India Rifles

Well, I finally got around to finishing them. (Although they need a little more inking and basing). I can't say more about them at the moment, except they are for my Seaford project. I can't tell you about the Seaford project as its top secret and I'd have to kill you if you found out. OK, I'll throw you a teaser.....

These are a WW1 retained India unit, that will fight on the south coast of England in WW2. There are other clues elsewhere on this site......hint: South coast?, WW2? Also think of a war film with Michael Caine in it (yes I know that doesn't narrow it down much).

All will be revealed....slowley, over several postings.

Slow going!

I started to paint the India Rifles for my Seaford project. This is the first time (apart from some tests with night goblins) that I've tried painting since my eyes got damaged and subsequently "repaired". Progress was slower than I expected. I also realise that I will need to change my painting style. I got as far as base-coating and a first layer on the 28mm stuff. As usual, I have mitigation (excuses):

• I was still jet lagged from the Miami work trip
• I was using a Citadel brush that turned into a loo brush after 2 minutes
• I was using some awful Foundry paint (or it could be green clay?).
• I initially forgot to put my special new glasses on

Anyway, I still enjoyed myself and found it relaxing. I have a little problem painting mid-to-dark colours on black base coats. Its OK on the bigger 54mm miniatures, but I can't see the detail on 28mm, and I can miss bits out! - hence the green base coat. I may have to start with white base-coats and use heavier pigment colours in future. My optician says it may take a few goes to get used to the glasses, so perhaps all my problems are temporary. If not, I'll adopt my style, perhaps to something more caricature using a 4 colour method (stuff like blending is definitely out for now).

At the end of the day, I'll do whatever I need to as long as I still enjoy it. If it all goes wrong, I'll just train a small monkey to paint the 28mm models, while I concentrate on the 54mm stuff. Hopefully I'll get the first lot of India rifles done this week. In the meantime, my thanks go out to:

• Specsavers
• Virgin Atlantic - for the free upgrade to Upper Class
• Various totally unqualified people who gave advice about eyesight
• Clint, for telling me to watch a film called Minority Report which contained a possible solution for my eye problems (So sick it actually becomes funny)
• Sheila, for telling me about green base coats

Considering that just a couple of months back I was very ill, I think things are going rather well!

A change of plan

I haven't posted anything for a month as I couldn't paint again. I had a little bit of treatment that improved my eyesight, which then meant I needed my glasses changed again! But I'm all set to paint again now. I've just started on the following projects:

• 28mm India Rifles for my "Seaford" project
• 28mm Rolls Royce armoured car
• 54mm Sikh infantry
• 54mm Hyderabad State Force Cavalry Brigade
• 40K Cyber hounds (hard to explain these!)

Thanks to a couple of introductory games with some local gamers (big thanks to Shaun, Paul and Tom), I am now really into WW2 and a big fan of Crossfire rules. Also, against all my intentions to not impulse buy, I bought some Bolt Action Falshcumoger, Filshmergens, Fulshjoggers, German Paratroopers. I would try to mitigate this lapse of discipline with an excuse, but it would be a poor one involving aliens or ash clouds - so I won't. I guess I shouldn't even mention the North Star figures I accidentally purchased on the internet, while testing to see if my PayPal account was funtioning correctly.

Anyways, work is busy this week, so I'm just priming stuff. But next weekend will be a full-on painting weekend. I am also going to impose a painting points/reward system on myself (infantry = 1, large stuff = 5 etc) in an effort to a) get some of my collection actually painted up, and b) limit the growth of my unpainted collection! Watch this space.