest. We don't get to see this type of tree in New Zealand so I trust the German Jordan company for their interpretation.

I post from work.

Berthier is passing an important note about the forthcoming English Advantage staff party to a petty officer. In the background is one of my first attempts at a tree. The watch tower is an ESCI from the early 90's. Behind the telephone are some British Dragoons from the AWI looking a little out of place.

In the forest the French are up to their dastardly plans.

My happy place.

Autumn is coming and the school is humming with new students and busy staff. I have decided to make a "happy place" in my office with a little model exhibition. This has been met with looks of puzzlement at staff meetings and the NZQA lady wasn't too sure about the mental health of the principal. I have long since stopped worrying about what people think about me however. My happy place is my little oasis.

Another busy week.

Today (being Saturday) I got up, cleaned the house, did two loads of washing, chopped away some eveil bushes which were threatening to overrun the house, vaccuumed the lounge and kitchen, did the dishes, cleaned the sun porch and dumped piles of unwanted stuff into the garage, mowed the lawns AND did the following! All of which (well almost all) was done before the family got back from Saturday Morning Music.  All in all a very successful morning and afternoon.  In the evening, I plan to paint my second hill and start work on a series of low hills which will not be forested. Perhaps in my imaginary game these will be dominating hieghts from which the Russian batteries will be able to sweep the fields!

Little forest which I imagine would be impassable to infantry. I guess that the number of trees which you stick on a hill would be a marker of the "passability" of the hill to formations. The hill in the front as at the back have been formed using instant plastic cast which was given to me by the Dunedin Fracture Clinic which has its rooms on the same floor as our school. Little do they know how successful their product is!!

Russians making their way around a pine forest somewhere in Poland!

Hill size in comparison to Cavarly

44 Today!

About half of what I bought. I have about 18 square metres of grass mat at school in the storeroom. (Summer and Autumn grass!)

Well today I turned 44. Oh my God - age is catching up on me. I celebrated my middle age again this year by buying things which are frivolous. I found a seller selling Jordan products on TradeMe and bought enough to keep me building landscapes over winter. I plan on having great landscape for my imaginary wargames table by December. I also need to paint another 4 boxes at least of British Infantry - but that is another story. in the meantime here is what will become forrests rivers and roads!

Hills and Trees Continued.....

Pine trees -or what will hopefully become pine trees. The girls made two of them while I played a computer game.

My first attempt at a hill on Monday

My second attempt on Tuesday

Painting with some leftover paints I found in the garage,

This is a whole new area for me and I suppose my first attempts at building landscapes and terrain will always be a little childish. Still... Even though this is my first week of the profect I think I have done pretty well. the trees look a little scruffy and the hills look like a Year 2 art project but they are still works in progress.

Hills and Trees

Since I have run out of soldiers to paint until the next shipment from the "old country" (which could be as long as 3 months away) I have been forced to turn to other pursuits.  I have been researching how to make trees and I have been paper macheting two hills for my imagingary boardgame. Photos will follow but I have got to disappear down to work now. Suffice to say that my skills in paper machet haven't improved much since my primary school days.

Sunday Morning Painting

New French dudes next to my unbased Russian Hussars

Busy morning at Berthier's camp

Adjutant

Same dude

Cool little Berthier + Staff officer

After a very pleasant weekend, my French Napoleonic General Staff have finally gotten off their sprues. Only a few more hours of touchups and they will be ready for basing. This set has been really enjoyable to paint.  I love the copious amounts of gold braid that these guys wore. They must have been a real sight on the battlefield.

New Statue Unveiled in North Korea

The new king finally gets his statue next to dad and gramps.

A new look for the blog

Well.... I have nothing to post. Work is stressful but I can't blog about it. The next few months are going to be stressful to say the least. Full blogging about the crisis in June (I hope).

I haven't painted anything tonight but I have played shops with Vic.

Russian Hussars

Well I finished painting the Russian Hussars that I got for Christmas and now I am moving on to my French General Staff.  The painting was pretty olympic today as I had most of the day to myself because Mari was away at her meditation group for most of the day.  I did do other things like clean out the garage and the sunporch but most of the day was pretty sedentary. I am looking forward to getting stuck into the General staff and I am pretty confident that I will get them finished quickly. That leaves me with no more painting! With winter coming up I think I will need to order more sets from Britain, I couldn't imagine long winter nights without a paintbrush in my hand!

So...Ponyclub died...Or did it?

The kids were suspisiously quiet in the evening. This was the creation that I found in Victoria's room. The Williamson Ponyclub!

Down Sizing

With the cost of petrol the way it is these days the small car is becoming increasingly popular. For our family we have been bucking the trend because a van is just so damned handy. I don't know how we would have survived withoout our trusty old Estima. But alas, times do have to change and the trusty van is now going to live out its days as an English Advantage student conveyor. We have joined the rest of the flock in purchasing a small fuel efficient car in the hopes of stemming the flow of money from our pockets. We are now the owners of a little Mitsubishi Colt Plus. Long may serve us without a service.

The Aging Couple

Last Night's Effort

Close up view of my Hussars. I am having quite a lot of fum with these little guys. As usual I am using my mixture of acrylics and enamels.

If you look closely you will see my Peninsular Briish snug in the painting box. I did about 160 and need to about 700 more to form the core of the army. About another 800 with make up my Portuguese/Spanish allies.

Up Early

Well I decided to get up early to do this blog update... well kind of. Actually I am going to do some painting as well.
 Josie is safely off to Columba and our bank accounts are massively lighter because of it.  It cost over 6 grand to get the first term off and I assume there will be regular outgoings for the other 3.  Josie came back telling us that she had decided to join tht tramping club and the volleyball club and the athletics team. All of the above have fees which automatically get added to the monthly bill that comes home. I am not really complaining but it never really occurd to me before just how expensive children are.  At the same time Victoria wanted to join the local ponyclub. That would have ended up being about the same price as Columba! After so much bank freefall, I made the command decision to jus tgive her lessons in Palmerston over a few weeks rather than trapse dowm to Mosgiel and hang out with "the horse set."
Back to really life now.  I haven't finished any of the painting that I had set out to do.  This weekend I am going to put a real dent in my Russian Hussars. I will even post some pictures.  I managed to base my Peninsular British and they are looking fine so maybe I will post a picture of those at the same time. Under the Shako ruleset that I am basing for, I well need about 32 battalions of British and Portuguese in order to finish the Peninsular army across all the the periods. Hat Industrie is starting to come out with Spanish figures and I am going to paint the British line as Portuguese line because the cut of the uniform was identical.  This will mean that I will end up with about 12 boxes of British Infantry to paint over the course of the coming year. Hopefully, that will mean complete British. French and Russian armies.  The sadness of it all is that I have never actually played a wargame since I was at university. I just stack box after box in my cupboard!
Other things of note;

1)  We decided to dump the TV for the year so that the kids can structure their time better.
2) I am deciding at present whether to renew my lease of the school or move to bigger premises.
3) I have been biking down to work rather than walking.  This has been fun but not that good for my fitness.  Now that I have got the bike back from Hampden I have promised myself that I will go for longer rides in the weekends so we will see how that pans out.

I am a poor blogger.
I am a poor blogger.
I am a poor blogger.
I am a poor blogger.
I am a poor blogger.
I am a poor blogger.
I am a poor blogger.

the end.

My Britsh

After a little less than a month the first batch of my Napoleonic British Peninsular War infantry is nearly ready. I have continued my now usual practice of painting them on their sprues. But this time I have tried a number of new techneques. In the old days I just used to slap on the enamel paints rather in the "paint by numbers" style. The end result was fine but it didn't create much of a contrast in colours. The new style is to base the figures in an acrylic black and then do a top wash in an acrylic red. My first experiments revealed that the an acrylic paint is faily wimpy compared to my usual enamel but it does get into the folds of the figures better. This meant that I was able to brush the enamel over the top of the acrylic to achieve a better caontrast for the jackets. On the rest of the figures I reverted to my old style so they don't look too different frpm my usual efforts. Overall though these figures are looking pretty goos (from a distance) so they should grace a tabletop with honour and glory!

The Big Holiday Update

The weather in East Otago has been FANTATIC! I can't remember a better Christmas holidays than this one we are currently having.  We have packed buckets of fun stuff in so here goes with the update.
The notable experiences have been...
The yearly trip from Kemp's Road to Palmerston.
We started off pretty early in the morning about 8.30 and knocked off the trip in a couple of hours. Josie's bike had good tyres this year and she was able to zoom ahead of her dear old dad with ease (at least until the big hill doen to Palmerston.  We stopped in Palmy and got picked up by my bro and his whanau who are down from Singapore for the holidays.
There are some vids of the trip plus others from the new namelessblog channel that I created after I forgot the password for my old channel.

The Trip from Wainakarua (Mill House turn-off) to Oamaru with BOTH girls.

Video here
Fishing at Moeraki
Fishing for Crabs at the Hampden beach
The walk up Pukitapu
Bike riding to the Mileflat Road and seeing kids (of the goat variety)
 vid here

Painting my Penninsular War British Infantry
Having 6 BBQs over a 2 week period!!
Josie turning 13 and Mari turning 4? (rhyming with tree)

more coming soon...