We have some winners!

A Happy Easter to one and all and as promised I have great pleasure in announcing the various draws, but before I do just a brief word regarding the claiming of your prize, if you are lucky enough to be one of the winners.  With draws 1 - 5 all I require is a postal address and the easiest way to do that is to email me at:

twenty eight millimetre (the first part written as numerals and abbreviations) little men at g mail dot (just a full stop will suffice) com

My apologies for the unnecessarily cryptic address, (I should also point out that there are no spaces either!) but I am led to believe that this helps to reduced the likelihood of additional unwanted spam, something we are already plagued with.

With regards to the two winners of the 'Command Stands' if you use the same email to open up a line of dialogue, I'm sure we can soon sort out what it is I can paint for you.

A huge 'Thank You' to all that entered and helped to celebrate this humble web log's second anniversary; drum roll please!

1. The Usborne Activity sticker book was won by Ian - The Blog With No Name

2. The winner of 'Britain's Forgotten Wars' a must have reference book for all of Victoria's little wars was Mark Hargreaves - Over Open Sights

3. James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, a Wargames Foundry miniature painted by your truly complete with a miniature Crimea War Campaign medal goes to Sidney Roundwood - Roundwood's World

4. The painted Empress Miniatures' Hollywood versions of Chard & Bromhead this time with a miniature South African Campaign Medal are heading to Francis Lee - The Angry Lurker

5. Finally the 'Command Stands'!  These have been scooped by Mike Reynolds - The Dark Templar and Dave D - One Man and his Brushes.  I am a little concerned that this could mean an unholy alliance of Cowboys and Aliens!

My congratulations to the winners and my commiserations to those that missed out this time, I'm sure there will be more opportunities to bag a prize in the future.

Stretch Goals added!

Now I know we didn't really have any 'Stretch Goals', as such, in place with regard to the 'Birthday Blog Prize Draws!' but something rather unusual has happened here at '28mm Victorian Warfare' .  The month of March has seen an unprecedented number of visitors to this humble web log, in fact in excess of 10,000!  This has never happened before, the most we had managed in a month previously was just over 8,000.  The how and why escapes me, but as way of thanks I have decided to add an additional 'Command Stand' to the prize draws, those of you that entered this draw now have an additional chance of winning .  Those that haven't yet entered all you have to do to qualify is to leave a comment on the original post indicating which draw you would like to be entered for - more than one is permissible.

Time is running out as the draw will take place on the 31st March 2013; the original post can be found here.

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Also in a shameless plug, so I can reap the benefits and get lots of free goodies, don't forget the 'In Her Majesty's Name' spend goals, read all about it here; go on you know you want to!

Jungle Drums

With the excitement of the '3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge' slowly fading to memory I was gifted a free Saturday morning, but just couldn't bring myself to lift a paintbrush in anger.  Instead I found myself, mug of Earl Grey in hand, staring at the television bemused by the amount of cookery programmes airing at this hour - when did cartoons and wrestling slip from the Auntie's scheduling?  Fortunately I still have some previously unpublished miniatures to share and without further ado...

 Whilst I was never going to challenge the awesome turnout of the top tier of extraordinarily fast painters, I did look to consistently challenge myself to produce the best and most imaginative work I am capable of - perhaps looking to scoop up one of the prizes in the sub categories; voting is still in progress and non-competitors are free to nominate their favourite, just follow the link to Curt's 'Analogue Hobbies' within this post.  

I was hoping that these fearsome chaps might be considered my entry for the non military category.  They are part of 'North Star Military Figures' extreme cannibal range and painted to loosely represent the Azande of the Congo.  I have to confess that I really like these wonderfully dynamic sculpts, particularly the masks, so reminiscent of Picasso's early work, possibly even the influence of 'Les Demoiselle d'Avignon' itself.

I had had some fun with some of these in October last year (Cannibals) and tempted as I was to really go to town with the masks and the drums in the end I went with a much more organic palette once again hoping to tie the miniatures together with the touches of red.  Hugely distracting, but great fun to do!

My Challenge concludes

As the '3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge' drew to its epic conclusion earlier this week, it seems only fitting to reflect on my small contribution to this runaway success of an idea. 

I am so delighted that I plucked up the courage to enter this year and I cannot thank my fellow Ronin enough for all their kind words of encouragement and more importantly their own magnificent contributions, some of them truly staggering in both quantity and quality.

There is of course one man in particular that must be wholeheartedly acknowledged before I go any further and that is the legend that is Curtis Campbell Esq. - editor in chief of  'Analogue Hobbies'.  How he managed to process all the posts, take time to reply to emails and even paint his own delightful contributions is a mystery to us all and an achievement not short of Herculean in stature.

So to my personal challenge; we were asked to consider a 'par' score before we started, something to aspire to, a goal if you will.  A rough calculation of what had transpired this time last year with regards to miniature painting equated to total of 420 points* so it seemed not unreasonable to me to pitch in with a 500 point 'par' score it was, after all, supposed to be a challenge! 

*Tally arrived at by using the marking matrix laid out in the initial briefing.

 I was under absolutely no illusions that I was in with a shout of winning the competition, you must remember that I had prior knowledge of how the painting colossus that is Ray Rousell, swept to glory last year with a cumulative score of 4940 points!** However when the  list of my fellow Ronins' 'par' scores was posted I harboured a secret dream of bagging a top twenty spot.  It soon became clear though that the blood lust of the competition roused many a sheathed paintbrush to spring to life and self imposed targets began to tumble, while new ones were implemented almost on an daily basis; it really was wonderful to watch.  All this meant that sadly I was to fall just short of my dream, finishing an honourable 23rd; I did, however, manage to reach, and even surpass, my own 'par' finishing with a thumping tally of 536!

**Those cries of 'sandbagging' now just a distant murmur on a fell wind.

 What follows is a shameless pictorial representation of my efforts, some of which will feature more prominently in '28mm Victorian Warfare' at a later date, presented here in roughly chronological order.

Highlander shown for scale and not entered in the challenge!

Although the podium finishers have already been decided, and my sincere congratulations go to Chris, James and Kev, there are still some prizes up for grabs.  I wholeheartedly encourage you to pop over to 'Analogue Hobbies' to see for yourself the awe inspiring amount of work that was submitted over the three months, you can even cast a vote for your favourite too - if it were to be for one of my entries that would be absolutely splendid, but one should not feel under any obligation to do so.

As a final aside take a look at what didn't get painted - a staggering .... points of loveliness!  We were permitted to assembly, prepare and even prime our miniatures before the official start date; having grossly over estimated my production rate the question that remains is do I carry on regardless or do I put them away for next year?

Egyptian Chariot

This 25mm Egyptian Chariot believed to from Hinchcliffe formed part of my final entry for the 'The 3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge' and was a complete 'pig' to paint!  It found its way into Awdry Towers with a little assistance from that rapscallion, the 'Provost Marshal' who delights in depositing little bags of lead loveliness around the homestead, determined to widen my miniature painting oeuvre!

All looked fairly innocuous at first glance, true I would need to assemble it when the time came, but that didn't seem to be a problem.  Someone had had a stab at painting the horses previously and other areas displayed signs of been perhaps a little too familiar with paint stripper, but again not a problem thought I.

In the end, it was the lack of surface detail that was to prove my Achilles heel; I have become so used to the  fine detailing on the likes of 'Empress' and 'Perry' miniatures that the apparent like of sculpting on this chariot completely threw me.  I had decided upon a fairly lurid paint scheme and part of the fun came from picking out what detail I did find.

I am certainly pleased to have completed the thing, but probably won't be rushing to paint any more any time soon, that said a big thank you to the 'Provost Marshal' for the opportunity.

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Don't forget to enter the prize draws here.

Birthday Blog Prize Draws!

Today marks the second anniversary of '28mm Victorian Warfare', an off-shoot of this most wholesome of hobbies that has demanded more and more of my time of late but has given me such a great deal of pleasure.   The wonderful sense of camaraderie that seems to exist in this corner of the blog-o-sphere has been such a great boon and as a result I feel that it is high time to give something back to the greater community and as giveaways seem to be en vogue at present I've decided to embrace the concept.

To that end there are a series of prizes on offer ranging from the mundane to the mildly ridiculous.  In order to qualify you must be a public follower and express which prize draws you would like to enter (you may enter as many as you like) by leaving a comment below.  I hope to make the draw on the 31st March at which point I will ask the winners to make contact via email to discuss distribution.

So in no particular order the prizes on offer are:

1. Have some frivolous fun on me with this Usborne Activity sticker book.

2. 'Britain's Forgotten Wars' a must have reference book for all of Victoria's little wars.

3. James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, a Wargames Foundry miniature painted by your truly complete with a miniature Crimea War Campaign medal.

4. Empress Miniatures' Hollywood versions of Chard & Bromhead this time with a miniature South African Campaign Medal and once again painted by my good self.

5. Finally a 'Command Stand'!  Some may remember mention of me starting a bespoke painting service, focussing on one off command stands - I can't every imagine painting an amy to order!  Well this prize is for one of those, simply supply the miniatures you want in the stand, with some ideas as to how you envisage it working and I'll do my best to realise your requests.  I imagine the stand to comprise of a couple of mounted miniatures, or perhaps up to four foot soldiers, a vehicle or pretty much anything else, just please remember that I paint at a snail's pace! 

Remember you can enter as many of the draws as you want and much dice rolling will decide the winners on the 31st March.

Best of luck everyone!

Ninja!

As the '3rd Annual Painting Challenge' gathered pace and I found myself on the 'Perry Miniatures' website looking for suitable miniatures to represent the 'Seven Greyscale Samurai' when these darkly clad warriors leaped out!

If I'm honest I was rather hoping that they would be a quick fix, points wise, but not a bit of it.  Shunning all sense and reason, I set about them convinced that I was going to employ my usual three colour method, but by the time I had given them three shades of black, my eyes were starting to cross!

I did, however, have a secret weapon, Privateer Press' Coal Black.  The Dark Templar had put me onto this some time ago and my goodness what a little gem of a colour it is.  I appreciate that I may be on a slippery slope getting unnecessary excited about a pot of black paint, but this is a wonderfully useful addition to the armoury.  Mixed with black and later a charcoal grey, I was able to get the three colour palette that I was after.  True it has a greenish hue to it, but it really helps to make what is otherwise a very difficult colour to paint a bit more bearable. 

Seven Greyscale Samurai

The '3rd Annual Painting Challenge'  was always going to be difficult for me given my snaillike painting speed, but having been blown away but the ingenuity and beauty of Curt's 'Great War in greyscale' project, I'd been harbouring a notion to have a go at this technique myself and when the theme for the challenge was announced as Samurai an idea started to form.  

Like a good many I adore, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and this wonderful piece of cinematography became the inspiration for my own greyscale project - 28mm Seven Samurai!   Now I'm here to tell anyone who listens that this isn't as easy as it appears and I certainly should have given the palette more consideration before diving straight in; as a result there is a definite blue hue that I had't envisaged.

I just couldn't resist a spot of hollywood red blood on the drawn katanas and, now that it is complete, I'm jolly pleased with the results.  These have become my entry fee for the challenge and although Curt only asked for one painted miniature I couldn't bear to break up the group.  Just for his continued hard work and heroic efforts in managing the challenge, I can think of no better recipient for the 'Seven Greyscale Samurai'.  

Kimono details

These were originally the 'Perry Miniatures' Samurai fighting in everyday clothes with the addition of one of the banner men to carry the 'Seven Samurai' motif on the sashimono.

A little bit of edited fun to try a convey a feeling of the miniatures as if through Kurosawa's lens.