Well, howdy pardner! Six gunslingers ride into town.

 Yes, I am painting cowboys, outlaws and gunslingers. Here are the first six;

Above are three gunslingers in duster coats. A duster coat was made of linen, heavy cotton or even canvas to protect the wearer's clothes from the dust kicked up when riding the trails of the Old West.

Next, we have three Mexican caballeros in their classic leather chaparreras, later called chaps and adopted by American riders.

These are all from the Artizan Designs Wild West range, available from North Star. I am really impressed with these figures. They are terrific sculpts with lots of character and atmosphere about them. 

I will be using these figures for the Dead Man's Hand western gunfighting rules, published by Great Escape Games, having already played a few simple games of these rules which were a lot of fun.

I will also be able to use them for certain scenarios using the In Her Majesty's Name rules and I am sure that there will be other opportunities to get them on the table. I can even see them in some kind of Wild West Pulp and Horror settings.

I've deliberately gone for a weather-beaten and dusty look for these figures, because I don't think that cowboys ought to look like they have just got back from the dry cleaner with their best threads.

I have plenty more to paint, so I'll be filling the blog with shootouts and quick-draw outlaws over the next week or so.

Three more metal Stargrave figures

These are the final three metal Stargrave figures from the Nickstarter;

From left to right they are a Hacker, a Rogue (or maybe a Veteran) and a Medic.

Once again, they are lovely sculpts with a lot of nice details and plenty of character.

I am seeing the Hacker as someone who has escaped from some Hive City on a ruined and polluted industrial world, probably on the run from the city's security forces or the agents of some mega-corporation whose systems she has penetrated to gain its secrets.

The Rogue or Veteran is an enigmatic figure, a survivor of many battles whose homeworld was destroyed in one final cataclysmic conflict between competing warlords. Now, a lone survivor of a warship's crew in a hostile sector of the galaxy, he lives on his wits, cutting dodgy deals and taking on contracts from whoever is prepared to pay, regardless of their legality or morality.

The Medic is another survivor, this time from some obscure Medical College or Order, maybe one whose aims were controversial and methods less than legal, leading to it being attacked and destroyed by militia forces of the local population, sick and tired of seeing their children and friends disappearing behind the forbidding walls of the Order's Fortress Hospital, never to emerge again. Yes, the Medic is a man with a shady past. Perhaps he seeks to atone for the scientific and medical atrocities in which he participated in the past? Or perhaps he still carries out secret experiments and is happy to carry out no-questions-asked illegal procedures so long as the price is right?

Two more Stargrave minis

Here are my second two Stargrave metal figures that were Nickstarter stretch goals.

These two are Mystics; a type of  character who might be a kind of Warrior Monk, a member of an ancient spiritual Militant Order or an initiate of a Post-Apocalyptic Cult. 

They have unnatural powers that are different to those of Psionicists, derived from their ability to sense the underlying power of the universe around them and shape it to suit their purposes, whether for good or ill.

I see the figure on the left as a former knight of a Militant Order, still wearing their Order's armour, striving to bring some kind of law and justice to a wild and lawless galaxy. The figure on the right could be a cult initiate, someone whose world has been subjected to a near-total breakdown of society and who is searching for meaning and answers where none seem to exist, or perhaps a warrior monk, whose role is to hold back the forces of decay and destruction via a special emotional and spiritual oneness with the Cosmic All. Perhaps the overlap between cult member and monastic warrior is greater than many might think?

My first two minis for Stargrave

 I signed up for the Stargrave Nickstarter (which is now over) a month or so ago and went in for the whole package. I've finally started painting things, starting with the stretch goal metal figures. Here are the first two I've completed.

These two are Psionicists (also called Psykers in other media). The figure on the left has a definite Bad Guy vibe about it/him/her (who knows?). I think it is the teeth, but let's not be too judgemental about their dentistry.

The female figure on the right could be a more neutral character. She doesn't give off the same sort of Dark Lord of the Sith aura.

I am really pleased with the whole green and purple scheme that I've used for both figures. I decided to keep their bases pretty simple, but you can't ever have bases that will work in every possible environment.

Bad Squiddo Women of WW2 - Lumber Jills

Here are five more figures for my Women on the Home Front project, using minis from the Bad Squiddo Women of WW2 range. They are all Lumber Jills, members of the Women's Timber Corps.

First, two Lumber Jills with a big saw, cutting up a log;

I like this little vignette, so here it is from two other viewpoints;

I used a few pieces of pea gravel as a prop for the log to make sawing through it easier.

Now, here are the other three Lumber Jills. First a frontal shot and then one from behind. I have tried to get across the idea that they are a bit grubby from the hard work involved in tree-felling, hence a few dirty patches and streaks on their skin.

These are all lovely figures with the same high standards of sculpting and casting which we have all come to expect from Bad Squiddo.

The Women's Timber Corps (WTC) was a British civilian organisation formed in 1940 by the Forestry Commission to provide forestry and sawmill workers, replacing men who had left to join the armed forces. Women who joined the WTC were commonly known as Lumber Jills. In 1942, the administration of the WTC was transferred to the Women's Land Army, with the Lumber Jills adopting the same uniform as the Land Girls.

The WTC was disbanded in 1946.

I am hoping that I can use these terrific minis in some Home Front-themed games of Chain of Command.

Some new recruits for the 61st Foot

 I've been meaning  to paint another group of 61st Foot to use up the last few Victrix 28mm plastics for ages, and finally, here they are.

This gives my 61st Foot Sharp Practice force four groups of Centre Company line troops, which with the three groups of Light Company skirmishing Light Bobs means that I have a fair amount of firepower to deploy on  the table.

The main reason for getting them done now is for a weekend of Peninsular War Sharp Practice at BIG in a couple of week's time. It'll be great to catch up with the regular crew for two whole days of Lardy fun and games.

Now they are complete, I might even knock up a little vignette of something as a deployment point, and maybe even finish off my water and ammunition carts which have been languishing half finished since before the Plague struck back in early 2020.

It Ain't Easy Being Green

 In the case of these three, it leads to grumpiness, random acts of malice and turning princes into frogs;

These are 28mm Bad Squiddo witches, clearly following the example of Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of The West with her green skin and gothic wardrobe choices.

I bought these because they are fun minis, rather than for any particular rules or armies, but I am sure that I'll find a use for them at some point.

They were pretty quick to paint, mainly because I undercoated them in black Halford's spray and then just worked on the details and dry-brushing. The tufts are Gamer's Grass ones, again from Bad Squiddo.