October 27, 2019
This week I completed my 10th British infantry regiment for my Peninsular War collection… that’s it for the week.
October 20, 2019
I started the week painting the last of the British 97th Foot… its flank companies. With those done I turned my attention to the 3rd Foot (buff facings). By the workbench week’s end, I had painted all of the figures of the 3rd Foot except for those that made up the light flank company troops. Just between us as I type this on Sunday, I have already finished painting the light company troops on the first day of the next workbench week.
October 13, 2019
This week the workbench focus was on painting the British 57th Foot. Most of the figures in this regiment are Old Glory 15s. The flag bearers are Blue Moon 15s, and the metal flags attached to the flag poles are by Stone Mountain. I like using metal flag blanks rather than paper flags when flags are unfurled. The problem has always been that the metal flags are distorted in shape (not flat) so that my homemade decals never really fit properly. I have to arrange the decal as best I can and then add paint to complete the surface. It’s a pain in the neck and always looks a bit imperfect, but for reasons I can’t explain, I don’t like the paper flags and my painting skills are not up to providing the look I want if I paint the flags freehand. So I make do with this process, and I have become content with it over the years.
As the week came to the end and my painting of the 57th Foot concluded, I took up the painting of my eighth British regiment of Foot… the 97th (blue facings) and finished 18 of its center company figures.
This week the mail brought me what proved to be a beautiful 15mm resin stone bridge that I will be using with my 1809 Peninsular War collection, and C.E. Franklin’s British Napoleonic Uniforms. This is a magnificent book. It is what all books on uniforms should be… extremely thorough and wonderfully illustrated.
Saturday ended on another postal high. My Crooked Dice Colony 87 kickstarter figures arrived with the Saturday mail. A couple of years ago I purchased the first two waves/sets of Colony 87 from their originator, Jon Boyce. They are wonderful figures. Jon’s goal was to have the figures he wanted produced. He was not interested in marketing figures as a business. Several months ago I was thrilled to discover that Crooked Dice had taken over the Colony 87 figure line from Jon and was in the process of making a third wave/set of figures. I have never participated in a kickstarter process before, but I know and trust Crooked Dice and love the Colony 87 figure concept so I bought in for the third wave of figures, plus their Alien Pet Merchant. The Crooked Dice kickstarter was a great success and gave people like me an additional twelve wonderful figures as stretch goal rewards. When I opened the package, I could not have been happier with the look and quality of the figures I received. The attached Colony 87 pictures are of the figures I got, but they are taken off the internet because I was too lazy to set them up for a photo of my own.
October 6, 2019
This week work on British regiments for my 1809 Peninsular War collection continued with the painting of the 29th Foot (yellow facings). In terms of figures used for this regiment, most are Blue Moon 15s with the inclusion of two flag bearers and a sergeant with pike by AB.
Because pictures from the workbench are a little sparse this week, I’ll share a picture of a great find I picked up at the swap meet on Saturday. It’s a die cast Beech 18 that will work well with some future Pulp project. The Beech 18 had a long life with its first version introduced in 1937 and production of the last version ending in 1970.
