The hobby week - 19 March - 25 March

The real world impacted heavily on hobby time this week.  However, after a bit of time in the doldrums I rallied and got a few things done.  The blog is a year old today and I wrote a piece about it here. 

Painting/modelling  

  • I spent some more time on the Algerian/Mediterranean hills that I was working on last week, adding washes and highlights to improve the appearance.  I just can't get them to blend with the gaming cloth I bought last month so I put this batch to one side.  I think I need to take the cloth  down to Homebase and get some paint made up.  
  • While I had the bag with all the polystyrene in it down from the loft, I cut and shaped more hills.  I also added texture and gave them a coat of emulsion to seal them.  I'm hoping once I get the right colour paint it'll be a quick job to finish them.  I have learnt that painting blocks of polystyrene is amazingly therapeutic.  
Hot wire fun
  • To get me back in the swing of things I cleaned up and started painting a few Newline Designs 20mm British infantry for the Sikh Wars.  After a turbulent couple of weeks in the real world it was comforting to get back to this project.  I'd previously documented how I painted them, so it's a nice job to just do some painting without too much thinking.

Research and reading

  • I've been doing a bit of research into Ancients and in particular Biblical wargaming.  I think it's the impending release of Strength and Honour that's done it.  I really like the idea of the massed battle with tiny figures.  If fits the "small scale, big scope" aspiration I've had for a long while.  I'm just not enthused by the Romans much.  I will be monitoring it carefully though.  I seem to be forever looking for the perfect project - you know the one which is the right period, scale, manufacturer and rules all coming together.
  • Not really research but I have spent a bit of time sorting out my military history and wargaming PDFs.  I have hundreds of titles, to the point of not really knowing what I have got!  I've actually bought hard copies of stuff I had on PDF which is pretty dumb.  

Incoming!

No new stuff arriving this week.  I did finally print off my copy of Chain of Command so that's like having something new isn't it? 

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