[Finished] 2nd Battalion York & Lanc's & my 1st landship

Welcome back,
                           Well it’s been a long time in the making but I’ve finally got another update ready and this time there are even pictures to prove that there has been progress (I must apologise for all the picture free posts recently but without a reliable computer it has been difficult to get them sorted). 

I’ve made progress on three new units, first of all I began by continuing with the 2^nd Battalion of the Yorkshire and Lancashire regiment, this unit has frustrated me since I started it before Christmas, the Baccus marching strips were a lot more work than I originally thought and left me severely de-motivated, however they are finally finished and are looking decidedly splendid.

The 2nd Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment flank the HMLS Defence

The 2nd Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment flank the HMLS Defence

Four companies from the 2nd Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment escort the HMLS Defence

 

 The second unit that I began was the first of my Landship’s, based upon a Pendraken 10mm Mk V Tank it turned out even better than I imagined, the size of the model fits quite nicely with my Baccus and looks quite convincing (in my eyes at least) as a Landship.  I was in two minds about the colour scheme, I was initially drawn to a predominately white scheme that I’d seen on some 28mm VSF tanks but I’m not really that confident painting white and so I considered painting them in the same scheme as my British aeronef’s but I felt there was too few areas that I’d be able to paint buff, that just left me the scheme that I finally settled upon, not too much white, a little brass and a little colour.

HMLS Defence

HMLS Defence

HMLS Defence

Ad-hoc British Brigade supported by the landship HMLS Defence and naval brigades from HMS Atropos & HMS Panther

The third unit that I have made progress on is the 17^th Lancers, no pictures of these at the moment as all I’ve done is paint the horses, I do hope to have them done within a couple of weeks though.

Haarken

[Finished] The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

Welcome back,

           Well the votes for the first round of the 2nd Lead Adventure "Build Something" Contest are in and tallied and I placed a distant third behind Malamute and Axelgrunt. The final voting figures for Group B ended up being:

Axelgrunt         - 96 (44.2%)

Malamute        - 81 (37.3%)

Haarken           - 36 (16.6%)

TimHerr1847  - 04 (01.8%)

Congratulations and all the best of luck to Axelgrunt and Malamute who go through to the next round of voting and thank you to everyone that voted for me, I really appreciate the support.

In retrospect I wish I had been a little more adventurous with my entry, it wasn't the most technically impressive build nor did I really push myself to the boundaries of my skills, next time round I'll be aiming for a much more complicated and impressive build. Anyway on to some pictures: -

Up first we have a couple of work in progress pictures that were a little too finished to show at the time, having base coated and dry brushed the whole piece I then decided I needed to add some more interest, cut the green stuff and some Z Scale model tree's off ebay.

Work In Progress: The Floating Islands base coated and dry-brushed.

Work In Progress: The Floating Islands base coated and dry-brushed.

Finally we have the finished piece, I took a fair few pictures for the competition so rather than waste them i'll post them all up here.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

And a final picture for a sense of scale.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos skirt the edge of the Floating Islands of Atlantis.

Hope you've enjoyed, I know I certainly did.

Haarken

[Finished] Naval Brigade.

Welcome back to Martians & Machine Guns,

On Sunday I posted pictures of the progress I'd made on the Naval Brigade, in my little bit of free time yesterday I painted the bases and moved them one step closer to being finished. I can however proudly report that today they are ready for action (barring a few little touch ups). I managed to get the last coat of dry brushing done early this morning leaving me most of the rest of the day to get them flocked up and waiting for a spot of decent light to take pictures in. So without further ado let me present my Naval Brigade.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos & HMS Panther.

The bases were flocked with Games Workshop Static Grass and Woodland Scenics Medium Green Foliage, having been a long time Epic collector, I used to just flock my miniatures with the static grass but I've found that the addition of the foliage really helps to break up the bases and add a little more colour. I also tried a little experiment with a small twig on one of the bases which I think looks pretty good, not something I'd be willing to repeat a lot but definitely something that adds a little interest.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos & HMS Panther.

As I've stated previously I have a pair of Nordenfelt's and a pair of Gatlings to add to the Naval Brigade (I want to end up with at least 2 Bases of Infantry and 2 Machine Guns I think) but I need to place another order with Renedra before I can get started on them. This means that  next up will be the Highland Infantry.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos & HMS Panther.

Obviously I couldn't take pictures without doing an army shot, so the army so far:

Pictured: Naval Brigade to the front, Durham Light Infantry on the rear.

Pictured: Naval Brigade on the left, Durham Light Infantry

Anyway in further news, I've also made progress on my entry for the Lead Adventure Forum "Build Something" Competition, after several coats of dry brushing the whole thing began to look much, much better and a lot less like the "crushed weetabix" that it resembled. Since I had the static grass and foliage out today it got a coat of that too, now it's just a question of whether I have anything else to add to it. Once again pictures once the competition has closed.


Haarken

[W.I.P] Naval Brigade - Progress.

Welcome back to Martians & Machine Guns,
                                                               I've had a day off today and the girlfriend is at work so I've been able to make some progress with my Naval Brigade. During the week I finished off painting the miniatures, this was mostly just touch up work on bits that I had missed the first time around. Once that was done I began basing them up on their bases. 

Work In Progress: Naval Brigade

Work In Progress: Naval Brigade

As with my DLI Infantry stands these Naval Brigade stands were covered with Games Workshop sand and PVA. As an experiment, I took an officer from one of the Marching Infantry stands for use as a Naval Officer, I think the result is quite nice, but I can't help feeling that he should be in the firing line rather than stuck out on the edge of the base, unfortunately it's too late to change.

As you can see, not a great deal of progress made, but I've also been working on my competition entry for the Build Something Competition over on the Lead Adventure Forum. With the deadline looming nearer I decided that I couldn't afford to wait too much longer before painting and so after a quick coat of black I began applying colour. Unfortunately there are no pictures, but once the competition is over I'll post up the finished result over here.

Work In Progress: Naval Brigade

Anyway that's all for the moment, hopefully I'll be back soon with pictures of the finished Naval Brigade and news on some new idea's I've had.

Haarken

[W.I.P] Naval Brigade.

Welcome back to my blog, 

                                                       This time it's another update on my 6mm project. On Wednesday I posted up the finished bases of my Durham Light Infantry and I was deliberating as to what I should do next, after a little consideration and an evening of preparation work on both the Naval Brigade and the Highland Infantry I was no further forward, a quick look at the Sudan painting guide by Michael Perry (HERE) convinced me I wasn't quite ready for 6mm tartan and so I started work on the miniatures for my Naval Brigade.

Work In Progress: Naval Brigade.

The miniatures are once again Baccus 6mm, this time they are from the American Civil War range, an idea I picked up from "chopperboydan" over on the Baccus forums. The pack I chose was ACW8 - Infantry, Shell Jacket, Hat, Skirmish.   I had a look at the picture over on the Baccus website and it seemed to show skirmish infantry in hats, when I started painting the miniatures up I realised that unfortunately some of them were wearing Kepi's. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this. Do I leave them out and order more miniatures to fill out my stands? Or do I spread them out across the four stands and just live with them? I'm not sure.

Work In Progress: Naval Brigade.

The blue looks a bit light to me at the moment but I'd prefer that to it being too dark, they are a bit messy still and I've i

picked out quite a few bit's I've missed but on the whole I'm rather happy with where they are at, hopefully I should have them completed by the end of the week. 

The initial plan for the Naval Brigade is to have four stands of infantry, two naval Gatling gun stands and two naval Gardner guns. For full VSF potential I'm considering additional stands of Naval Brigade so I can field a full battalion of Naval Infantry.

Work In Progress: Walking Machine.

In addition to the Naval Brigade I began work on a walking machine, it's based on an Epic era Space Marine dreadnought, I've added a boiler and coal bunker using plastic card and a claw from an Epic Ork tank. I tried my hand with a little bit of green stuff sculpting but it ended up rather messily and I'm still in the process of removing it.

Anyway that's all for now.

Haarken