Basing Tutorial Up too...

As promised, the Basing how-to is up in the Tutorials section.

Where to now, Mr. Peabody?
Not quite sure where the next few days will see Peabody heading; there are a couple of very interesting piles of stuff on the bench!

Helicopter crews from SHQ demand attention, not to mention their rides. Various slicks, cobras & hogs are in the build queue. The 20mm 'Nam project will continue. Always.

Recent auction wins have brought home some HO buildings for a planned comparison to the Italeri 1/72 scale buildings such as the Berlin House & others. Can these two scales share the same gaming table? I hope so, 'cause I'm charmed by the Dapol Service Station & Modern Flats that I bought

The 15mm Sci-Fi project has been neglected for long enough that it might just jump to the front of the line. I've been itching to build my GZG Shanty-Town and Prefab buildings and that itch may just get scratched!

Regardless of what happens it's going to be satisfying summer hobby goodness, and why not? This is a fun hobby.
I'm always impressed by the inspiring work other folks are sharing via their forum posts & their blogs. Here's to you out there, making our bit of the web a shared place to do fun stuff!

Painting Tutorial Up!

Over in the Tutorials section; a nicely detailed Step-by-Step fast-paint method for 'Nam era US Marines. Also suitable for a variety of small scale minis.

Coming up: Basing, 

the Bonsai Method.

A closer look at those RAFM US Marines

Thank you Picassa! I was able to correct the fill-lighting problem I had with these pictures, so I'm happy to share some of them with you now.
First up, a group-shot. I painted these excellent RAFM Charlie Co. minis to fix a platoon I had based on the Pegasus plastic USMC. RAFM minis better represent the weapons these squads are using in my FNG:2nd Tour campaign.  

A close-up of one of the more characterful figures from the Rifle Squad plus a running figure from the Weapons Squad. You get 14 figures in a Rifle Squad blister; a full paper-strength Vietnam era squad.


Here we see an RTO and an officer with a map from the Command pack and two other leader types from the Rifle Squad blister. The two Corpsmen on the left were commissioned by members of the Fields of Fire Reloaded forum.

This recent batch of minis was painted using a variation on the 'Fast Paint Method Based on Inks'* as featured on the Lead Adventure Forum. I took lots of pictures along the way and will be posting a step-by-step on the Tutorials page as soon as I can write it up.
*Don't worry, actual paint is used during this process! Ink is not required for this speedy yet effective technique.

Possible Enemy Force & Possible Contact Markers

I'm very excited about the upcoming release of FNG:2nd Tour! One of the things I like best about the direction that Two Hour Wargames has taken with their latest generation of games is the idea of Possible Enemy Forces (PEF's) and Possible Contacts (PC's). A PEF will move about the table until someone has line-of-sight to it, while a PC sits still; waiting to be seen. When either of these is revealed you find out what sort of enemy, if any, you are facing. A great way to handle moving about hidden and / or unknown forces!

Inspired by the 'Hot Spot' markers over at the Ambush Alley Games Forum, I thought I would try my hand at some custom markers for my games of FNG:2T

This is a set of ten Possible Enemy Force markers. The idea is that they suggest noise or activity happening outside of your line-of-sight.

The little dice sit in cups allowing each marker to be assigned a value via its die.

These are the Possible Contact markers, they are quite a bit bigger and are meant to suggest hidden stashes or locations of interest.

Again, a holder for a small die allows a value or simply a number for identification to be set for each marker.

Where there's Smoke....

Timberline 6 over at Fields of Fire Reloaded made some inspiring colour-smoke markers recently. These are pure game-candy and I just couldn't resist making a few of my own.

These are made much the same way you would make an ordinary smoke marker, just pick appropriate colours. I pre-shaded the bottoms with black & shading-grey, but I don't think that improved the look very much.

 
Have a look at Timberline Six's Purple Smoke, he did a much better job of it than I did!

These are very easy to make! Have a look at the Fire & Smoke mini-tutorial over in the Special Projects section to find out what you need and how simple it is to make convincing and dramatic smoke and fire markers for your games.

Photography - always a learning curve!

Well, the new workbench works a treat in all respects, it has improved my hobby experience every which way except for taking pictures of what I have going on! Turns out I need another light so I can provide better 'fill' when taking WIP shots.
A whole series of pictures taken to provide a painting step-by-step for my 'Nam era USMC turn out to have a nasty shadow in the foreground. I'll see if I can fix this in Picassa or LightBox, but frankly I'm a little bit ashamed I didn't check the results while I was shooting the series. The images looked OK on the camera display, but clearly that's nothing to go by. Live and learn. :)

It will be a few days before I have the scratch to get a light that matches the other two I use currently for everything else. Then I can be productive with the camera again!

Tutorials Page added

A stand alone page has been added for Tutorials and the first small article has been added; Fire & Smoke Markers. Go have a look & let me know what you think!

I hope this idea for a separate page focusing on how-to's will be a useful format. That leaves the main body of this blog for ramblings, WIP, after-action reports and whatever else comes to mind.

Set the WABAC Machine to 1967!

I've been working on these lovely RAFM Charlie Company US Marines for the last couple of days. These are still waiting for a hit from the old can of matte-spray, so I won't zoom in for close-ups just yet.
With a new version of FNG about to be released (FNG:2nd Tour) I decided it was time to get my little platoon of Marines looking as good as I could for some after action reports. So this group will fill in some gaps and replace some proxy figures I wasn't happy with.

Most of these figures are from the USMC Riflemen blister, some are from the Command blister and a couple -I see you Mr. Revell plastic M-79 gunner, and you Mr. SHQ tiny 90mm Recoilless Rifle person- aren't from RAFM at all. The running Corpsman figures are commission sculpts.

RAFM USMC come kitted out authentically with M-14's and other gear suitable for games set between 1964 and mid '68. You get a complete paper-strength squad with a Rifleman blister.
These miniatures are full of character and a real pleasure to paint. The group I've painted here were mail ordered directly from RAFM in Canada. The castings are quite crisp and extensive preparation was not required to meet my standard for readying 20mm minis for painting.

A fine summer day to begin a hobby blog.

Where to now, Mr. Peabody?
June brought some big changes to the little home in the Chinatown co-op where I live. A beautiful new workbench has taken the place of my cluttered old dining room table.
To help commemorate this wicked cool addition to the home-hobbyscape I thought I should gather my posts from far and wide, edit them up, and put them in one place.
Yes, here is yet another blog featuring hobby how-to's interspersed with work-in-progress posts. The selection here will be pretty varied as I build, paint and play my way through my 15mm Sci-fi and 20mm Vietnam gaming projects.
If I stay on track and on-target you might also see some fun 28mm Sci-fi and even some Pulpy Lovecraftian goodness too!

 Here's hoping!