Commercial Property Development

I'm working on this pair of shops for somewhere in Andreivia.

The base is a recycled cork place-mat with the paving stones inscribed with a ball-point pen.  The building itself is foam-core.

The interior detail is necessary because of the large plate glass (clear plastic card) windows.  The travel agency on the left has a web-downloaded, inkjet printed black and white check pattern glued to the floor.  Various bits and bobs including a Dapol model railway person as a mannequin make this a, somewhat old-fashioned, ladies' outfitter.

I shall probably add some outbuildings to the rear yards.

A Couple of Evenings' Work

I fancied a change of pace so I decided to speed-paint some more Napoleonics that I had in store, based and undercoated.

Jamie and I have been discussing putting on a game of Sharp Practice this June.  Jamie's doing the scenario but the plan is to set the game a couple of days before Waterloo and to play it on the 200th anniversary of the events (Waterloo Day itself falling in the middle of the week this year).

Sharp Practice needs relatively large forces for a skirmish game and up to now I've often made do with units that consisted of uncomfortable mixtures of types painted at various times over many years.  I need some more, uniformly painted French fusiliers.

These guys are not quite complete after two evenings.

 
The eight Frenchies on the left will mean that I have 32 in all (plus some grenadiers and voltigeurs), which is starting to get there.

The twelve assorted chaps on the right are from the HaT Spanish Guerrillas set.  Not much use for Waterloo but they happened to be based and undercoated and Napoleonic civilians of any kind are hard to come by in 20mm scale.

The HaT figures are from two different sculptors with differing styles, rather like those old Airfix Afrika Korps boxes that had the Mark 1 infantry but then a much more modern-looking commander figure.

I must dig out my copy of the Sharp Practice rules and remind myself how they work before June!

Broo!

This is the first of the Midlam Miniatures goat-headed beast-man I bought at Claymore last summer. They are clearly suitable for Gloranthan Broo albeit of the more civilised kind.  I suspect this one may be in Lunar service.

I'm going to leave him singly based so that he can participate in my future Pavis skirmish campaign.

A Statue Exceedingly Bare and a Great Book Shop

My new regular destination when shopping in Liverpool is Henry Bohn Books,   It's one of those marvellous second-hand bookshops that's literally crammed from floor to ceiling.  There's a pretty good military history section and while I couldn't find Christopher Duffy's The Military Experience in the Age of Reason, I did find this for a fiver:

I'm also very pleased to have picked up Victory in the West, the two volume HMSO official history of the British campaigns in northern Europe from D Day to the fall of the Third Reich.  I suspect the text may be available on line somewhere but this edition has all of the fold-out maps intact.

Property Development Complete

I popped into Antics Models in Sheffield in search of suitable model railway scenic items to tart up the Dapol cottage but gave up.  Everything was either eye-wateringly expensive or not that useful or both.  I'm therefore declaring the cottage finished and moving on.

I'm not convinced that the building itself justified the effort I've put into it but it'll do.

Property Development Part 3

I've not had much time to make further progress with the Airfix/Dapol cottage but I have got the fence and the groundwork painted:

Next step is to landscape the two gardens.  I might pop into the local model railway shop and see if I can pick up any useful items.

Property Development Continues

More progress on the Dapol (ex-Airfix) cottage:

Shed, paths and fences in place, ground-work textured, earth painting in progress.