Saturday 30 April 2011

Stylish,Blogger Award!!!


 I was kindly nominated for the Stylish blogger award on the 20th April by Jagatai, sorry for the late reply but what with getting the two posts for my Indian longhouses ready and the kids Easter break, it's been a little hectic.


There are four rules attached to the award:
1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award.
2. Share seven things about yourself
3. Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award

Apologies but I really struggled thinking of 10 things to confess about myself in the last award I won, so I've only listed a few.
1. I support the best footie team in England, The Mighty Whites
Leeds United!!!! don't laugh!!
2.I've a massive record collection, that I had to put up in my loft when my second daughter was born, and I've not had them out since, that was 16 years ago!
3. I'm a massive fan of 50's rock'n'roll, and R&B


As this award has been floating around for a while, I've only nominated 3 blogs

&
I'll also mention fellow reject BigLee, he was going to go on my list but he's already posted today saying he's been nominated, but take a look anyway, 

All four are wargaming blogs, with lots of great photos to look at, thanks again to Jagatai for the nomination.

Ray



Thursday 28 April 2011

How to build No1 - FIW Indian Longhouses


After a lot of soul searching I finally worked out how I was going to make the first two of my Indian Longhouses, you'll not believe how easy they were to make. After seeing the final effect it's inspired me to make some more terrain pieces.
So now for the "How too"


1. A quick trip down my local timber merchant, £3 bought me an odd length of 3"x2" soft wood. I then cut one end at a slight angle, to represent the face of one of the longhouses.


2. I marked the same outline shape to both sides of the wood and at the apex of the roof.


3. This was the most time consuming part of the job, using a saw, a chisel, plane and a stanley knife, I cut out the shape, I kept the wood at this length because it was easier to use the plane, long smooth strokes (cough!), rather than short jerky strokes.


 4. I then cut the Longhouses to the length I wanted, I had hoped to get three houses out of the length of wood, but it would have made them too short, so I settled for two.


 5. For the massive sum of 49p I bought a years supply of brown crepe paper to use for the bark effect. I then cut out tons of different sized squares and stuck them onto the wooden blocks using PVA  wood glue, starting at the bottom and overlapping slightly with the next row.


 6. This only took around an hour to do, and looked quite effective.


 7. Over the last couple of months during walks in my local country park, (and at work, Fran!), I'd been collecting fallen twigs, I don't know the trees they came from, most must have been lying around for a while because they were very dry and brittle, but that's exactly how I wanted them. So after finding several lengths that looked to be around the same thickness, I cut them to size and glued them on with superglue, this turned out to be a little tricky as some of the twigs were not straight, (obviously!) so I glued them on there flattest side, which added to the effect, as they were then random looking.



 8. Then with the same sized twigs I cut the uprights, these again were a little tricky, after glueing my fingers together and to the model I decided to hold them in place with the tip of my knife until they dried.



 9. With a smaller sized length of wood I cut and glued in the cross struts.



10. I just repeated the procedure to complete the second longhouse. Then using a thin piece of MDF I cut out the two bases and glued them in place with PVA glue.


11. I then pinched some of Fran's Green stuff and made the two curtains, for the doors.


12. After seeing pictures of a porch like structure on some of the longhouses online, I made one for one of mine just to make it look different, I just used the same kind of procedure as before. In this picture the porch looks to be a different colour, but it's not the case, just a little camera trick!


13. The scalp post was just as easy, the only difference was that I added some cotton, to look like binding. The scalps were once again Fran's pinched Greenstuff.


14. The building were painted in an undercoat of GW black, then painted all over with Miniature Paint No82 Earth Brown, followed by a heavy drybrush of Vallejo 821 German Camo Beige, lastly another light drybrush of Vallejo 819 Iraqi Sand to highlight. The base was covered with PVA glue with sieved sharpe sand sprinkled on, with a few of the bigger stones left in. Then the base was dry brushed with Vallejo 976 Buff to highlight, lastly static grass was added for effect.
So there you go........
Ray

Tuesday 26 April 2011

Scratch built, Woodland Indian Longhouses FIW


I've been painting up my French Indian Wars figures for far too long now, Posties figures and all my other periods I'm painting keep interrupting the completion of the armies. I've defiantly got enough to do a game, but have yet to find any rules I'm really happy with. I've already bought far too many rule sets, so I been trying write my own, which are a semi-skirmish rule set, but more of that is for another day.
I've got quite a few American and British buildings for the period and decided I need a few Native American Longhouses for a raid on the Indian village scenario. Now this is where my problems started. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I could find only two manufacturers of Indian Longhouses, one Acheson , never answered my questions about dimensions, that I sent by email, so they were crossed off the list, next came the lovely buildings from Blue Moon's new FIW range, now I like these, but, they are so expensive $20 or £12.14 where I come from!!! for one unpainted building. Old Glory here in the UK carry the figures but will only order the building and not stock them, call me old fashioned but if I'm going to pay £12 for one 15mm building, I want to see it first....So the only thing to do was make my own!!
I found loads of pictures on the web and knocked these up in around 15 hours, I'll blow my own trumpet and say I'm really pleased with the finished articles, I plan to make some wikiups and a few more items to build up  the  Indian village. I'll  also be posting a step by step guide how to make them,  at a later date. They're really easy!!
I've included a few Freikorps Indians from QRF and some Essex Miniatures British for a  size comparison. Lastly just to keep Fran (The Angry Lurker), happy, I used his Greenstuff to make the curtains on the doors and the scalps, he said he'd moan if I didn't mention his contribution in the making of the buildings. It's like working with a child......................

Ray








Tuesday 19 April 2011

Blog Award Nomination



Last Friday my good friend, (cough!!), Fran, The Angry Lurker, nominated my good self for a "I Love this blog",  award. Mr Lurker falsely claimed that he only gave me the award so he could guarantee himself a lift to Salute on Sunday. In secret he told me, and I quote, "Ray, I know your blog is better than mine, I feel awful that you didn't get this award before me, like you should have done, everybody should realise this fact, but please don't tell anyone what I said I'm so embarressed".

Yes I was as shocked as you!! I very luckily had a tape recorder in my pocket at the time and recorded Fran's plea, so if anyone wants a copy, please email me and I'll send it to you, it's a bit muffled as he was close to tears, and you may not understand him very well, with his ginger Oirish accent.

Anyway, thank you Francis for nominating me!!
The rules of the award are I have to share 10 unknown facts about myself with you and also nominate a blog which I like. So I would like to nominate, Mekelnborg's blog, it's a mix of wargaming, chess and good conversation. I don't know too much about the chap himself, apart from he's from Illinois in the US. He always comments on my posts and loves stripy T-shirts!!
Now my 10 facts about myself, you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to think of 10 things without giving away too much and trying not to lie, so here goes,

  1. I used to play American Football position right guard.
  2. My team Barracuda reached the national division 1 championship final wayback in 1989, we lost to Barnsley  Bears.
  3. I started wargaming in 1991, at first I thought it was crap! (boo!, hiss!)
  4. I am afraid of heights.
  5. I get travel sick, very easily!!!
  6. I love bacon.
  7. I was a teddy boy in a past life.
  8. I am related to the original Marquess of Queensbury, the Duke of Buccleuch.
  9. I've only broken one bone, my left ring finger.
  10. I have never been hit by a bus!!!
Thanks for visiting!!

Ray

Monday 18 April 2011

Salute 2011 part 2 The Reject's on tour

As I mentioned in my last post, myself and 3 of the Rejects made it to Salute last Sunday, the usual trip down the A2 was marred by the closure of the Blackwall tunnel, so a quick detour through Dartford tunnel, brought us to the other end of the Excel centre, we usually park below the centre quite close to the show entrance, but had to park outside, which bought on moans and groans from Postie and especially the whining irishman Fran, as it bought on at least another 800 metres trek to the expected 6-7 mile walk. I thought it was a great show I'm gutted I missed the Sedgemoor game, I must have walked passed it several times and also missed out on the Bluemoon Indian civilians from Old Glory. I had a quick chat with Martin from Warbases, I was supposed to bring back some bases that he'd sent to me by mistake, but in all the schoolboy excitement to get to the show I left them at home.
Lastly I was very fortunate to win a raffle prize from the guys at  Project Hougoumont, well worth the £5, I paid for the tickets,  I won three musket balls dug up on the field at Waterloo and two Battle of Waterloo prints signed by Jason Salkey, (Rifleman Harris). The one problem was I found out I'd won by text and we were just getting back onto the A13 on our way home, so a quick handbrake turn  was made back to the show. I lost one musket ball walking back to the car though,  Fran luckily caught it with his open pocket!!
This post has a few, (well ok lots), of photo's from the show!

The queue


3 Reject's, Fran  looking ever so dashing?? Surj and Postie





Miniature Militia - By the pike divided 





Loughton Strike Force WW2






The Battle of Worcester 1651








The Battle of Vernauil



Krush the Kaiser


The Battle of Leignitz - The Mongol invasion of Europe 1241

Don, Martin and Glenn the mighty Warbases team. If you want any bases then these are the guys to go to.

Rifleman Harris aka Jason Salkey, taking a bite of his sarney!