“A roll of the die” (week 20)

This has been an awful week painting wise as work and weather did everything it possibly could to get in the way of my relaxing painting time, after we had a major breakdown a couple of weeks back we have been playing “catch up” (with varying degrees of success I hasten to add!) so this has meant that as well as being on the dreaded “night” shift we have also been starting earlier, and added to this the weather has been uncomfortably warm during the day when I’ve been trying to sleep, neither of which has been conducive to me getting much done wargames wise (or put me in the best of moods (sorry Paula!). I had known all this last weekend so I had decided to just go with a roll of the die posting this week and was quite p[leased when a group of figures from “Merlin’s” list came up on the toss of the coins, and then thankfully it turned out to be another group of “Very British Civil War” policemen, (as these are simple and quick to get painted up). So I’m sorry if this posting seems a bit familiar to regular readers, but at least I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as my VBCW “peelers” go (though it might only be a train coming the other way!). Anyway the roll of the D20 came up with number one and that gave me as stated…

Box 1 – (4x Policemen firing rifle, and 1x Police Leader)

So after basing these “Peelers” up they went out to the garage to get their undercoat of matt black, I have noticed that it is starting to get that little bit warmer out there these days (though I still use my small fan heater when I coat them with matt varnish as it seems to dry them quicker and I haven’t had a problem with the varnish “clouding” since I started doing this).

Right when it came to painting the boys in blue it was a bit of a case of “same old, same old” As we’ve been through this a few times now, first off they were given a heavy dry-brushing with royal blue next I painted in the wooden stocks of their rifles in chocolate brown and butternut, then out came the chainmail and with this I added the metallic parts of the guns along with the buttons and badges. European and pale flesh were the colours of choice when it came time to add the fleshy bits, and then this group was given chocolate brown hair highlighted with chestnut. I touched up the boots and belts in black because as usual I’d been a bit messy with the blue before I highlighted them with dark grey and lastly (as this is always the bit I dread doing on my coppers!) I added their warrant “cuffs” in black and white. they were then finished off with basing in the usual fashion and a spray coat of matt varnish.

Sorry that it’s such a short post this week, I’d like to say that I’ll try and make up for it next week , but as we are still way behind at work I looks like I’ll be spending more time there than here! Still at least I’m back on days for the next couple of weeks. So till next week.

Cheers Roger