Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Romans anyone?
Continuing with my bad behaviour, although in my defence it has been while awaiting my next batch of ECW figs, I thought I'd try my hand at some of the fantastic Aventine Roman Republicans. Long admired, but the lure had been resisted until now, they didn't disapoint. They are, to say the least, fantastic figures, ones that I enjoyed painting to the extent that I've a feeling a new project has reared its head. Based to Impetus...
Thursday, 9 September 2010
I know...
I know what I said, and I've tried hard to stick to it. However, being away from my painting desk for a long while due to family illness, I've had to ease myself back into my shedule, and to do so I've digressed a tad. Anyway here are some Perry's plastic Wars of the Roses.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
A rethink...
I have had a major rethink, a kind of ‘road to Damascus’ moment. One that has made me reorganise and prioritise my projects. For over thirty years I’ve been starting projects and failing to finish them, as a result I have cabinets full of groups, regiments and varied beginning armies, but nothing even remotely finished. When I started this blog I was full of enthusiasm for the late 17th and early 18th century. As per usual the project started well, slowed then petered out into sporadic figures of various periods. Not good, once again a project was going nowhere.
However, direction and a renewed impetus were garnered from other blogs, where I saw the benefits of having a plan to follow. They followed a schedule, no matter how loose, which at the very least seemed that they had goals to be achieved with an ultimate end towards which they proceeded. Logical, yes, but I’ve never been too good at ‘logic’. It has taken a long time for the penny to drop, So here I am, one year later, with very little to show for my efforts, a couple of completed regiments, a handful of unrelated figures and so many ‘new’ projects that I’m fearing for my sanity.
So, as I said, I’ve reorganised, prioritised and restructured, condensing my many projects down to two – Sherrifmuir 1715 and The English Civil war. The first of these will stay on this blog, and the second has a blog all of its own –War Without An Enemy.
At the present work on the English Civil War project has taken centre stage, as can be seen from the blog. However, my Sherrifmuir project hasn’t been forgotten, and I shall be returning to that soon. Hopefully, I can focus on these two projects, without the distraction of other periods tempting me away. 
However, direction and a renewed impetus were garnered from other blogs, where I saw the benefits of having a plan to follow. They followed a schedule, no matter how loose, which at the very least seemed that they had goals to be achieved with an ultimate end towards which they proceeded. Logical, yes, but I’ve never been too good at ‘logic’. It has taken a long time for the penny to drop, So here I am, one year later, with very little to show for my efforts, a couple of completed regiments, a handful of unrelated figures and so many ‘new’ projects that I’m fearing for my sanity.
So, as I said, I’ve reorganised, prioritised and restructured, condensing my many projects down to two – Sherrifmuir 1715 and The English Civil war. The first of these will stay on this blog, and the second has a blog all of its own –War Without An Enemy.
At the present work on the English Civil War project has taken centre stage, as can be seen from the blog. However, my Sherrifmuir project hasn’t been forgotten, and I shall be returning to that soon. Hopefully, I can focus on these two projects, without the distraction of other periods tempting me away.
Sunday, 21 March 2010
2160AD
By 2020 the worlds various Governments had, almost, collapsed due to a global economic crisis. Nation after nation, from the richest to the poorest, had fallen to the economic despair that had seen, once strong, currencies descend to a state of financial chaos.
By the close of that year the United Nations, under advice from the World’s financial systems, which had come, since the early 21st century, to see itself more and more as Global rather than national, had merged into a single World Government believed more able to deal with economic pressures that dwarfed anything experienced before.
Nations disappeared as entities, replaced by international states, as economic systems were merged to provide a secure base for a truly global economy. Welcomed by finance and industry, long devoid of any national sympathies, and grudgingly accepted by the populations of Countries across the planet, the New World Order, as it became known, quickly moved to occupy a position of authority, with the blessings of finance and business sectors, and the authority of a, now unified, military.
Those who resisted this new ‘power’ were ruthlessly dealt with, individuals were removed, organisations destroyed and those nations, and there were a few, bombed into submission. It seemed that the NOW of the conspiracy theorists had come to fruition.
For near 140 years this one world government, run from its head quarters in Washington, once the capital city of the now defunct USA, espoused a system based on free market capitalism. Financial, industrial and other corporate conglomerates, no doubt as a reward for backing the dreams of the one worlders, were given almost total freedom which allowed them to create almost pseudo nations in which everyone and everything was owned by the corporation. Nations, as had existed for many millennia, were disestablished, people were no longer American, Russian, Chinese etc, now they were merely Earthers, instead of ‘small being beautiful’, it had become a case of ‘the bigger, the better’.
Oh yes, there had been benefits. Technology released from National and ethical boundaries had produced great advances at the expense of ecology and people. Mars, deemed the nearest and most suitable planet for colonisation, now housed two, strongly economical, colonies. While the asteroid belt of Saturn along with its moons provided much needed minerals to an ever expanding and fiercely aggressive space programme.
However, alongside this expanding ‘utopia’, some had voiced opposition and raised ‘difficult’ questions, some even held ‘ethical’ concerns over this New World Order, or as it preferred ‘The Organisation of International States’.
Following the ‘Food Riots’ of 2156, in what had previously been Europe, that had led to the deaths of four thousand ‘rioters’, the mounting tensions within the old Eastern Block had led to the first real cracks appearing in the strangle-hold of the world government. Inspired by old political ideas, espoused by new ‘leaders’, the old country of Russia, along with allies, had rebelled, declared independence and re-instated a National Government, based on pre 2020 lines. Mlitias, loyal to the corporations and therefore well armed and equipped, had gone over to the rebels in droves, now well trained and armed troops marched alongside the under-equipped rebels or ‘ferals’, as the loyalist dub them. These troops, bearing the arms and equipment of their former employers, now wear the colours of the various political and ideological groups that have unified as ‘The Committee for National Reconstruction’, the CNR. This organisation born from an amalgamation of previously disparate groups such as Anarchists, Communists, Nationalists and others, have managed to find a common cause in opposition to the OIS. Now red flags entwine with black often bearing multi-armed crosses festooned with deaths-heads, individual rebel soldiers wear red, black and purple stars, as well as combinations, on their hats and coloured rags tied around their arms. Slogans by Bakunin scream, proudly, alongside those of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, exhorting their followers to victory or death.
By the close of that year the United Nations, under advice from the World’s financial systems, which had come, since the early 21st century, to see itself more and more as Global rather than national, had merged into a single World Government believed more able to deal with economic pressures that dwarfed anything experienced before.
Nations disappeared as entities, replaced by international states, as economic systems were merged to provide a secure base for a truly global economy. Welcomed by finance and industry, long devoid of any national sympathies, and grudgingly accepted by the populations of Countries across the planet, the New World Order, as it became known, quickly moved to occupy a position of authority, with the blessings of finance and business sectors, and the authority of a, now unified, military.
Those who resisted this new ‘power’ were ruthlessly dealt with, individuals were removed, organisations destroyed and those nations, and there were a few, bombed into submission. It seemed that the NOW of the conspiracy theorists had come to fruition.
For near 140 years this one world government, run from its head quarters in Washington, once the capital city of the now defunct USA, espoused a system based on free market capitalism. Financial, industrial and other corporate conglomerates, no doubt as a reward for backing the dreams of the one worlders, were given almost total freedom which allowed them to create almost pseudo nations in which everyone and everything was owned by the corporation. Nations, as had existed for many millennia, were disestablished, people were no longer American, Russian, Chinese etc, now they were merely Earthers, instead of ‘small being beautiful’, it had become a case of ‘the bigger, the better’.
Oh yes, there had been benefits. Technology released from National and ethical boundaries had produced great advances at the expense of ecology and people. Mars, deemed the nearest and most suitable planet for colonisation, now housed two, strongly economical, colonies. While the asteroid belt of Saturn along with its moons provided much needed minerals to an ever expanding and fiercely aggressive space programme.
However, alongside this expanding ‘utopia’, some had voiced opposition and raised ‘difficult’ questions, some even held ‘ethical’ concerns over this New World Order, or as it preferred ‘The Organisation of International States’.
Following the ‘Food Riots’ of 2156, in what had previously been Europe, that had led to the deaths of four thousand ‘rioters’, the mounting tensions within the old Eastern Block had led to the first real cracks appearing in the strangle-hold of the world government. Inspired by old political ideas, espoused by new ‘leaders’, the old country of Russia, along with allies, had rebelled, declared independence and re-instated a National Government, based on pre 2020 lines. Mlitias, loyal to the corporations and therefore well armed and equipped, had gone over to the rebels in droves, now well trained and armed troops marched alongside the under-equipped rebels or ‘ferals’, as the loyalist dub them. These troops, bearing the arms and equipment of their former employers, now wear the colours of the various political and ideological groups that have unified as ‘The Committee for National Reconstruction’, the CNR. This organisation born from an amalgamation of previously disparate groups such as Anarchists, Communists, Nationalists and others, have managed to find a common cause in opposition to the OIS. Now red flags entwine with black often bearing multi-armed crosses festooned with deaths-heads, individual rebel soldiers wear red, black and purple stars, as well as combinations, on their hats and coloured rags tied around their arms. Slogans by Bakunin scream, proudly, alongside those of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, exhorting their followers to victory or death.
Monday, 1 March 2010
To a bright, new future!
Continuing my 'conversion' to a science fiction setting, I considered several options, Warhammer 40k, Urban War etc.
However, I think I'm going to work on a setting in the near future on Earth, rather than an Outer Space one.
As a result I'm working on a background of turmoil and rebellion set in 2160AD. The idea being that at some stage in the 21st Century the world fell under the control of a One World Government. Nations were abolished to be replaced by a collection of 'states', as a result 150 years later, rebellions break out as Nations try to reassert themselves.
Anyway, background aside, I've started work on the rebel force. Pig Iron 'rebel' colonists, with some West Wind 'secrets of the third reich' Russian Survivor heads. A combination that allows a more 'futuristic Earth' look, to my mind, than the official heads.
But, see for yourself,
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Change of direction.
It's been ages since I added to the blog. A combination of painters block, a sore arm and Christmas, with all its visiting responsibilities, meant that it has been a while since I picked up a paintbrush.
Eventually I did, only to find that I'd lost interest in my Sherrifmuir and Marlburian projects, and try as I might they refused to rekindle.
So fiddling around a bit, with different periods, I have emerged with a new direction, SF. Suddenly I find myself enthused by Pig Irons range of SF figures, along with a re-awakening of 40k ideas that I had thought long dead and buried. So I thought I would post some photos of my ten year old 'World Eaters' Chaos Marines project, as well as my beginning Pig Iron Kolony Militia troops.
'World Eaters' Demon Prince
'World Eaters' command
Pig Irom Militia + Urban Mammoth sniper.
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