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Monday, 30 April 2012

Painting Tutorials: Deep Fried Happy Mice

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I love this website. It is fantastic. Finding everything can be a bit of click and miss. So here are links from Deep Fried Happy Mice for some useful pages!


A general overview page with links links links! Link.


Notes on the scale of the models and what is best. I am all for the tall 15mm's (18mm or so).  Link.


Getting started in military modelling? Link. I live in the middle of no where and paint for the love of it. I haven't had a wargame in years. But I might just try and find a club!

Little research might save a ton of heartache (and wasted money!) Link.

Starting out with painting? Here is a ton of advice! Link. Love the painting space, especially the paint box.

And a link from DFHM to a basic guide to painting. Link.

Another from DFHM to AB. Link.

Now, some websites DFHM links to are now sadly gone. However, through the stalker magic of the web there area ways to find some of them! Here is a very cool site called Ellsweb that has a very thorough guide. Link.

DFHM guide to a speed painting attempt of a British Regt. Link.

600 minutes to paint 100 Flames of War Soviets? See the painting here. Link.


Painting Tutorials: Model Dads

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Model Dads is a great website, lots of info, very interesting. There is a focus on Flames of wars and the 15/20mm WW2 field. Here are some links to some of the useful posts. It is actually a website and a blog and they don't appear to be integrated. So if you go to look around check out both!
Blog www.modeldads.co.uk/Life-at-the-Front/wordpress/
Website www.modeldads.co.uk/


Models


Beginner's guide to painting 15mm WWII figures: Part 1


Beginner's guide to painting 15mm WWII figures: Part 2


Beginner's guide to painting 15mm WWII figures: Part 3



Scenery


Timber! Making realistic 15mm model trees



Painting tutorials: Too Much Lead

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Thought I would put up some more painting tutorials. This one is from a great blog called Too Much Lead. Check it out here.


A second post on overpainting.


Fun post on How to - Paint damn fast!


A little face painting here.




Friday, 27 April 2012

Painting tutorial: Vallejo & Victrix

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I am a big fan of Vallejo paints, they have lots of pigment, easy to manipulate, easy to use. I also use Games Workshop paints and when I was younger I used Tamiya and oils based paints such as Humbrol (I still have a few of these for special things). Anyway, I saw this video and I thought it was a very good intro to painting some British. Hope you like it too.


Wednesday, 25 April 2012

Useful Pages

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Histoire et Figurine
A very interesting site with a good deal of information. I really like the illustrations and colour charts.

War Times Journal
some rules and articles.

The Foundation Napoleon
A very cool site, heaps of information. Good portal to articles that may be of interest.

Napoleonic Titles and Heraldry
Long article, old school, on what it says.

Prussian Military History
A very good site with lots of prints, notably Richard Knotel. Its in German and google translate can only do so much to help find your way around the site. Worth the effort though.

Napoleonic Literature
Like it says, some free digital versions as well as a nice bibliography.

Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution
Want to get serious with your studies? Check out the Institute at Florida State University.

Military Heritage
Want to get your own uniform? Here's the place.

The Portuguese Army at the end of the Old Regime
Lots of info on the Portuguese army, specifically during the Napoleonic wars.

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Useful Books

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I am fortunate to have a nice sized library. However, there are some books I go back to again and again. This is a short list of books you may find useful as well. I really love digital editions as well and I wish these books were all available in a digital format.

The Napoleonic Source Book  by Philip J. Haythornthwaite
I love this book, it is jam packed with lots of very useful information for the military modeller. Sadly it is out of print but I am trying to track down who currently owns the rights to the book to see if it can be republished.

A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars by Vincent J. Esposito (Author), John R. Elting (Author)
Again, this book is out of print. Buying it second hand can be an expensive affair. But if you want a good overview with lots of fantastic maps you can't go wrong with this.

NAPOLEONIC UNIFORMS: 2 Volume Boxed Set by John Elting and illustrations by Herbert Knotel
This is a 4 volume set that you can still pick up, 2 volumes form Amazon or similar and the others on the second hand market. There is simply no other sets like these to compare. They are absolutely beautiful, inside and out. The range of units covered is massive.

Soldiers and Uniforms of the Napleonic Wars by F. Hourtouille
I really love this book, interesting illustrations, some odd choices. You can see the full list of units in my review.
Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars by Digby Smith
Not my favourite book by a nice introduction covering lots of units with lots of plates. See my review here.
The Peninsular War Atlas (General Military) by Nick Lipscombe
Wow. This is a beautiful book, as the title suggests, focused on the Peninsula War.

The Campaigns of Napoleon



Osprey Publishing.

The major publishing house when it comes to military history. It is also very useful for military modellers. They also are starting to publish digital editions which I am about to try out. The quality can be a bit mixed, some of the titles need an update to incorporate new data as well as some titles that have poor illustrations. Look at reviews around the web and make your choices wisely.

15/18mm napoleonic modelling companies

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Want to know what models to buy? Where to buy them? Well I don't have all the answers. But below you will find links to all the companies that manufacture 15/18mm Napoleonic figures.

The best place to go to see a comparison of many of these brands is Deep Fried Happy Mice. Second, I personally love AB figures and Warmodelling figures for Napoleonics. I throw them into units together to get more variation. Rarely do they clash (no pun intended). I should add Eureka Miniatures Napoleonic figures in to this list as they compliment the AB/Warmodelling figures perfectly.

Campaign Game Miniatures
These are up there with AB as the best you can get, but if you consider price and the service they win hands down. A great range and it keeps growing. They are called 15mm but are really grand 15mm and fit very well with AB and Eureka.

AB
The best you can get. Sold through Eureka Miniatures since 2006. These are generally around the 18mm mark. Anthony Barton still does new lines for Eureka Miniatures when an interesting enough project comes up. So it is still slowly growing.

Eureka Miniatures
Eureka have a range of complimentary figures to the AB figures. These are top notch and compliment the AB models perfectly. They also have the 100/300 club which is fun to get in on. Essentially, it is a wish list club, you wish for it, if they get enough preorders, they will model it.

Warmodelling
A spanish company, with a huge range. I have never bought direct because the postage was exorbitant. But it may be better now. I order through Scale Creep Miniatures in the US. These figures generally mix well with the AB and Eureka figures from above, all being generally around the 18mm mark.

Napoleon at War
Another new company. It has a limited selection of French, British and a few Prussians. They sell their models in brigade size boxes and are designed to be played to their own set of rules. I have some of these models and will paint them up. They are bringing blister packs and you can buy their bases (the rules work of their base sizes). I am tempted to base all my models to this rule system as I get the impression it is popular and you could still use the models in Lasalle and other systems with ease.

Essex
I painted a lot of these when I was younger. They are alright but don't compare to the AB, Eureka and Warmodelling figures.

Minifigs
Minifigs have been around a long time and there have been multiple generations of sculptings. I remember sitting down with the Minifigs catalog as a child, going over each page again and again. It was fun dreaming about putting an order together.

Old Glory
Big bags, cheap price. French, Austrian, British, Prussian, Russian. Thats as much as she wrote.

Vexillia Miniatures
Vexillia bought the quite lovely looking One Tree Miniatures Ottoman range. I have a post on the Ottomans and I might get some and paint them up! Fight the Russians :)

Chariot
Now trading under the company Magister Militum.

MJ Figures
Deep Fried Happy Mice reviews some MJ french but looking at the MJ website I see no Napoleonics. Hmm, maybe discontinued?

Museum Miniatures
British, French, Prussians. Limited lines.

Naismith

Tabletop
Not sure where you can get these.

Warrior Miniatures

Wildly Inspired Miniatures
Now owned by Battleline Miniatures.

Black Hat Miniatures
French and Prussians.

Falcon Figures
They have Napoleonics, no webstore.

UK Frontier
War of 1812. They look a bit varied and blocky, touch of the gnome. Very limited.


Battle Honours
These were once my favourite models. Many were sculpted by Anthony Barton of AB, so that explains their quality. They are usually a little smaller than the AB lines however.


Purchashing


I did buy mainly Warmodelling, AB and Eureka but discovered Campaign Game Miniatures. I purchase my models through Eureka Miniatures (Australia) and Scale Creep (US) as well as Campaign Game Miniatures. I have always gotten great service at all these sites. I also get my Vallejo paints from Eureka. I plan to have a look at buying straight from Warmodelling (Spain) again for my next order and see what the postage will be [ed. I bought direct and the postage was very reasonable, the formula they use has changed].


Last updated 1/2013

What this blog is all about

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Okay, bear with me, this is my first blog. The idea for this blog is really an experiment in presenting information that is useful to Napoleonic military modellers. See, I grew up in country Australia in the 1980s. We were lucky to have power, we had to ring a telephone exchange down the road on our crank phone. But that was the world. But we did get our first computer in the early 1980s at my school, a TRS-80 or similar. And in the early 1990s I was introduced to the WWW. But in those early days I would look forward to our trips to Sydney or Brisbane where we could buy new models and I would sit for hours pawing over an Essex Miniatures or Minifigs catalog. Worse yet, we were still using a whole lot of oil based paints.

Anyway, I have opined the lack of online material available for modellers and thought, hey, I can do something about that. I have constructed, curated and edited numerous websites but they were generally static, old school, and, well, boring. I would like to see this blog grow over time and become a very useful resource for like minded individuals. So lets get to it! Feel free to comment and add corrections!

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