At long last, the Bloodaxe Miniatures Moro have been molded and are now ready!
The new Moro Rebellion packs include:
The Spear packs include ‘extra’ loose shields.
Be sure to visit the Bloodaxe Miniatures website for full product listings.
Coming up next time: Early War (1939-1941) Germans from Resistant Roosters
Well, it has been a number of months since my last post…
My how time’s fun when you are having flies – or something like that. Anyhow, all is well here at HistoriFigs HQ – it has just been a busy summer on the farm and at ‘work’. We should come off our summer casting schedule the second week in September; school will be back in session and Alison will be back to full-time availability for daily operations.
My summer ‘work’ schedule has been a bit busy, so I’ve not had as much time as I would have liked for miniatures projects. Things are getting back to normal, so I should have more time for projects.
We have been working on a number of projects over the summer. More details will follow in additional news postings, but for a brief summary here are the things we’ve been working on:
As you can see, we’ve been quiet, but busy. More info on all of these projects as soon as I can shoot a few photos and finish up some write ups covering the various projects.
The Scruby 54mm figures have been neglected for far too long, as such part of our plan for 2009 is to begin re-releasing these figures. The original plan was to produce (at least) one new release a month starting in March (we missed March, but have figures in the works for April).
Early in February I finally had a chance to start working on this project. The first task was to sort the masters and patterns. The first pass at sorting was completed and three groupings were made in an effort to define our initial work. These first three grouping fall into the following eras: AWI, Napoleonic and ACW; Colonial came in a close fourth (plenty more figures, just not yet classified).
The next task was/is to reconcile the catalog listings with the masters/patterns. This requires pulling the molds for each of the figures listed in the Scruby Catalog and then performing a visual comparison between the master/pattern castings on the mold cavities. We then catalog the results. Now we have a master spreadsheet which contains Casting part numbers, Catalog descriptions, Scruby Mold Ids and Master/pattern status.
I chose to start with the ACW figures. Why ACW? Two of the main reasons for this are:
1) I’ve been working on ACW projects of late, so ACW was on my mind.
2) Restoration of masters fro ACW is a lot easier than restoration for AWI or Napoleonic.
I now have a spreadsheet which details the status of the 30 (ACW) castings from the last Scruby Catalog (I have another 6 or 8 older figures to add to the list as well). Of the 30 figures in the list we have masters/patterns for about half. Some of the existing masters/patterns are in need of minor repairs (broken bayonets and such). These repairs are easy enough, so I have no worries about those. We run into problems when it comes to the missing masters/patterns. In some cases I can pull the original gravity molds (used by Scruby to make pattern figures from the original masters) and work with those. However some of these are missing or in such poor condition that they are unusable. Where I do not have a usable gravity mold, I need to resort to more drastic measures. The more drastic measures include creating brand new sculpts in the Scruby style. Other times I can take a casting from an old production mold (99.5% of which are in very poor condition) and work back towards a replacement master. While this approach is a lot of work, it can produce figures that are nearly indistinguishable from Scruby’s originals. I’ve previously rescued some 40mm figures using this method – when my figure is viewed alongside a Scruby original it is very difficult to tell which is which is original and which is new.
When restoring (or creating new) masters I’ve decided that as much as possible I will work using the same methods/techniques used by Scruby. Materials used include: Solder, brass sheet, paper, latex paint and wax (I do try to avoid wax due to its low melting temperature). Sometimes, I need to use more modern materials such as Green Stuff, Procreate and Super Sculpy.
So far I’ve made a good start on two of the ACW figures (TT-81 – Kepi at attention and TT-119 2nd Rhode Island Volunteer, 1861 uniform, on guard). The work is progressing quite well and I should have these new masters completed by the close of the weekend. So far both pieces are all metal, but I may need to use a bit of Procreate on TT-119; getting the blanket/bed roll just right may require some softer material. I’ve lined up a few more figures to work on and I’ll be sure to report on my progress as the project continues. I’ll need to swing away from 54mm for a few days as I need to complete a couple of 40mm projects that are overdue, but I don’t expect those projects to take too much time.
We are thinking about starting a pre-order program for the 54mm figures. The program would be called “Club 54” and it would help us to prioritize our restorations & re-releases. Additionally, knowing that we have X figures pre-sold will make it easer to invest in the new molds. I’m still sorting out the details for the pre-order program (determining factors such as cost for each pre-ordered piece and pre-orders required) so we should reach a decision on how the program will work some time in the next week or two.
That about wraps things up for today, by next time we should have some news on a new Resistant Roosters release (I want to be sure sculpting has begun before we announce what we are working on) and if all goes according to plan we should have more releases in the Bloodaxe Moro Rebellion range…
Portage Wisconsin – HistoriFigs reports the arrival of Finnish reinforcements. Newly arrived at Resistant Roosters HQ are:
Finnish Infantry in Winter Uniform
These new packs round out our selection of Finnish infantry in winter uniform…
A few samples of our new Finnish troops – Samples painted by Dansville Wargamers
So far, so good for making a habit of painting…
Well, week two was a bit touch and go. I had started a batch of ten 25mm Russian Pandour (Bloodaxe Miniatures), but I tried using a black undercoat and I was very unhappy with the results I was getting, so about mid-week I stopped painting that batch and started prepping a new batch (of 12) for week three. This time I went back to a white undercoat…
I’ve never really had good luck with a black undercoat, but with a lot of black to be used for the figure, I thought I’d give it another try – it turned out to be a bad idea. I just was not happy with the results. Good news is that I decided to finish the figures in this batch and just mix them in with the rest.
OK, so now back to week three. This second batch of Pandour were undercoated white and they were much easier to paint. After the white undercoat was dry I started with a series of washes – red, black, sepia, brown and green. The idea was to create a set of lines, much like a coloring book. After the series of washes were applied I went back and added the proper paint colors – coloring inside the lines. After the colors were applied it was back to washes – filling in the gaps, or darkening the lines…
Now, please remember I’m not now and never have been a really good painter, but for the most part I am happy with the figures and they (at least to me) look just fine on the game table.
This unit of Pandour need 14 more figures and it will be complete (36 figures). Eleven of these 14 are on the table for painting this week. The command figures were not quite done, so they will be painted next week. At some point I’ll add another 12 figures to the unit.
While I sort of missed the mark for Week Two, I made up the lost time in Week Three – total output for Weeks Two & Three = 22 figures…
I’ve started a photo album to show the progress of my painting projects. To view more photos from my 2009 painting adventure visit my Painting Habit – 2009 photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/historifigs/PaintingHabit2009#
I’m still sorting out how best to take pictures with my replacement camera, so it may be a few more days before we can post some picturs of the new Resistant Roosters Winter Finns (Company HQ and Mortar Platoon)…