Painting Service Launched

Hi Everyone,

The blog has finally been re-named and re-designed (well slightly).  I am happy to annouce that I will also now be accepting painting commisions.

If you are interested in getting someone to paint those miniatures for you please contact me, I will paint and ship internationally.  I specialise in 6-15mm  To give you a bit of a background.  I have been wargaming and painting since 1993.  It was in the last few years that I really started to develop my painting techniques.

I have won a couple of best painted awards and had a few highly commended.  To name a couple I claimed best painted:

1st Official Battlefront GT - NZ - 15mm German Grenadiers
2008 - Best Painted Napoleonic Army - NZ - 15/18mm Peninsular British

Highly Commended:

Panzerscheck (Previous year before 1st Offical BF GT) - 15mm German Grenadiers
2009 - Second place - 6mm Napoleonic French (Up against 28mm Napoleonics, Napoleonic Ships)

I do not attend too many events, but each event I attended into a competition the above awards we given.

If you have any questions please contact me, painting rates are on a request.

Cheers

Russell Woodland (Angel's Miniature Painting Service)

Off the Grid....

Well, I seem to have fallen off the update grid for quite some time. As with all wargamers I have had a bit of break, and with home life taking over for a while I have now come back online.

I have managed to complete those PT boats, they actually were part of a commision and of course I forgot to take photos. Now that was my idiot moment.

I do still have some work to do on the kits, but with a quick chat with Mark I have decided to take a month off his stuff and concentrate on a bit of my stuff. He was more than happy with the work.

You see with commision work, I am not a full time painter and only paint in my spare time (and Mark is one of my mates). I like to make sure that I paint them to the standard that I would be happy with owing myself. On a professional note, I do serious commisions and my turn around is pretty quick. If I am set a deadline, or I give a deadline it is one that I won't miss.

Right back to painting

Cheers

Russell

Been a while

Well I have been off the blog for a while, mainly due to other commitments ect. What have I been up to latley.

Well Painted the first of the PT boats, which consists of 6 German S-38's, 1 German S-30, 2 Raumboote and a Rescue boat. They came up better than I thought they would. Will try and snap some photos soon.

I am currently working on the British fleet, starting today I hope to have them painted by the end of the week.

Then I will move onto the Japs, USA & Merchants.

I recently parted with my 6mm Napoleonic French and in place I purchased:

1 x War of Spanish Succession Starter Box
1 x British/Saxon Foot Booster
1 x Standard Foot Booster
1 x Bavarian Army Pack
1 x Dutch Army Pack
1 x Pack of Battalion Guns
1 x Pack of Horse
1 x Pack of Short Mitre

The War of Spanish Succession is an interesting period that I have been reading about for the last few weeks, and certainly a colorful period.

The rules I will be using is Might & Reason by Sam Mustafa, with the addition of Sun King by Greg Savvinos

This should give me for each side about:

13 Infantry Brigades
6-8 Horse Regiments
4 Dragoon Regiments
2 Bases of Artillery
8 Stands of Generals

Each Brigade/Regiment is 2 stands strong. Infantry will be based on a 60*30 base with 24 figs per base at the moment, I may increase to 32/36 figs possibly, Horse will be 9-12 figs per base, Artillery on a 60*60. CinC on a 40*40 and sub-commanders on a 30*30.

The main rule set is based on the Seven Years War & War of Austrian Succession, but the supplement from Greg allows you to play the battles of the Spanish Succession.

This make's it easy to build an army fast, as you can either build to the points list or write a scenario.

So this will be interesting to get into once I have finished the PT boats. But between finishing the boats, I will be once again going off to Nicon (North Island Con) here in NZ over Queen's B'day weekend (5th June) to play some 1st Volley 15mm Napoleonic rules.

Should be a good weekend.

Well thats what I have been up to of late, will try to get back on track with the blog

PT Boats

Well recently purchased some PT boats of PT Dockyards. So I started to assemble/clean them today. 45 Boats, I must admidt I was sceptical about 1/600 PT boats. But after recieving fantastic service of Dave at PT, not to mention speedy postal work my worries faded away.

A warning though about cleaning the guns. Make sure you use a sharp knife, steady hand and have a bit of patience as I found that the guns are well cast but a small slip will see a barrel disappear.

So with all of the boats now cleaned up, will start to assemble them tomorrow. The boats probably wont make it onto the blog, well at least for some time.

With a lot of projects on the run, we will see what comes up next.

Offline for a bit

Well I do appologise for my absence, I took a 5 day break over the Easter Weekend and have been busy with work.

All that I have managed to do is pick up a copy of Pathfinder RPG & Beastiary.

Now as there is bound to be some people that will take a dig at Pathfinder, and I would like to ask all visitors to leave the AD&D4th ED is better than Pathfinder ect at the Door.

To give you a little bit of background, the last time I played D&D / AD&D would be about 15 years ago. So when looking into it now that I have "grown" up a little I read the pro's and con's of both systems.

I do not know what drew me more to Pathfinder, guess it was the price difference of Pathfinder with the Beastiary book compaired with the AD&D 4th ED stuff, at the end of the day they will probably cost me just as much.

So after not playing for well over 15 years, I start my adventure fresh. Well when the books arrive.

I will be adding the adventures, purchases to the blog as I get into it. Always wanted to be a DM. Now I just need to find some other keen players.

At present just myself and Craig, so three other players and were away.

Will even throw Dark Heresy in there at some point as well.

Well bit busy this weekend, so will plan on an update on Monday

So where to from here

Well I finally finished those fences off, it took a while but I got there in the end. So with them done where to from here....

Well to go with the fences, I need some troops. I have been researching a lot lately on the American Civil War, and with that in mind I purchased some Baccus 6mm figs.

At a 1:10 ratio I have sorted out The "Stonewall" Brigade, these are going to be based on two game systems.

The first is Guns at Gettysburg by Dave Brown, a very similar system to General de Brigade (Well it's pretty much the same)

The second rule set, Piquet and using the supplement Hallow Ground.

Now a question that is asked on a regular basis is what shade of grey, or what paint should I use for the grey. Now the short answer that I have found is well, there was that much variance it doesn't matter.

From a lot of reading that I have done, the Confederate uniform started off as shades of blue, and faded to grey, now please feel free to correct me on this as I am still learning.

Over the coming few weeks, I will be starting to paint the Confederates and I will be bringing you along on the journey, in the hope that you can learn from what I have done and be able to apply to your own miniatures.

An old classic

I recently acquired an old classic board game of trade me. 1974 copy of Avalon Hill's Panzer Leader.

Now to say the least, it is definitely a used copy but for only $12.50 NZD including shipping it was a bargain.

After looking at the counters and the maps, I decided something needed to be done about the state of them, as most had water damage and definetly had that musky smell to them.

I recently stumbled upon a website which has re-done the counters and are available for free.

So with a craft knife, ruler, artists mounting card, spray glue and the tokens printed off in colour I have set to making a new set of counters, I will in time be replacing the maps with the updated maps.

This will be a longer term project and the counters and maps will be done when cost and time permits.

I have already printed off the German ones and mounted them. I am in the process of cutting them up today. Will post some photos of the old ones, and the replacements.

The final stages completed

Well, it took a while to make these but I am very happy with the final result on them. Here are a few more progress shots on the static grass effect:



PVA applied, with the PVA I have found it is better to apply thinner and lighter rather than in big blobs, something that I used to do:

Not sparing any expense, I heavily applied or sprinkled in this case static grass over the PVA:

Now this next step took me a while to get it right, but using the handle of the brush I lightly tapped the grass into the PVA, going over it a couple of times to make sure that the grass would stick:

Now I managed to work on a section at a time, so applyed the PVA, then the grass, pressed it down. I then turned the base over and flicked the bottom of the base from left to right then right to left.

Turning the base back over again I found that just the one application wasn't quite enough for my liking.

So below you see me loosely sprinkling the grass over once again and repeating with the brush.

And the final result from the grass:

(This base was one of the few where there wasn't quite enough grass, so went over and re-applied after the photo)

After the grass was applied, they should look a little something like this:

Now ignore the colour in this shot, as you can see it lightens the wood more that it actually is.

I will get to posting a few more photos in the next couple of days outside when the weather improves.

So all in all I managed to make 12' worth of fencing, plus 4 corners which measure 50mm x 50mm in an L shape.

Just below are the corners:

One final note, which will help if you feel the height is still a little high, I did this little extra step.

Where each rail crosses over at the start point and the next cross join with one finger on each join (Not in the middle of the rail or it will snap) apply a medium 5 second count then move onto the next.

I went through each section (When I refer to a section I mean each 15cm section) twice. It has dropped the height just enough.

Take your time with this as I found I am a little heavy and heard a couple of snaps. But because the wood is reasonably soft it only broke the top rail - not in two to just split it, however has not affected the visuals at all.

Hope that you have enjoyed watching me go through this, don't think I will be making anymore for a little while now.

A tad on the sick side

Well with the Wife being sick the last three weeks, I seem to have caught something finally and it knocked me off my feet for a few days. Only just starting to feel a little better now and I have finally knocked on the third row.

As well as that layed out the 1st of 4 corners.

Just a few photos, I have now clipped them down a little as well so all that is left is to add the static grass.

Update on the Fences

Well just a small update here. Managed to get the second row down on the fences. It took me about 5 minutes per 23 rails.

So just over an hour to get that second row on, should have the third row done late tonight and if dry I will be trimming the rails.

The first shot shows the height of the second row:

And a few shots of the completed second row:

More photos to follow once the 3rd row is done.

Just plodding away with the rails at the moment, just placed the next 3 rails onto each base.

I will have a chance to work on them properly on Monday as this is my next day off.

On another note, got thinking about starting some 3mm Pico Armour. Using the rules of BKC, and the theatre would be Afrika around 42-43.

But first things first got to get these fences finished.

Let the fun begin

Well a bit of a busy weekend saw the fences put aside for a couple of days, but the good news I am now back on track with the construction

First the stack of strips ready to be cut:

3000+ cuts later I now have a container full of 22-24mm rails:

So, after much thought about the angles, I made sure that the first rail is exactly 22mm. Set half way up the base, and angled to the maximum length here is how the first rail is placed:

Next I had to place the next two angled pieces, this set up that angles for the rest of the rail:

Followed by the next rail (Also you will see the full base section laid down)

This does take a little bit more time than I expect the rest of the rails to go down. This is because I am taking care setting up the base angles.

Once this has been done it will be a case of just placing the new rail ontop.

Well back to placing those rails down, oh and if you wondering how I am attaching the rails to each other and the base, its a nice helping of PVA wood glue. I am taking care to only place a small drop onto the rails.

Photos

Well getting there, just been working on painting the edges of the bases. Once this is done I will be going through and applying the highlights to the sand ect.

Then on with the assembly. As promised here are a few photos of me getting there:

With the cutter set to 15mm (This is just about how wide it can go)

Start slicing the wood

After a few cuts I ended up with this:

Measuring along I made several light slices at 150mm

And the resulting pile of bases:

Then applying the PVA, this is where I had to be careful as too much and I would have a bannana on my hand.

Once the sand was applied the one thing that I hoped would not happen did, the wood started to warp. A bit of quick thinking and I grabbed a couple of pots and stacked them ontop. This saved the project from going down the drain:

After leaving them for a couple of hours to be sure, I went about putting an ink through the bases. Here is what was used:

And the end result:

Well thats this round of updates for photos, stay tuned for more once more progress is made.

1 Cut down 2999 to go

Well that was last night, and I have now managed to cut all of the stained rails up. It gave me approx 3000 rails at approx 22mm (update, decided to go 2mm longer)

So onto the next part, which is painting the bases. Once they have had the colours into them and edged, then the fun will begin of assembly.

Will update in the next day or so with photos ect.

Once the fences are done then I will be working on the 6mm troops.

Fence Progress #2

Managed to get the rails stained today, this took me about an hour and a half. Also bases have been cut and sanded as well as inked.

I have started with 12' of bases, plus 4 corners.

To be on the safe side I decided to leave the rails to dry for the rest of the day and over night.

A couple of things to note though, Balsa, sand and PVA = small warping. As soon as I saw this i grabed a couple of heavy pots (Hand cream and bacterial cream) and placed them on top until the PVA had a chance to cure.

Sorted that almost disaster out.

Also leaving the bases to dry overnight.

So where does that put the project:

Rails all stained but still need cutting down to 20mm lengths
Bases cut, sanded and inked ready for paint

Next to do will be cutting all of those rails, will probably take the better part of tomorrow night. Once they have been done will work on painting the bases.

Then comes the most time consuming bit, assembling them.

Will update with some photos tomorrow night.

Total time spent on project to date: 9 Hours

Fence Progress

Before I start I would like put a small warning, this can be a little bit fiddly but patience does pay off.

So as a teaser (Apologies for the quality on the photo, shot at night and away from workstation)

The following is the prototype (don't worry the fence is straight and level)

It did take a bit of playing around with the cut sizes but after a couple attempts, I have settled on 1mm.

The sheet of balsa wood that was used:

930mm (L) x 100mm (W) x 1.5mm

Setting the cutter to 1mm and placing it at the start of the sheet. Hold the sheet gentle but firmly (If you did what I did I snapped a section of the sheet with too much pressure and it hanging on my cutting board)

Anyway using your free hand holding the cutter, run this down the length of the board.

Paying special attention to when you start the cut and when you finish the cut. The reason for this is because I found the cutter to deviate and can take a small nic out of those points. This will affect how your strips turn out.

This will take a bit of time, the most important thing is to take your time and not rush. Here is the cut.

One thing you will notice is that after you have cut all of the pieces, you are left with a rectangle piece. I wanted square pieces for the fence rails.

This part need a lot of care and patience, as if you rush it you will end up snapping heaps of the pieces. Now I did snap a few pieces and some did not slice properly.

So turning the newly cut pieces on the opposite edge I set up the cutter at the end of the board, make sure the blade is set deep enough or you won't cut right through. This is important and you wont be able to remove this fine strip afterwards.

I slowly slid the cutter along until the rail poked out the other side of the cutter, then gently grabbing the end while holding the cutter in place and with my thumb holding the rail square against the fore edge pulled it through:

After a bit of effort the pile looked a little like this:

And the mess:

You will probably notice that not all of my pieces turned out into one length. I managed to get 64 complete length's of balsa with a pile of smaller pieces. Some of these will be used for posts and spare rails.

I decided to base most of the fence, I will start out with straights and the work cross sections and corner pieces into the mix.

I went with balsa as the base.

Onto the size, each piece will be 150mm long x 15mm wide x 2.5mm thick.

Each full length rail should make a section. So with 64 pieces that works out into about 32'. More than enough for my needs.

When I build some cornfields ect I will attach these to the base.

Well that's it for tonight, tomorrow will see me stain all of those rails and cut them. Each section of rail with be cut to 20mm.

I will also start preparing the bases for the rail sections. A sheet of balsa (930x75x2.5) should give me approximately 30 bases

Stay tuned for the next update

Time for a little change

Well painting has stalled a little on the Finns, this is for a couple of reasons. First painting all that white does your head in, starting to see white..

The other is related to another project, well been talking to one of my fellow wargamers and sparked my interest back into my 6mm ACW. One thing that was really common in the ACW period was all of those snake rail fences, and one of the most disappointing things is trying to find some nice ones in 6mm

Don't get me wrong, there are fences out there but I am a fussy bugger when it comes to models and now I have started to look at buying terrain. I have looked at two Snake fences and they just don't scream buy me.

So I figure I would give it a crack to make some of my own, now a few things that spring to mind is the railings. Every material that I have looked at is just too large for the application. After chatting to my hobby supplier he showed me:

For those who are not sure what this is. It's a Master Airscrew MA4000 Balsa Stripper

Interesting I thought, and well I bought it. After understanding how it worked I went to testing it on some balsa wood. Setting the width of the cut to 1mm, I sliced a strip off a 1.5mm thick sheet. Looking at it I then sliced it on the opposite side (flipped it on its side) and repeated.

This has been the best buy for a long time, took me 20 minutes to cut the base, cut the strips to 25mm and then assembled. (Will post some photos tomorrow) Really impressed with this tool.

I have decided to reduce the size of the pieces to 20mm and sharpen the angles to get a better zigzag look to the fence.

The plan is to cut up all of the bases and apply a light coat of sand, paint them all up including grass ect then build the fence on top. The reason for this is that the fence is 3 rails high and applying sand once the wood was attached covered the first rail. Also I will be painting all of the strips before cutting them into the 20mm section and touching up the ends.

So prep time will be a bit, but once all of the prep has been done, assembly should be fast. I will be logging the progress on the blog.

So how much fence, well this I am not sure on. Enough to cover a 6'x4' table.

As with all wargamers, got more than one project on the run and its always nice to take a break from one when you are finding the task tedious.

Well onto the prep work

Little longer than expected

Well back off leave, its been a mad first week back at work. Just managed to get a chance to sit down tonight.

So what did I get done, well managed to paint up two squads of Finns, and currently working on a third squad at the moment this also includes a HMG and Mortar team in support.

Just finished the skin on them, so moving onto the next part, rifles ect. Should have these done by the end of the week, well that's the plan at least. I have purposely left the white for last.

The reason for this is I have to make sure that the wash is done right, which will lead to minimal re-highlighting of the coat. I want the look to be consistant and done in one go. After the above, that leaves me with a 4th squad, two sniper teams and a Stug.

I will be taking photos of the 4th squad as I paint them up. The reason for no photos till now I am trying to the core done before next month. '

Well that's all I had time for while I was away on leave, kept busy most of the time. Still a lot to do including:

Finishing the 3&4th Squads
2 HMG teams
1 Mortar Team
2 Sniper Teams
1 Stug

Rebase Russians to suit the Finns
Repaint a few of the Russians to suit more of a spring look
Base the Finns

So still a long journey on the WWII to go.

Time for a break...well sort of

Taking a week off work, and won't have access to the net. So no updates to the blog until I get back.

It doesn't mean I won't be working on something though. As were only going back to Kim's parents for a week I decided to take my hobby with me.

So what will I be looking at:

* Helping out Craig with his 6mm Austrians for Lasalle
* Winter War Finns - Got the StuG done, but will be concentrating on the troops first
* 28mm Moderns - Just got some touchups to do, and final details to add to them
* Aeronef - My Xmas pressie arrived from Brigade so will be taking this with me as well (Will post more on this upon the return)

So thats me signing off for a week, see you when I get back

Russell

It's a field of white

Well managed to get all of the Finns undercoated on Monday, the army consists of the following:

Platoon HQ (4 figs)
4 Rifle Squads (9 figs per squad)
2 HMG Teams (With extra crew) (6 figs per gun)
1 Mortar Team (with extra crew) (7 figs)
2 Sniper Teams (2 figs per team)

So thats a total of 63 figs ready to go, will look at assembling the Stug IIIG to support them (FAA Model)

Time to start a test figure, will be sure to get some photos on the blog once the fig is done.

Winter War Finns

Well I got side tracked from the Napoleonics, and decided to start the prep work on the Finns. As one of the members at the club is keen to have a game of Rules of Engagement.

So I now have two squads and the HQ undercoated, with 2 more squads ready for an undercoat (If if would just stop raining)

So with two days off, should be able to get the remaining Finns undercoated ready for painting.

Will also do the last few bases with sand for Lasalle.

So the plans for the Finns, one thing that struck me was when I bought them it didn't click that the whole uniform is practically white. A stupid moment there. White is one of those colours I am sure a lot of gamers have problems with.

So I figure that since a lot of gamers struggle I would track my progress here on the blog, and I hope that this helps you.

Also I will be rebasing the Russians, and changing some of the uniform colours as well to match more of a late winter, early spring.

One I have made some progress on the Finns, I will post some photos on the blog.

Projects

So the re-base for Lasalle is going well, managed to get the first 6 battalions based up, artillery battery and skirmishers. I have been looking at the Generals to base next and I will follow up with some cavalry.

Left to do:

Generals
8 bases of Cavalry

Still to paint though is another

8 bases of Cavalry

Once this is done I will be putting the paint to the bases, this way they are consistant. The 8 bases of Cavalry to paint will come later.

On the sideline I have been working on removing the basing material from my 20mm Russians for Rules of Engagement.

I plan to re-work the bases once I have another project underway, speaking of which.

Work has begun on the Winter War Finns I picked up from Eureka Minis last year. They got sidelined until I was happy with painting white.......still working on it...

Got the first two squads and HQ on bases ready for some undercoat. Got a few more to put to bases, as I will be painting all of these at the same time. Once painted then I will base the Russians up with the Finns.

This will also make way for some terrain to suit.

Well that's what I have been up to for the last few days, back to the Generals and Cavalry.

Changes are coming........................

Well I don't know where last year went, and I must confess I have not put the proper effort into keeping the blog going.

This was for many reasons, one was commision and the other well we won't go into that.

So its a new year and changes are at hand. So what to expect.

* A new name - I have pondered on this, and I will be renaming the blog the name doesn't feel right.

* A new template - Well I have already changed this, and a lot of other features will be added over time.

*New projects - Just to name a couple - WWII Finns (20mm), Lasalle re-base (6mm), WWII Russian re-base (20mm), Aeronef, ACW (6mm)

* More updates - I Will be making a New Years resolutuon to update at least twice a week, if not more.

* Terrain projects - These will include fencing for both 6mm & 20mm, 6mm Tree's (This time with a tutorial), Hills, Rivers, Roads both in 6mm and 20mm. And hedges as well. Its about time I start to build a collection of terrain.

Well thats it for now, so here is to a new year full of changes.