Explorers

John, Paul, George and Ringo (though not necessarily in that order)

as can be seen in the photograph on the right I managed to finish off the three explorers to complete the four-some pack, destined for "Adventures in Jimland"
They'll obviously not win any painting conditions, but they're as table ready as they'll ever be. From my school of miniature painting (the "Slap-dash that'll do school") they're good enough for me at least!
I reckon considering my ever-failing eyesight and degenerating colour vision I've done good. *as they say in the vernacular).
So here's the new individuals, front and back views (as requested by someone)

The guy who knows what he's doing type

Rear view

Guy with mysterious object (in right hand)

(He'll be glad he wore his brown pants)

Guy with all the gear but completely clueless

View the natives will probably see of him

So that's it for this week's show and tell, not much but it does prevent boredom setting in (yours and mine).
It's not all I've been working on though, in the intermittent periods of doom and despondency that filter through my anxiety and depression I've made progress on my four terrain boards (the harbour and three other plain ones), which mostly consisted of completely starting the plain boards from scratch for the third time! the harbour board has had a slight overhaul too, but nothing drastic.
In addition to finishing off the explorers I've also been making great inroads into finishing off the two dozen villagers for my pirate project. I reckon at least half of these should be table ready in a week, so prepared to be bored soon!
Speaking of which:

New board (obligatory boring photograph)

 Thanks for taking the time to visit, I hope your journey here wasn't too boring and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated, as well as motivating, encouraging, occasionally amusing and definitely I'm sure one of the reasons why we all keep blogging!

George (of the jungle?)

"George "

OK, it may not seem as if the last week has been that productive and I suppose it really hasn't as I've only managed to get a single figure finished sufficiently enough to bring to the table (so to speak).
The figure is one of the pack of four explorers I bought recently from Col. Bill's (LINK) and very nice they are too. I'll be using George (pictured) as a make-shift Askari until I can get my act together and  buy some more Askari to fill their depleted ranks. (I'd have bought a pack of the Foundry ones, but I'm too mean to pay the £4 postage!)
In addition to George the other three in the pack whilst not very dynamic are very good sculpts and gives me a little more explorer figure choice, but I can see that I'll probably get sick of the limited few I have very quickly and may have to invest in some others.
All of the above of course depends heavily on whether or not I can find any enthusiasm for this project (and the hobby in general).
 In any event here's the rear view of George (I'm guessing you really couldn't be bothered whether or not you see it, but it gives a little more content to a rather sparse post!)

George (boring rear view)

He's both gloss and matt varnished in the areas that should be shiny or matt, but I did gloss-varnish his skin !


That's it for this week, fairly dismal post I know but it's still a post even though I'm disillusioned with the whole thing.

Jungle

Jungle with masked warriors  for scale

I have manged very little this week, mostly due to lack of enthusiasm but as always coupled to real-life issues. I've been experimenting with my jungle basing, and managing not to match the current batch up with the previous one. In addition I've been painting (and repainting some of the terrain boards and once more nothing I've done I'm happy with - such is life.
In any event her are the feeble results of my last week's endeavours:

Same stuff, different angle (obviously)

The unpainted fronds stand out dramatically imo.- that will be fixed

New stuff to the left, old to the right

So adding the new lot to the old lot I can now cover approximately four foot by two foot with jungle bases, though there are still several palms that have to have their fronds painted  and I've got at least another ten or so bases, untouched, still to do.

As mentioned I've been painting my boards with little success and may well have to start from scratch again ! A few photographs of the 'story' so far:

One end of the harbour board

Close up of the rocks

Other end of the harbour board

Experimenting with various painting techniques

In other news, I've been trying to fix a recently bought figure who has one of the longest arms I've seen and I've also seem to have contracted some sort of techy disease. (no, not a virus). I lost the interweb for several days, (which was no great loss tbh) and the card reader in my desk-top compy failed. This latter failure meant I had to read the card through my laptop, email the photographs to myself so that they could be read on the desktop and then cropped etc. before being posted!
At times I wonder whether it's worth all the effort.

So that's it then for yet another week, as always your comments are both welcomed and truly appreciated.

Masked Warriors

One of sculpts I have a single figure of.

My "Jimland" project is now that little bit nearer to finishing with my completion of the two packs of Old Glory masked natives that I'd bought recently. They are as complete as they're ever going to be, following my principle of "that'll do", save for varnishing as I still haven't decided whether to varnish them in gloss, matt or a combination of the two.
At ten figures to a pack for £13 they're very good value for money,; I bought two packs (Nos. 1 and 3 iirc).The packs contain a random assortment of figures and each pack had different styles of shield too, which makes for a bit more versatility when putting them together as the shield come separately.
As an added bonus, there was little to no flash on the figures which made the cleaning up process a lot easier.
To give even more variation I did  manage to bend a few limbs around and  the front-heavy running types had their pose curtailed  too.
Here's the results:

Another 'single'

Identical sculpts, different shields.

Running guys, apt to fall forwards

Not sure if these two are identical, .but nice dynamic poses imo

Yet another two runners (Bored yet ?)

"Why the long face ?"

Nearly finished

"I said blow the bloody doors off" - oops wrong film.

Even I'm bored now

The ubiquitous, even obligatory group shot..

As well as finishing off this little lot, I'm still working on my terrain boards (which currently consists of slapping paint on in different ways to see how they look) and the last batch of jungle pieces has been all but finished too!

Sp that's it for this week, thanks for taking the time to visit, I hope you've something of interest and have managed to stay awake; as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Ubonga 2

'King' plus attendants

I'm more or less recovered from the downcast mind-set of the last two weeks and have been fairly busy , almost but not quite finishing the 20 masked natives bought at Durham three weeks or so ago.
I've been working through the few miniatures that I have for "Jimland" and although not entirely finished (they've have the  final 'insopection' to pass), they're in a state sufficient enough for play.

More Natives (with reverse view of two )

Along with these I have the last of my the European Explorer types ("white-men") ready for the table too.

Reporter/Photographer type and a woman in typical trope-role. 

Two of the ugliest female sculpts I've ever encountered.

The masked warriors (95% finished) surrounding the tray of unpainted. 

Jungle, only the centre bottom piece has a little more to do on it.

The jungle in coming on apace too, with nine out ten of the current batch bases filled with flora, but they all do have their bases to have two more highlighted colour to be added (Burnt Sienna and Sand fort any  that are interested).
Over the next week I'll be trying to finish some terrain boards for the game, the twenty masked warriors, the jungle and I'm hoping to have a bit of a tidy up too!

So that's it once more for this week, as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated and if you haven't already, check out "Wargame Addict's blog"  HERE