It was with great satisfaction that I cleaned up the edges of the bases on the last eight WWII Canadian figures. It has been an enjoyable project but I was starting to lose it near the end.

The last batch painted.

Here is the last batch I painted. I must admit I was rushed to get finished as I was tired of paint the same stuff over and over again. I’ll have a few review of the Bolt Action Miniatures figures I painted in this batch later, but I will say that the faces were terribly distorted. I really enjoyed the active poses and extra kit on the haversacks, but those faces were disheartening to paint. I think I might either stick with Artizan or chose the expensive route of headswapping add more variety.

The entire platoon, posing for a picture. Not pictured, 2 PIATs

Instead of the six months it took me seven to plan and complete this project. I mentioned before that I’m not going to sweat the extra month. It’s still an achievement in my eyes. 40 miniatures painted in seven months may not sound that impressive to some, but considering I only painted 24 figures in 2008, I’m thrilled. While this included Christmas and a bout of Bronchitis, I do hope to up the anti by painting  the 43 figures from the 89th Foot and the 30 figures for the 1st, 41st and 8th Foot I plan to merge into a single battalion within six months.

I ended this project feeling poorly about my painting technique. I recently pointed to some inspiring work by David Imrie. I’ve been picking his brain over at the League of Augsburg forum and hope to step up my painting technique without sacrificing too much speed. Still, looking at the pictures I took things aren’t as bad as I feared. Looking at miniatures from painting-distance can make it harder to step back and see how the miniatures really look.

Tyler

I can feel the fatigue settle in as I start painting yet another set of webbing. Fortunately, the end is nigh as I am mid-way through my last batch. Partly to blame is the batch size, eight models instead of the normal six. The question was: which is better, a batch of six and a batch of two, or a batch of eight and finished. My choice is self-evident. At this stage the idea of six and two fills me with greater loathing than I am experiencing with my batch of eight, so I am contented by my choice. Eight will not become my regular batch.

I’ve ordered my box of Victrix and although it hasn’t arrived I am keen to finish my Canadians first, even if the new miniatures must remain unloved until I do. I am saddened that the time has passed from surprisingly quick delivery to standard Canada Post and pray daily to my wife: “Any mail?” Refrain: “No” “Maybe tomorrow, Amen.” My dealer was even good enough to send it earlier than expected. I hope Canada Post doesn’t let his good deed go to waste.

The last batch, minus the two prone figures.

Back to the Canadians. To experiment or not the experiment, that is the question. Is it nobler in the mind to suffer the chore and bore of repeated brushstrokes or take up new techniques amongst a sea of styles and by experimenting, change them? By which I mean to say that I’m unhappy with the flesh this batch because I tried something new. I’m always trying something new, although in this case it is more a variant of my existing technique rather than something all new. I tried a wash to darken the shading. I’d also mixed my shade a little darker to begin with and ended up with too harsh of a transition between shade and mid.

To make things worse, the sculpting on the Bolt Action Miniatures faces is poor. Faces are pinched and puckered, making it difficult to use the surface of the miniature as a guide for shades and highlight. At least this comes at the end where I already have a crowd of miniatures in which to lose this batch. I’m also less than satisfied with the battledress, but that was simply caused by over-highlighting. The final highlight requires a confident painter. It takes confidence to leave an entire leg un-highlighted because there’s nothing that would catch the light. Perhaps I need another step between mid-tone and final highlight. Something to think of.

Tyler

With only 14 miniatures to be painted before the completion of my 28mm WWII Canadian project I thought it’d be a good time to take a group shot. I’ve been showing all these work in progress images, but no finished images. I’m not ready to create the gallery page just yet. In fact, I just had an idea for making the gallery work better for pages with lots of pictures which may take some work to implement. It feels good to be so near the end without having veered off into side projects. When I am finished I will have decided to play a new game and painted a workable force for it within six months. I’ll be proud when I am done, and I’ll have to bug Tod at the OMG to setup a game.

The whole group so far. Click for full size.

One of the problems with photographing large groups of miniatures is trying to get all the miniatures in one picture without ending up with a giant image. I like to keep my images to 600px wide to fit on the screen.

A closer look at the left side of the group.

Here’s a closer look. The fellow in the foreground is from the last batch completed. I noticed I haven’t touched-up the base edge after removing him from the painting stand. You can see that this is a rough wargame paint-job. I’ve knocked back some of the highlights–something I want to fix in my next batch–and left some details unpainted, such as the buttons. My understanding is that the Canadians never switched to a Battledress with exposed buttons. This is the trade-off between getting a force finished and on the table and never getting anything finished at all.

Still, I’d like to improve how I do the webbing, find some way to make it more interesting. I know that having more contrast between the shade and mid-tone, and less between the highlight and mid will look better. This is something that will come as I paint more. One thing that’s different between this project and all the ones that came before is that I’m refining a technique instead of trying something different each time.

A little free, unsolicited advice: As a wargame painter the best way to improve while still enjoying the hobby is to improve the next batch, not the current batch. If you are in the middle of painting a batch try not to judge your technique. You’re too deep in to change it without a lot of extra work. Instead, look critically at the batch you just finished before starting the new one and find things to improve. The exception is, sometimes when I’ve mixed a new colour and can tell it’s bad as soon as I apply it to the model I’ll tweak it and repaint the same area. However, once I’m more than 5-6 brush-strokes in I’m committed. You’ve heard me complain about my green being wrong, but once I’d started I finished the batch and tried a different shade on the next. In this way I’ve painted 26 miniatures.

Tyler

Hmmm, here we are almost through Month Five of my WWII Canadians project. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about my progress in relation to my deadline. I have the rest of this month, and then February to paint 14 figures. I’m so close to finishing the current batch of six it doesn’t bear counting them. At my painting speed from the first months the situation could be considered dire. However by focusing on painting over other recreation I’ve increased my speed significantly. So much so that my only concern is ordering the last batch soon enough that I can start it in February.

Looking forward the purchase of a box of Victrix British Napoleonics looms on the horizon like the welcome sight of land after a sea voyage. My plan is to paint the British 89th Regiment of Foot as it appears at Lundy’s Lane. My figure scale is 1:10, so this will be 43 figures plus command. This will be five bases of eight figures, one half-base of three figures, and various bases of officers, sergeants, colours and drummers. Two and a half of the bases will be useful for the 1812 Lasalle game in July. Afterwards I can start looking into starting a Flames of War army.

Tyler

People often forget that you are never stuck at your current skill level. When I was in school I found math hard, so I aovided it and never got any better. Now I realize that if I’d applied myself I would have improved through practice and had an easier time.

The same is true for painting. It’s easy to get discouraged because you aren’t able to paint very fast. I’ve just reached the end of the beginning of my plan to start painting more. There was a time long ago where I painted every day of the week, plus snuck a little time on the weekend. I was painting nearly 10 miniatures a week. A variety of circumstances changed that. I’ve gone over them in the past so I won’t repeat them all. It comes down to a very basic fact: I wasn’t painting.

When I started to seriously paint again I was discouraged that I wasn’t painting as fast as I had at the height of my previous painting regimen. Now I realize that this was simply because I was out of practice. I even think that I can eclipse my previous best because I plan to be more focused on painting than ever before.

The fifth batch.

The last day I was sick I spent a few hours painting and managed to finish the flesh, helmets and battledress. Tonight I just finished everything else except the unit insignia and final basing. Oh, and the soldier with the PIAT needs his helmet netting painted and I’d planned to add weathering and chips to the helmets, but forgot. Minor, minor things that I’ll do while I’m waiting for steps in the basing to dry.

I think that this batch will end up taking about five to six hours. This is the best speed I’d managed previously and I feel like I could go even faster. Considering that it’s still hockey season and I’m not counting basing, varnishing and clean-up if I could finish a batch of six a week I’d be very happy. That’d be a 32 musket 1812 battalion every month and a half. At that speed my 1812 project could be finished far sooner than I’d ever dreamed, as long as I keep this up.

That’s always been my problem, of course. Even when I was painting 10 figures a week I wasn’t painting every week and sometimes would go for months without painting. This was a result of spreading myself too thinly over too many interests and it is something I really hope to avoid. We’ll just have to see.

At least it means I can look at ordering my next batch of miniatures. Ahh, consumerism.

Tyler

This is something the gentlemen on the Napoleon Podcast like to say about Napoleon. It’s a good podcast, though centered completely on the life and times of Napoleon. My interest in Napoleon is secondary as he features very little in the War of 1812. However, it is an interesting story and it never hurts to expand ones basic knowledge of such a “well known” subject. This is all just a round-about way to mention that I’m still painting and feel like I’m on the home stretch. Oh, I still have another 20 figures to paint so I guess technically I’m at the half-way point, or almost there since I still have to varnish and base the current batch of six.

I’m not sure what is making it feel like I’m almost done. Perhaps because I’ve painted as many miniatures already as I have yet to paint. Perhaps because of Christmas my ability to buy new miniatures will be temporarily eclipsed by my ability to paint them. For whatever reason I have been enjoying this project, not least for the increased confidence of being able to complete future wargaming projects.

The fourth batch, first highlight. The green is staying on the grey side, as intended.

I’m made some changes to my colours for this batch. My saga in paint mixing continues as I try yet another shade of green. This time I am happy with the results. While studying the various colour plates, original examples in the War Museum, and recreationist’s pictures I’ve realized that I’ve been painting my webbing with too much white. The problem stems from not going dark enough with my initial basecoat. In this batch I’ve darkened the webbing and I think the result is good.

Weathered and ready for insignia. Even on the final highlight the green looks pleasantly grey and faded. I may have found my favorite combination for WWII Canadian Battledress Green.

Here we have the mostly finished batch. All that really remains is to add the insignia to the shoulders and paint the bases. Follow that up with varnish and flock and they will complete my first order of twenty miniatures. I have another eight waiting to paint but I may take a quick break. I want to at least finish painting the Wargames Factory Viking and review it on this blog. I’d also like to paint my Big Wullie for the Warlord Games Big Wullie painting competition. I didn’t think I’d get the chance, but the deadline for the contest was pushed back to January 1st.

For those keeping count my project total has increased by four figures. The reason is simple, to get the collection of figures for this Canadian platoon I want I needed to buy an extra four models. Instead of languishing in a box somewhere I will paint them as I paint the rest. They won’t strictly go to waste, as two are PIAT gunners who could be attached to the platoon from company level.

I decided to include the traditional heartfelt apologies for lack of posts at the end lest I appear to be too hard luck to suffer to live. A nasty stomach bug accounted for a couple of days, the rest I have no excuse for. There is certainly an element of wanting to make big useful posts instead of smaller conversational pieces, something I’ve suffered from before. I hope to remedy that by making at least one more post this weekend.

Perhaps now would be a good time to mention what a wonderful resource Google Reader is for those wanting to follow a blog. Creating a Google account is simple and free. It gives you access to a wide range of Google resources, including Google Reader. Within Reader you can add the blogs you visit frequently to your subscription list, then visit the Google Reader website as a single source for updates and new blog posts.

There are a couple of useful goodies that make this process even easier, both found in the Settings section, under Goodies. The first is Put Reader in a Bookmark. Simply drag the next button provided into your browser’s quick-link bar and hit it anytime you are reader for a new blog post. It brings you directly to the blog in question so you can see and access the entire website. When I’m in the mood to read blogs I open my browser, hit next and read. So simple.

The second is similar, in that it is a bookmark for your quick links. It’s called Subscribe as you Surf, and is a link which will automatically load the blog you are currently reading into Google Reader. So, find a new blog you may want to check out, click the Subscribe button on your browser quick-link bar and it will automatically open Reader to allow you to subscribe. It’s somewhat of a misnomer, you don’t subscribe to the blog until you do so within Google Reader, but it’s a lot easier than copying and pasting a URL or trying to find a mis-placed RSS link.

Essentially, if a blog updates daily I read it daily. If it updates rarely I don’t waste any time endlessly checking the website for new content. When there is some, I see it instantly. This is especially useful for the wargaming genre of blogs, since many seem to update in flurries between long periods of inactivity. I miss nothing. I don’t worry if a blog I am subscribing to will remain active. Either it does, and I see it, or it doesn’t, and I don’t. Perfect. Check it out.

Tyler

Here we are at the beginning of Month Four and things look to be on track. With three months to go I am likely to hit my target by the beginning of March. I am mid-way through batch four having just added the first highlight to the webbing. This leaves the wood, metal and canteens needing their second highlight before everything gets a final highlight and the six are finished. I hope to be done by sometime next week.

My latest order of 8 Artizan figures arrived today, meaning I won’t have a long wait between batches. I still have another 12 miniatures to order, this time from Bolt Action Miniatures. It’s 12 riflemen. I’m not a fan of Crusader and Artizan only carries three packs of riflemen. I’ve painted two, while the third is out of stock with my supplier, Northbay Games and Hobbies. I’ll have to order BAM directly from Warlord Games but I’m hoping the shipping won’t be too expensive.

Well, this is going to be a short post. I’m a little bored talking about painting WWII figures. This project has been an experiment on sticking with one period until completion. So far it has been successful and I plan on keeping it up. Early next year I’ll be playing Troops, Weapons & Tactics with my freshly painted WWII Canadians. In the past I would have painted four Canadians, then some 1812 figures, some Ancients, and maybe something else before I returned to the WWII project. Most likely I would never play with the figures I’d painted.

Still, it feels like I’m repeating myself more than ever. I’m not even repeating keywords that would get me crazy hits, like: There’s no tiger in my woods, as they say. My woods are clear without a tiger in sight. Not that woods in North American are known to be the lair of tigers. Maybe a tiger could escape from a zoo, into the woods. Or perhaps there was a pre-historic tiger in the woods, like a sabre-tooth tiger. Did any roam the woods of North America? If so, during the time of that tiger there probably wasn’t any woods, just grasslands. See, that’d be worse. Something good, next time.

Tyler

Ever wonder what happened to your time when you look back at a week and wonder why you didn’t get much done? The first excuse to your lips is that you were busy. However, closer inspection reveals that to be hardly true. This is a situation I commonly find myself in. In my own defense, I was a bit busy getting some Christmas shopping done, getting vaccinated against H1N1 and watching some good hockey. That’s just self-delusion, however, as I regret those missed opportunities where I could be painting.

Here’s my fourth attempt at Canadian Battledress Green. This is just the shade and was informed by viewing the real article at the Canadian National War Museum in Ottawa.

I am making progress, don’t get me wrong. I’ll have a Month Four progress report shortly. It’s just that there’s a lot I was hoping to get done that I didn’t. I’ll give you an overview of what I’m planning and maybe it will become clear. I wanted to paint the Big Wullie figure that came with Black Powder for the Warlord Games Forum painting contest. Fortunately the deadline was pushed back a month. Speaking of Black Powder, I’d wanted to give my view on the game, even though I haven’t played it. I also want to review that Wargames Factory Viking I’m almost finished painting, plus assemble, paint and review an Ancient German and Zulu from the same company. I also want to review Artizan and Crusader WWII figures now that I’ve painted up a bunch. I just finished reading Republic to Empire and want to sound off on it, especially as it’s getting some unfair reviews on The Miniatures Page. Finally, I’m still deciding on which battle of the War of 1812 I want to recreate. Every time I think I’ve made up my mind something changes it. I need to write at least one more article for that series comparing the OOB of Crysler’s Farm and Lundy’s Lane and discussing how I would represent the battle in Black Powder and Republic to Empire.

That’s not to mention talking about the guy at work I’ve discovered used to be a re-enactor and who’s interested in miniature wargaming, or how there are some concepts in rules that I’ve decided I will no-longer accept without a critical eye. If anything, time is going to become even shorter and most of this will have to wait for the new year. At least I won’t ever look at a empty post and wonder what to talk about.

Tyler

Progress continues apace on my WWII Canadians project. I now have 14 figures painted, based and varnished and have started on another batch of six. I’ve also thrown a lick of paint on one of the Wargames Factory figures I’ve received. More on that soon. This last batch is the last miniature I have on hand for the project so I also made a small order from North Bay Games and Hobbies for some more. I will need yet another order for eight riflemen before I’m complete, but since it’s unlikely that I’ll finish the current batch and the new order before the next paycheck there’s no need to try to squeeze them into this pay’s budget.

The second, and last, batch of four. Starting to get a better feel on how I want things painted.

Here’s my first batch sculpted scrim. Eagle-eyed readers will notice I fixed the problem with the Lee Enfields, namely I’d painted the top of the rifle like it was a musket. I refreshed my memory after the trip to the museum and fixed all the figures I’ve painted so far. I like how the weathering is more visible with this Battledress colour. I think any of the colours I’ve used would work if I’d just desaturated them with grey.

The third batch, and first of six. The extra two didn’t add much to the painting time, but I’m now two miniatures closer to finished than if I’d stuck with four at a time.

Here’s the last batch I’ve finished so far. You may notice that I’ve picked up the bigger pieces of sand as grey stone. I noticed Quindia doing this and copied shamelessly. I like how it breaks up the colour on the bases. The four riflemen are the sample pack of Crusader Miniatures I’d purchased. I’d heard that the two lines mixed well and when I found out that one of the packs of Artizan riflemen I’d ordered was out of stock I substituted this pack. Some point soon I’ll write a comparison review. The short version is that I prefer Artizan for their slimmer proportions and sharper sculpting. Also I really don’t like the clunky rifles with a square cross-section.

In a few weeks I’ll also be recapping Month Four of my six-month WWII project. I may actually finish on time. My painting speed is increasing, I really only started painting Month Two, and I have a good incentive to finish. My club found itself somewhat in a rut with low attendance. When the club head bottlewasher (not sure on his official position) started a conversation on how to improve things a bunch of people, including myself, jumped at the chance to move from the “problem” column to the “solution” column. Now an 1812 project is being contemplated where participating club members contribute a unit for a Battle of North Point scenario.

So now I’m even more excited to start my own 1812 project, knowing that anything I paint will be used soon. My discipline is paying off.

Tyler