Ten Thousand and Forty

Ten Thousand is the number of total "life-time" page views this blog earned today, thanks to a little burst of traffic sent by Happy Little Trees on The Miniatures Page. Thanks to all who have visited, especially those following I haven't yet met. Welcome!

And Forty is the number of degrees Fahrenheit the Twin Cities saw today, which permitted the acrylic spraying of the newest batch of trees for the Forest Edge Strip project.

See ya!

Picked Up Some Reading Materials in Japan. . .

Well. . . sorta. I bought a couple of magazines in the Narita Airport last month on the way to Hong Kong to visit a trade show. And I can't actually read them. I bought them for the pictures. I am obviously getting older; the kinds of magazines I buy for the pictures has changed!

The magazine pictured above had a great deal of coverage of what looks like a current movie or series about medieval Japan. The images I found most interesting show drawings or photos of fortifications:

  
The second magaze purchased. . .

. . . has a great deal of World War 2 coverage that looks intriguing, but it was a calendar featuring more castle images that really caught my eye:

I'll game the period eventually : )

See ya!

News From the Forest Follow Up

Painting's done. I now have a Sergeant and Corporal for the 28th's Grenadiers.

Break's over. . . so back to the Forest Edge Strips.


See ya!

The Virtues of War and News from the Forest

I'll start this post with a "Book Like" for Steven Pressfield's The Virtues of War, a Novel of Alexander the Great.  Mr. Pressfield has a real gift for vivid battlefield description, use of credible military slang and insightful character "re-imagining." I thoroughly enjoyed this novel; at least as much as his Gates of Fire, and even more than Tides of War.

What's happening in "The Forest?" Work proceeds slowly on the "Forest Edge Strip" project:

And then I got distracted. . . but at least it is still part of the same overall project. I "need" a Sergeant and Corporal for my unit of Grenadiers from the British 28th Regiment - John Jenkins has not produced Grenadier NCOs for the 28th. I repainted the Sergeant and Corporal figures from the 44th set in the "colors" of the 28th, but I have never been happy with the repaints, and the figures have all of the field kit, while the Grenadiers for the 28th don't, so they never really seemed to "match."

So this morning I got up and using two of the figures from the 28th "Firing" sets,

. . . sculpted a sash for the Sergeant and extra cord for the corporal:

 I'll post photos after the painting is complete.


 See ya!

Happy New Year From Your Friendly Local Forest Manager!

A belated Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all!

I used a little bit of my break (small as it was) to stage the entire production line of Forest Edge Strips. My "resolution" (sigh) is not to get distracted by anything shiny until the Forest is Finished. We'll see how that works out. Here's a pic of the assembly line.

Here's a shot of the next batch of "trees" in prep for addition to the Strips.

You might have noticed a little "frostbite" on some of the trees from the acrylic spray coat. We're in the deep freeze here in the Twin Cities and it's just too cold to spray. Don't worry; I can fix it!

Did you notice the new banner photo? Like it? An assignment from The Baron provided an opportunity to play with the toys and the camera.

Go Chiefs!

Terrain Two Point More.

Yup. More woodsy-looking things. It took me a long time to take the gaming plunge into the French and Indian War because I was concerned I wouldn't be happy with the "look" of the game. Forests are hard to model. Harder still is to combine a forest with a practical game surface that permits one's model soldiers to stand and deliver. The evolution continues : )

One design goal that is eluding me is quick "set-up and tear-down." My choice of scale and genre makes this goal doubly challenging. I found that using individual trees and shrubberies (Ni!) to denote the edge of forested areas required multiple storage solutions and took a lot of time to set up and put away. How to speed set-up and simplify storage? Forest Edge Strips! 

Here is the first one I made to test the concept.

Forest Edge Strips are 12" x 2" styrofoam bases covered in a mixture of latex house paint and papier mache featuring birch sticks and "ferns" from Michaels', some trees and bushes from JG Miniatures and some more trees I made form the Woodland Scenics "tree canopy" kits. The 12" format works seamlessly with my 12" terrain squares and the "2-sticks per strip handles" make the pieces easy to position without having to handle the shrubberies (Ni!).

I've only completed one Strip so far, but I like the look. Here are views from both outside the "forest" and from within.

And of course it only matters if it looks right with the toys!

Question for you. . . Here are some shots of my 28mm Lonely Roman in the same terrain, perhaps in the wilds of Gaul. Does it work for 28mm scale too?

Whaddyathink?

Hear no evil, see no. . . whatever.

Outside of a little terrain building, which I'll post when more finished, I don't have much to show for the last few weeks. I did base a few of the new John Jenkins Indians, along with Captain Joseph Waite, who completes my 10-man Ranger unit.

I also picked up Osprey's new rules for Samurai skirmish gaming, Ronin. Of course I haven't played them, but the book is beautifully presented and the rules are a straight-forward read. Lots of good Sengoku Jidai period flavor, with some nods to other eras, ranging from the 12th Century Mongol Invasions of the Kamakura period up to 19th Century Late Edo (as in the movie The Last Samurai). Might even tempt me to paint some of those Perry Samurai languishing in the Great Lead Hoard.

See ya!