Favorite Figures I Painted in 2022, Part 1

Officer, Queen’s Own Guides, Infantry, Punjab Frontier Force.

Over the next several months I will be moving to a new location so the posts for the near future will be far and few between! Here are my favorite figures I painted this year in chronological order. Details on the figures are in the links below the image:

Imperial Russian mechanized Steam Walker.

Sea Monster.

Figure conversion to make Mahbub Ali the "Red Beard".

Another conversion of a British Political Officer on the Northwest Frontier.

Officer, 10th Bengal Lancers.

Naik, Queen's Own Guides, Infantry PFF.

Another conversion, The Mad Mullah!

One of the possible combinations from the Perry Afghan set. This guy just looks cool.

Officer, Queen’s Own Guides, Infantry, Punjab Frontier Force.

Next: More Favorite figures from 2022.

First Quarter 2022 Update: How's the Plan going?

 

"Sound the charge! Though there have been some setbacks the plan is going forward!"

Here is the plan I developed for 2021; let's see how it's going. Actually the 1st Quarter was almost a complete bust - some good and some bad. January was a major setback fighting infectious diseases as I came down with strep throat and Covid. Throughout the quarter we did some serious travelling visiting my Honorable Sons and Beautiful Daughters-in-law. So how did it go?

1. Continue to make my hobby self-sustaining as much as possible with eBay sales, commissions and the blog. By the way, if you are interested in having figures painted, feel free to contact me at nreinwald@yahoo.com.

Several extremely successful auctions and blog revenue is helping! Here were two of the auctions:

The Royal Fusiliers

14th Sikhs

2. Scottish Units for the English Civil War. Nothing like already having unpainted figures to encourage you to save money - especially when you really want to paint them! My goal is to:

    a. Paint one to two Regiments of Foot. The actual number of regiments will depend on some conversions I need to due for musketeers as I have plenty of pike.

    b. Two units of Horse/Mounted Dragoons. No dismounted dragoons yet!

    c. One big honking cannon - pretty sure it's a Saker from Warlord Games but I'm too lazy to go up to the War Room and look right now.

The Scots will be painted later in the year.

Where is my cavalry?

3. Imperial Russian Army circa somewhere in my imaginary universe from 1880 to 1910. I've been having fun with my Fictional conflict of the Anglo-Russian War. Be a Daniel Mersey fan of many years, I use The Men Who Would be Kings (Paid Link) as my rules; though, I am thinking about giving The East is Ablaze a try. (Ministry of Finance) Yep, a sucker for Hollywood style and fun rules.

    a. One unit of Regular Infantry. (Ministry of Finance)

    b. One unit of Dragoons. (Ministry of Finance)

    c. One unit of Cossacks. (Ministry of Finance)

This one is still iffy. Now I don't want to talk politics because this is a fun blog on Toy Soldies, but I wrote down my predictions in December about fuel prices, etc. Time will tell whether the Russians will get their reinforcements.

"Where are my fellow Sowars?"

4. The British Indian Army.

    a. One unit of Sikh Cavalry (The 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry). Complete!

The 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry mounted with the alternative basing method for The Men Who Would be Kings (Paid Link).

    b. One unit of Bengal Lancers.  (Ministry of Finance) Purchased!

    b. One unit of Highlanders. Purchased!

    c. One unit of Gurkhas. (Ministry of Finance) Not Yet!

    d. A British Political Officer in Native Dress. How can you have the Great Game without a Political Officer? I'm planning on using a figure from the Perry Miniatures Hard Plastic Afghan Tribesman (Paid Link) box.

Not only did I do a Political Officer in Native Dress, but I did the fictional character Mahbub Ali "The Red Beard" from the classic novel Kim, by Rudyard Kipling.

Colonel Sir Robert Warburton, KCIE, CSI

Mahbub Ali, "The Red Beard"

5. Afghanistan.

    a. Two units of 16 figures each of Perry Miniatures hard plastic Tribal Infantry. (Paid Link)

    b. Anything else will depend on tribute . . . err . . . subsidies from the British Raj or Imperial Russia.

Making progress on my tribesman . . . but there is a change of plans. After doing more research I'm going to do two units of 12 "shooters" and 2 units of 16  figures for the more melee focused troops.

Making progress!

Three down, three to go.

6. French and Indian War. Did someone mention I'm a Daniel Mersey fan. Continuing on with the French and Indian War using Rebels and Patriots. (Paid Link)

    a. Finish one more unit of Native Skirmishers. Complete!

    b. One unit of French Regulars. (Ministry of Finance) I don't know.

    c. One unit of British Regulars or Colonial Regulars/Militia. (Ministry of Finance) As above.

Old GW Warhammer figures to use with Dragon Rampant.

7. Elite Heavy Elf Infantry for Dragon Rampant (Paid Link): This is a carryover from last year and won't take too long to finish. Complete!

8. In Her Majesty's Name, 2nd Edition.

    a. Update my Adventuring Company's to the 2nd Edition. 

Slowly but surely.

    b. Finish drafting and then play our campaign for 2022. Locally we had a multi-year campaign called "The War of the Witches" which involved, whenever available, friends, kids of friends, my Honorable Sons, and me (usually getting my butt kicked or being the gamemaster/umpire). With the victory of the Forces of Good (they had Teddy Roosevelt!) over the Forces of Evil (BWAH HAH HAH!) it's time to start another campaign. Two of the main, evil Adventuring Companies somehow managed to escape the defeat . . . and of course Professor Moriarty figured out which way the wind was blowing and helped (kinda). The first game will have the premier of my new Adventuring Company in the Highlands of Scotland.

The campaign has been delayed but will happen!

The fools THINK they won. BWAH HAH HAH!!!

    c. Do some odds and ends that will be needed for the campaign; you know - unexpected surprises! And here they are:

9. Terrain.

    a. Paint the roof of the mill and some other parts! I spent some time in New England visiting Honorable Son #1 (The Librarian) and his Beautiful Bride (The Doctor) plus Honorable Son #3 (The Engineer) and his Beautiful Bride (The Social Warrior) and was able to take a look at some real mills in the area. And some other areas of interest - but that is for another post.

I finished painting the mill but need to take some pictures!

    b. Put together an MDF Tavern that was given to me by Honorable Son #2 (The Captain) and his Beautiful Bride (The Lawyer). Looking forward to putting this together and using it on the tabletop. 

I still need to put it together.

    c. Scratch build a frontier fort. It's coming.

10. Play games! Sadly, no games yet.

    a. English Civil War.

    b. The Anglo-Russian War.

    c. The French and Indian War.

    d. The IHMN2 campaign (need to come up with a name of impending doom for the world).

11. Secret projects.

    a. Getting back to my gaming roots. This will be the subject of a future post whether it is financed or not. (Ministry of Finance) Done! Back to mass battle Napoleonic's with WoFun Miniatures.

    b. A board game/miniature project. (Ministry of Finance) Maybe.

On with the hobby year!

Subtropical Sea-louse!

"It’s an Antediluvian Bulldozer!" exclaims Captain Haddock.

There are many unexplored and mysterious places on the face of this earth in the world of 1895. Some hold countless and unknown terrors for explorers and adventurers - one of which is the Sea Louse. Found only in fresh water, it has an unknown habitat and is thought by some to be closely related to sea serpents. The danger is not restricted to the water; there are some unconfirmed reports that the Sea-Louse can also transverse the ground near fresh water sources (Reference Quartermain, A., Unpublished diary, entry August 27, 1893).

The figure I call the Sea-Louse is a 3D download from Duncan Shadow known as the Abolith. Below is the profile I have developed for In Her Majesty's Name and it can be integrated easily into other popular games like Pulp Alley and Empire of the Dead:

Name: Sea-Louse

Pluck: 3+

Move: 12 inches in Water/4 inches on Land

Run: 6 inches in Water/2 inches on Land

Fighting Value: +4

Shooting Value: +0

Speed: +0

Talents: Amphibious, Night-eyes, Terrifying

Basic Equipment: Teeth that are Poisonous! (Already added to Pluck modifier) Attack bonus is +2 and Pluck modifier -3.

Armor: 10 (Scales)
Points: 59

You are definitely going to need a bigger boat.

Imperial Russian Steam Walker Tsarina Maria and Tsar Alexander

A Tsar Alexander Mechanized Steam Walker in support of the the Izmaylovsky Lifeguards Regiment somewhere in Central Asian near the British Raj.

Though late to add Mechanized Walkers to the Imperial Forces, due to conservative elements in the court and Russian Government, the Russians have embraced the simplicity and ruggedness of the Tsarina Maria Light Walker and the Tsar Alexander Heavy Walker (though classified by foreign powers as a Medium Walker). The Tsarina Maria is usually deployed with Lifeguard Cavalry Regiments and the irregular cavalry of the many Cossack Nations that owe allegiance to the Tsar. The Tsar Alexander, as a slower walker, is found supporting infantry regiments and is ideal for assaulting fortifications and fighting other walkers.

What would Victorian Science Fiction be without mechanized steam walkers? I received this beautiful, classic design as an STL file when I received the digital version of In Her Majesty's Name, Second Edition (link in the US and link in the UK/Europe). The Walker is a 3D file available from Duncan "Shadow" Louca on his website at IHMN Steam Punk Walkers. Rules for Walkers can be found in Chapter 5 of IHMN2. I sent the files to Honorable Son #3 (The Engineer) who not only has a 3D printer, but has TWO 3D printers! The boy is going to be getting some more files.

I had posted some pictures of my Walker on Facebook in the Group dedicated to In Her Majesty's Name and was asked how I painted the Walker. Fortunately I took pictures step by step since I had never done a 3D figure before and Honorable Son #3 (The Engineer) and his Beautiful Bride (The Social Warrior) wanted to see how it was coming along. Here is the painting guide; though there is no real right answer on how to paint Walkers. Use your imagination!

This may seem obvious, but I glued the arms and legs to the body of the model. This was the first time I put a 3D printed resin model together so I did some research to find out what glue works best. I used Gorilla Glue liquid gel and it worked perfectly - a word of caution though, it dries quickly! I originally was going to base it on a Litko base, but I then I realized I was getting low in numbers with the 1 1/2" size (I've got some cavalry coming up!) so I carefully took it off the base (I used white glue) and glued it with Gorilla glue onto an old GW round base. I then primed it with Flat Black.

After the primer dried, I used a technique I call "wet brush". It is similar to dry brushing but I use more paint and I don't worry too much if the paint is not smooth especially on models that you want to have some wear and tear. It is also perfect if there are raised parts of the model or figure as they are naturally outlined in black.

The color I used for wet brushing was Citadel Ironbreaker (or whatever the color is called now). All of the other paints I used are Vallejo unless specifically stated.

Duncan gave this model some great detail.

After I finished this phase it suddenly dawned on me where I had seen the model before. It is illustrated on the cover of the 1st Edition of In Her Majesty's Name.

I then painted the viewing port (?) and what I'm calling the machine gun openings Dark Prussian Blue. Once it was dry I went over it with a blast from the past I bought in Germany in 1987, GW Blue Wash!

When's the last time you saw this bottle?

I then painted the rivets and bolts and ball bearings, etc. Brass.

I finished the painted by adding some Dark Blue, Sky Blue and then White to the ports to just give it some extra "reflection" effect.

For the Imperial Russian Eagle I looked for common use images and then reduced them as images using Powerpoint. I glued the image on the Steam Walker, let it dry, and then I painted the image.

Time to finish the base on this bad boy. The most common method I use for basing is to use some water downed white glue, spread it on the base and then deep the based in one of my mixtures of hobby sand.

Once the sand dries, I add another layer of white glue that is even more watered down to seal the sand in place.

Once that is dry, I add some splotches of white glue randomly, mix it with water and then dip the base in static grass. I wait about 30 minutes and then spray with a matt or flat protective covering.

Ta-Dah! Ready to take on the enemies of the Tsar and Mother Russia.

More to come later on the Imperial Russian Army for In Her Majesty's Name, Second Edition.