Perfect Painting Procrastination Plan

 Per my last post, I have 450 or so Napoleonic French figures to paint. So obviously I need to get straight on to that and start painting. But just as obviously as this is too big a job to do and so I must find something easier to do to put it off for a little while but still feel productive.

My purchases earlier in the year included some eight different Sci Fi infantry packs that I was going to test paint and this is the perfect excuse to do something without actually being very productive. So here they are with their Pendraken name and imagined paint scheme. All painted with contrast paints.

Each has been painted with an idea of a different force in mind, taken from various movies or genres.

Probably not that interesting to anyone but a useful resource for me 😁

Theocracy Regular Infantry .... Painted as dystopian soldiers somewhere in the wastes. The lighter brown scheme is good the darker one not so much.

Collective Power Infantry... Painted as a regular force for a dystopian nightmare. Both the grey and green look OK, although the grey is probably a better fit for the theme.

Collective Regular Infantry... More dystopian forces. Both come up OK with the brown for the waste lands and the grey for the cities.

Free States Regular Infantry... Finally something different. Movie themes. Aliens and Starship Soldiers, In green they look good for the marines in Aliens and in grey OK for the marines in Starship Troopers

Emperical Regular Infantry .... Tried to paint them for advanced Prussian and British VSF, but not a good result and better just using my existing forces.

Corporate Regular Infantry.... a bit of a China theme here. In grey it looks ok but the red is not great.

Emperical Power Infantry.... painted for star wars proxies, the black is not good as any detail is lost,  but the white comes off ok.

Griffon Regular Infantry... more potential star wars infantry in white are good, not so sure about the grey for starship troopers although some detail comes out clearer.

Matching the cards to the Pendraken names.

Anyway a useful bit of time spent and gives me something to think about as I work through the French Napoleonic hordes 😂

What have I done!

 As usual, an epic plan finally comes to realisation, and I have to confront the enormity of my decision. 

I decided that I needed to build armies for the  Napoleonic period. The small Dutch army has already been completed and obviously I need a much larger French army to beat them plus the purchased British army.

You plan an army or a new period and it is all fun and games until you have the figures ready for painting and you realise the job you have ahead of you.

So here it is:

300 Line Infantry        10 units of 30

55 Skirmishers              5 units of 11

60 Cavalry                    4 units of 15

9 Guns with 36 crew.

5 Command stands.

Optimistically, based on my speedy painting of the League of Augsburg armies, this should only take three months, give or take a year 🤣

One day I will think about it before I place the order, but not yet!

It is a bit like having children. "We are going to have so much fun playing with them." 

Somewhere and sometime there must be someone who knows what they are doing, it is NOT me. 😂

Expect to see a whole lot of poorly painted French Napoleonic's on the blog for the next six months.

Nemo and the Nautilus

 Another random army to add to the completed projects list. Nemo and the Nautilus and his soldiers.

Inspired by the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's depiction of Nemo I decided to add Nemo and his force to my VSF collection.

As detailed in my post on the "Anti-Colonial Camel Corp or Sudan Dervish Army" I received a double delivery of a Pendraken order that Leon of Pendraken kindly suggested I keep. This doubled my Nemo inspired army, which is a good thing I thought but maybe not on reflection.

Here is the inspiration for the army.

Nemo and crew

Nautilus and equipment

 I have created the following army from my purchase.

Five line infantry units supported by five skirmisher units. All based as my other VSF armies.
Four armoured cars, two command units and the Nautilus.

Nemo command unit

Skirmisher support unit

Out of focus line units - not much better in focus I am afraid.

Armoured cars and slightly better shot of the line units

Nautilus - protected cruiser

Close up with Nemo on the bridge

Well, not particularly interesting. I used contrast paints for the army and the deck of the Nautilus.

I have to admit that my purchase of these was not well considered. The army is quite boring only having three elements as I did not buy any artillery or cavalry. A defect partially corrected by the armoured cars. I think it will be playable  but I really have to think more carefully in future about my purchases. Having retired I do have more time to plan my army purchases and hopefully I will not make the same error again. Although I am still considering the wisdom of the Chinese VSF army I purchased earlier this year and thinking I need some troops more recognizably Chinese than the 1905 Japanese army I purchased as proxies. 

I am also annoyed with my purchase of the ship. I have to stop buying these types of models as they are rarely, if ever, used, and cost me money and time assembling and then painting them.

Figures from Pendraken.

237 figures or vehicles painted

1 Large model completed. This is actually a Protected Cruiser built by the Chinese after the first Sino-Japanese war. It is 1/144th scale so perfect for 10mm figures and a lot cheaper than the Nautilus submarine that is available in the same scale. Also probably slightly more useful.

A good reduction in the unpainted lead mountain but a somewhat unsatisfying result. I do hope I get some use out of them.

Next up, I am not sure. I may return to posting once every two weeks.