Current wip

Apologies again - work has completely taken over my life for the past 2 months or so and I just haven't been able to turn my mind to much hobby-related stuff.  I also haven't managed to find the time to travel the few miles down the road from my office to see the amazing ceramic poppy installation at the Tower of London.  I saw it in July and it looked pretty impressive then.  But now it has a poppy for every British and Commonwealth soldier killed in WW1 and it is quite wonderful.   On the painting front I have various things close to being finished: here's a photo of 3 different units that are in varying stages of completion: 2 battalions of Continentals (one of which utilises Perry plastics) and another battalion of 1815 French (Perry plastics again).  Also on the painting desk are a Napoleonic French post coach, more AWI militia and a "milking time" vignette from Eureka Miniatures.  And of course AWI highlanders and mountain men for Bill.  Phew!  I started on the 1815 French simply because I had a sudden urge to paint some - as I've said many times, I absolutely love these Perry plastic French infantry and I still think that it's the best infantry set that the Perries have produced in plastic (and I've painted 6 of their plastic codes so far).  Indeed, I've found painting these figures actually rather therapeutic over the past few weeks.

Readers Simon and Simmy asked recently how I'd found the Perry plastic Continentals.  Simon noted some difficulty in putting the figures together and he's right - having to glue the arms on can be a bit tricky and, as noted with the AWI British plastics, removing the hats from the sprues can also cause problems.  But I like the figures - naturally posed and excellent facial detail.  You can see from the photo how the size/proportions of new Continental plastics are rather different to the French infantry on the right - the former are quite a bit slimmer.

Is the chap in the middle another "Alan"...?

And here's a photo of the Napoleonic post coach, made by Westfalia Miniatures.  Although it's based it is not quite finished, as I have the outside lamp to paint and attach to the other side of the coach.  Now, if you thought putting Perry plastic infantry together is fiddly...

So the above is a taster of what I've been doing for the past 6 weeks or so, and again I'm sorry that both this blog and my appreciation of other blogs have gone awol again for a while.  I will have at least one "proper" post at the weekend, as those photos (of something that's a bit of a departure from my usual stuff) are already in the bag.  I then need a bit of sunshine to take some others, including another unit of the 71st Foot and the above Perry plastic Continentals, which I have now finished.