Welsh castles no figures!

 Still finding it difficult to finish painting figures at the moment, preparing lots, a world of plastic conversions! Napoleonic Hungarians and Grenzers, Westphalians for 1809, Austrian dragoons, hussars and uhlans so fun but no finished product. I have spent the summer working in Wales which is stuffed with castles but I only went to two, one of which I failed to take photos of and another I walked through to go and get a coffee at the weekend when my wife came down to Cardiff. Caerphilly castle is the second biggest castle in the UK after Windsor and I got to go there for the first time since March 1st, 1979, I happily climbed all over the castle as a pre teen child on my own as health and safety was something that largely didn't apply much in those days, my dad was working in the area so I had to tag along which in the quid pro quo meant I got to go to a castle.  It's enormous with a moat and concentric walls and lots of towers including one that's at a mad angle which is supposed to be after it was slighted by team Cromwell, either that or lousy foundations?

It's a great big monolithic lump with only the windows and doors dressed masonry.  It survived a few sieges but the same family owned Cardiff castle and once it wasn't in the front line after Edward's conquest of Wales it fell into decline and a lot of what we see is late nineteenth/ early twentieth century reconstruction but definitely one of my favourite castles. 

The other castle is  Cardiff castle which is in the centre of the city and was nice to wander through it to get a coffee, more reconstructed Roman walls around the outside, paid for by the same family who funded Caerphilly and lived in the other castle we visited, castle Coch, which they pretty much entirely rebuilt and I haven't got any photos of  , the keep on top of the motte is still original .

Other than that lots of prep, but I will finish painting some stuff sometime! 

All the best,

 Iain 

Austrian combined grenadier battalions Napoleonic 55

 Two battalions of Victrix Austrian combined grenadiers, fun chaps to paint . I've tried to use the facing colours of the regiments I've painted, primed grey, wet brushed white, brown and black are Liquatex inks to help speed thing up, flag poles are time consuming but worth it I think?  Probably shouldn't have a flag for a combined  unit but it looks good so I'm  keeping  it! Another forty-eight added to my Napoleonic total I've got  more Austrian grenadiers but some of them are Foundry so a bit diminutive but I guess they'll get done eventually, together with Hungarians, grenzers and Hungarian Grenadiers and more Austrian line and of course, lots of cavalry!

This gives me another  48 Napoleonic infantry towards my total, running 235 I'm going to have to get my finger out , difficult as I'm only painting one evening a week ( when I'm home) at best! I'm busily assembling pike and cavalry for the great Italian wars, Napoleonic Hungarians and Grenzers while  still painting Napoleonics, Late Romans and looking hard at the box with Montrose's army in it, oh and cutting off and assembling 100 years war French cavalry and finding time to push the ruined buildings along!

All the best

 Iain 

Ten ruined buildings WIP Terrain 23

 Here are the ten black foamboard ruined buildings that I based on some MDF buildings I  was given  by Des. They have been incrementally finished, first stage is foamboard on hardboard bases with pva and sharp sand, then matchstick sills and cut down coffee stirrers for first floor floorboards.  Next up is bits of plastic brick sheet applied here and there, using up left over offcuts from the ruined factory building to start with and then some ready mixed filler applied where the brick sheet was missing to give the impression of lost render woth a plasterers small tool. Balsa beams, coffee stirrer rafters wire battens and some loose slates as they are fundamentally northern European,  Masonary paint ( which is essentially emulsion and sharp sand on the exposed foam board edges and to give a little texture to the floor. The windows ( which are meant to be European casements as opposed to the  ubiquitous British sash window ) are matchsticks and I tried plastic tile spacers cut down but endedup just doingthem in matchsticks. I will spray paint on plastics and a coat of dark emulsion all over followed by muted colours inside and red for brick , off white for lime mortar and some colour on the render. I also decided to add chimney breasts on both floors and brickwork in the loft area where they wouldn't have been plastered.

Here they are with the roof joists done on most if them and all rendered and the prototype with windows and frame roof battens and some oversized slates that I already had, they will be smaller on the rest!

Mext process, finish roofs on all of them, finish windows and add masonary paint to the exposed foamboard.

So I think I still need to add slates, I cut up some thin card but it's still too thick so I'm going to chop up some Perry boxes as I think they're the right thickness and maybe some chimney pots? Can you spot the French sniper and the historex 54mm furniture I'm going to dress in? Apologies for a WIP post but I'm not painting here in Cardiff ,if I'm home at a weekend and get a couple of hours I could finish a unit up, fingers crossed! 

All the best 

Iain