Colore ton Monde: April

First off, a few WIP shots of the Samurai I have chosen for this month's Colore ton Monde. I was initially lacking inspiration for this, but the muted/darker base coat with brighter (really bright) highlights seems to be working out better than I imagined.

In the end, it was a rather simple job of watered down base coat, light inking, then highlights.

Then, the final mini. I have not finished the base, as I don't know how I want to base him yet, as along with the other Samurai and oriental figures I own, i have no gaming use for them. As yet. I suppose for him to be 100% complete, I'd have to paint his spear, but I think I'll leave that off for now, for ease of packing.

Colore ton Monde: Avril/April Cleaning up the Clutter.

The results from March's painting challenge are now online (post of my entry here), and can be found here.  Also, this is a call out to anyone who wants to participate. The Club Chaos blog and Colore ton Monde challenge may be based in Montreal, but they are open to anyone who wants to enter. So, if you want to join in, please do!

This month's Colore ton Monde is a play on the spring clean from a year ago:

C'est le printemps, on fait le ménage dans nos vieilles traîneries

Pour le mois d'avril, nous vous invitons à peindre un VIEUX modèle. Fouillez vos tiroirs pour la figurine la plus ancienne de votre collection, ou à défaut, au moins celle que vous possédez depuis le plus longtemps.

It's spring time, time to clean out the clutter.

For the month of April, we invite you to paint an OLD model. Rake around in your drawers for the oldest figure in your collection, or at least one you have had for a long time.

The oldest figures I have in my current collection would be those I brought over with me. These include the starter box for Khador, and Eiryss, which I bought at Claymore a long time ago. Of those, Sorcsha and Eiryss are only half painted. Otherwise, on the same outing, I bought these Samurai. Don't ask me why, I have no gaming use for them, and I didn't the either. It's just an era I'm interested in.

They came as a box of 6, and I don't remember what company made them, but of the 6, 3 are undercoated, and at least one will be painted this month.

So, here we go...

1/72 Samurai

So why 2 boxes of 1/72 Samurai in my last shopping spree I hear you all ask. Well the answer is, why not? For one, I wanted to see what scale 1/72 is. I mean, for sure I can go on to wikipedia, and read all about the different modelling scales, but there is no better way to learn than through experience. So, 1/72 is supposed to be somewhere between 15mm and 20mm. Well, I have some small-ish samurai models I bought a long time ago, so lets see how they match up. Also, there was no way to look into any of the boxes, and these two were amongst the cheapest that fit into an era of my interest.

So, what did I get for my $5 (each), well, first off, some snap fit models that are apparently expansions for a game called Art of Tactic (although the website only contains information on their WWII game). There's some nasty translation from the Russian going on there, but I'll let that pass.  There are 5 Ashigaru to a box, and 2 mounted figures. They seem clean models, with no flash, and easy enough to take off the sprues. You can use the snap together system, but I found it made a cleaner join if I just cut off the little plugs and glued the parts together. Once this was done, they went together really cleanly.

back of the Ashigaru box

The boxes also contain a card for each of the units for use, I assume, in the game. There are only numbers and pictures on the cards, so I guess they'll work for any language (currently only Russian and English seem to be supported). The box also contains 5 of each red and yellow flags (sashimono), and neat little decals to assign the troops to either the Oda or Takeda faction. These I do like, and you get extras, so I can use these elsewhere. I do like decals.

Back of the Mounted Samurai box

Can I use them? Well, unlikely that I will buy into Art-of-Tactic as a game, considering these were the only two kinds of mini available, and their site doesn't support the Samurai version of the game (not to mention I doubt the translation from Russian to English for any rules I'm likely to find will no doubt be terrible). Also, they are far too small to be used with the other Samurai figs I have, which are at least 25mm, so no. They're not likely to see the table top any time soon, but I do think they are kind of cute, and may very well paint them up, at least as a test for my painting for this scale. And although I have yet to put them together, the mounted Samurai do look to be just as cute. What I did learn here though, is that if I do want to get into 15-18mm Napoleonics, as this scale seems to be more 18mm than 15mm, to play, for example, Napoleon at War if it catches on in my gaming circles, then I know exactly where to go to buy my minis in bulk.

Size comparison. Nope, too small!

Shopping spree

I had a long lunch today, and walked that little bit further out of town than my usual gaming store to the hobby store (Udisco). This is the warehouse sized place that sells all the other modelling stuff, whether it's model trains, planes. boats, RC cars, airplanes, helicopters, the works. They have a large (and I mean huge) selection of miniature soldiers in 1:72 and 1:35 scale. Up until my recent foray into historical minis, I have always gave this section a miss, but I decided to give this section a good browse.

In the end, I spent too much money in the place (I always do, but what they have is so reasonably priced compared to hobby stores), and came out with the following:

The Haul

Dead Trees

• box of dead trees
• box of 1:35 NATO tank ammo and boxes
• 2 packs of tree foliage (3 colours total)
• scenic long grass
• Bone saw with 2 blades (called a razor saw here)
• Water effect (same price as a small bottle in the games store for x10 the volume) this time it's the sculptable water effect rather than still water.
• 1 box 1/72 scale Mounted Samurai
• 1 box 1/72 Ashigaru-Yari

This may seem like completely random purchasing, but there's method to my madness, hear me out.

1/35 NATO 105mm shells

The dead trees are perfect for 28mm scenery and or bases, and the foliage will do them proud. Dead trees will go especially well on the kind of trench bases my current Khador seem to be based on. Go look at any WWI photography, dead trees everywhere in the trenches. The grass is great stuff, I already have some in a different colour, and going with the trench bases/scenery, the shell cases and boxes will fit right in. They did have some metal casings, but they seemed kind of skinny for what I wanted, and expensive (the sealed box meant I wasn't sure what the ones I bought were made from till I got them home. The razor saw was a bit of an extravagance. In theory, this will allow for better cleaner cutting for conversions. In practice, I'm a ways away from doing the kind of conversion that requires a razor saw.

Ok, so what are these made of?

 And the 1/72 Samurai? Yeah, that one is harder to justify, but I'll give them a post of their own to explain, and to showcase them.