Euro Miltaire 2012

It was the yearly pilgrimage to Folkestone for the talent showcase which is Euro-Militaire on Saturday and the Boy Slug, Captain Stinky and myself dutifully made our way down there bathed in sunshine. Although the quality gap between modellers and gamers work is shrinking year on year there is one glaring difference between the two, namely the price of everything. Model kits and accessories are hair-whiteningly expensive in comparison but the modellers don’t seem to mind. Big thanks to the ladies on the door for their friendly welcome, although I do think many visitors don’t bring themselves to say “Good Morning” to them. Why I couldn’t say.

Bumped into Jason Salkey, who is well-known to Salute visitors, otherwise known as Rifleman Harris from the TV series Sharpe’s Rifles, also chums Daring Dan, Fascist Child Killer Tony and a few lads from the local gaming club. The most intriguing stall was the Airfix one showing their much anticipated 1/48th modern British models, which were very nice but they just had a display and not a single one for sale.

Despite the great organisation and obvious efforts by all involved a couple of gripes remain. One is the number of visitors who insist on wearing large rucksacks in a well attended and therefore crowded show. Typically they move as if they weren’t wearing them, sending the uninitiated flying. Regulars have in turn developed their own techniques for dealing with them from braced standing to returning shoves and it doesn’t help the atmosphere.  The second is the lighting in the display and competition rooms, which is only a problem if you’re taking photographs – and there’s a lot of folk snapping away. Gripes aside it’s a cracking show and as the European wide attendance shows it’s worth making the effort to pay it a visit.

Here’s just over a hundred photos from the weekend, mainly stuff which took my eye, had reasonable light and wasn’t too crowded to get near.

Should anyone know the story behind the photo of Ken’s Cup, featured above, I’d love to hear it.

Not a Tankless Task

A great weight has been lifted off the shoulders of the workers at Slug Industries seeing as we’ve finally got our latest, and hopefully greatest, model finished. Not a simple one this, with around forty hours on the build alone, seperate moulds for components, and the hot weather mucking up the paintjob on the first cast, but only after full highlighting. In other words a bit of a pain.

Here’s the first paintjob shortly before a lot of the surfaces simply started to crack. A few attempts at repair later and other cracks and flakes appeared. Casting another and painting that proved to be quicker.

The rear door which shows the riveting quite well.

The armoured radiator, which looks flat although it’s made of semi circular tubing, and the Dambuster style headlights. The idea being that they’re adjustable, so you could set a rang to them and when the merged lights lit up a target it’s at the predeterminde range. Probably worth a +1 on any dice roll – if it’s at night.

The first wheel layout. Ending up putting two extra pairs in after Orkdung over at VBCF quite rightly pointed out how it looked under powered. Figure gives a sense of scale.

 

Have I Got News for You

I was seeking a camera man for a FUBAR scenario involving Ross Kemp having already modded a figure suitable. Also I thought I could do with a a more American reporter for those rare occassions when I allow Freddy Forrin on the table.  In the end I went for the Assault Group reporter and an Em4 camera bloke. They work well, even if my photography doesn’t do them any favours.  Both were great fun to paint – the reporter has a flak jacket on while the camera man doesn’t, but I feel that reflects the very different worlds they inhabit… another nugget of wisdom born from the meditation you enjoy while painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the photo of the finished Ross Kemp aside the camera. Well it would be but I’ve mislaid him!

Die Nacht der Toten

The boy Slug has a slowly evolving nazi zombie project inspired, in part, by the Call of Duty game which features the opportunity to shoot Nazi zombies. These figures are part of West Wind Productions Secrets of the Third Reich which we picked up a couple of Salutes ago. Rather uphappily I didn’t enjoy painting these at all. The detail seems a little limited, even confused. I have a sneaking suspicion this might be why these were the ones I was asked to paints.

The bases are the 30mm DS Ruined Flagstone set from Fenris Games, and those I enjoyed working on more than the figures. Slug set the figures on the bases and rather well I think, I really liked the one with a stream trickling through it, and the boy set the figure firmly standing in it.

All-in-all an odd experience. usually I strive to paint up to the sculpt but on these the piece which demanded justice was the base…

Even more Bazaar

Filling out the Jihadistan project gave me the chance to paint these rather brilliant Eureka miniatures‘ middle eastern civilians. There’s also a couple of stalls but I haven’t quiet figured out the best way to base those so they can wait.  It’s easy to assume how simple figures are simple to sculpt, and the burqa clad ladies might ecourage that train of thought.

However I already have a couple of burqa wearers and they’re simple figures simply done whereas these have been much better made. Each figure has a distinct attitude in it’s carving making them look more like a moment frozen in time.

They’re also rather timeless, with the exception of the woman with carrier bags, so could fit in an ancient scenario right up to the modern day. Although I wouldn’t buy anything from the traders I’ll be knocking on Eurekas door again.