Sudan Reinforcements

In a week whee I felt rougher than a badger's arse backside and unable to barely lift my head, the arrival of an expected parcel from Old Glory on Friday was a great boost to my well-being and generally lifted my spirits.
I like OG figures, a lot and not just because they're relatively cheap, at £1 a foot figure, but because they are well proportioned and full of character too.

Five Egyptian infantry variations of pose and some of the differences within each pose

So what did I buy ?
Just the five bags if foot and a single bag of cavalry !




Three bags of Egyptian Infantry gave me 90 figures, of which 72 are rank and file and 18 and ensigns, officers and buglers.

Some (slight) variations in the Officers /NCOs (obligatory blurry pic)

The Brits, showing a similar variation in poses.

The Egyptian cavalry, sans lances ! (slight variations)

Sword and the Flame units have 2 Officers/NCO's and 18 rank and file. Two units have an additional 2 Officers/NCOs and four have an additional CO. Using the Buglers as NCOs, gives me sufficient figures for 4 Units-perfect !
Two Bags of British, from the Boer War range (same uniform for the later Sudan War) gives sixty rank and file (I already have their bag of Officers and NCOs (and a small corps of drummers and buglers), which when combined, will give me 3 Units of Brits.
The final bag is Egyptian Cavalry containing a mere 10 figures (I need twelve for a unit ), which will be combined with four random OG  Egyptian Cavalry I bought in an Ebay job -lot !
I did however forget to buy the lances (not included, which will be rectified at Battleground (or scratch-built).

The Lancers' horses - great variations !

My "extras" - note the same horse as above with the same broken off tail !

Pre-prepared bases (obligatory boring pic)

 The figures required little flash removal, but all required a quick file of their base (not unexpected), but the horses may require a little more work.
By Sunday evening I had prepared the infantry sufficient  to mount them on bases - luckily I already had two hundred or so all ready ! 

The Egyptians

The Brits

I'll be gunking the bases, gluing n sand then undercoating this week and then awaiting a break in the weather to spray undercoat them before finally settling down to paint them all!

In-between being ill, visiting hospital and having a grandson;s first birthday to attend I think I did rather well getting anything at all done !
This week sees another Hospital visit (!) which, along with the dreaded Xmas preparations on the horizon is set to interrupt hobby 'work'.

That's it then for this week, one in which I had little to no hobby related efforts to post about, I'm now going to attempt to catch up on my blog commenting, which has sadly been lacking of late.

Thanks for taking the time to visit and as always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Souk on this

"Welcome to the Souk"

After a week in which I had little to do to complete my Souk, I fell ill with a rather vicious cold that has laid me out for most anything other than reading (with plenty of splash-guards !
Nevertheless here's my Souk, as complete as it's ever likely to be. The photographs are of my cameraman's usual mediocre to poor standards, but one or two show the model in its true colours - it is predominantly white, rather than the off-white magnolia of the other adobes and bases, apparent in a few pics. The floor 'tiling' is a mix of washes and again is apparent in a few photographs.
Your guide throughout will be Omar the Wise as seen in the photograph above.

"One of two useful side entrances"

"The rear (secure) door."

"Abdul the rash tried entering here on his camel"

"Space in the courtyard for several traders..."

"...and here"

"The rather better area for the trade is the arcade..."

"...sheltered from th elements and tiled throughout..."

"...giving an upmarket feel"

"There is also a strongroom, which is perfect for holding valuables..."

"...and a rather larger area for the more discerning"

"Internally it is very well maintained..."

"...but of course there are areas where private talks can occur"

"Moving on to the roof of the building..."

"

"... where Abdul 9the rash) again visited..."

"...but there is ample room for more trade"

"That's our Souk then, hope you enjoyed the tour, Omar from the Souk"

That;s it then for this post, apologies once more from the rather rushed state and quality of the pics, but at least I reckon a few of them are OK.

Apologies are in order too, as I've fallen well behind in  my efforts to keep up with all the blogs I normally comment on, but as time, current health, real-life and various hospital appointments (three in the next four weeks!) allow, I will endeavour to catch-up.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, hopefully the quality has not hampered you finding something of interest and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Alms for the Armless

Having managed a mere painting sessions this week and despite losing Friday to eye treatment I've still managed to finish off (by popular demand) the Eureka civilians destined for my version of the Sudan.
What astounded me was that even though I'd cleaned up what little flash there was and based and undercoated the figures, there was still one that had an arm missing !
All of this despite the time I'd spent on them and the photographs seen by my followers (including a close-up ), no-one had seen the poor chap with but a single arm and if indeed anyone had spotted it, they didn't mention it.
The photograph below (for the doubters) was cropped from the image of four  of the Merchants from last week's post.:

Can anyone spot the missing limb now ?

I needed a left forearm for this chap and my pack of Old Glory Mahdist leaders came straight to mind as they provide arms separately !

One of many such bits.

A quick bit of filing off flash, mold-lines and whittling down the peg to fit and the result is seen in the photograph heading this post ! Whether or not I'd received the arm and had lost it, or it was omitted form the pack, I'll never know - I can't recall there being any mention of "some assembly required" but luckily there was no other assembly problems !
With the delay in requisitioning and replacing an arm well in hand the whole cast were ready to have some paint and here's the results:

"When I were a lad..."

"Buy something already"

"Lovely jug or vase sir ?"

"Also available in pink"

"Giz yer dosh"

"I hate shopping"

"Ready wrapped children, get yer ready..."

"At least I've got one nice looking jug"

"I wish I'd brought the trolley"

"I wish I'd got the pink"

"Damn I forgot my handbag"

All the chaps

And all the Ladies

The whole ensemble

What little time I had left this week, for hobby related things was spent working on the Souk, which is almost completely painted up and with just a small of work still to do - some internal detailing to add (if time permits) and a little more painting to do. All being well the Souk should be ready for being the subject of next week's post.

That's it then for this week, thanks for taking the time to visit. Hopefully you've found something of interest and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.  

Adobes (again) and more

In a week where I had only three sessions to get anything done hobby-wise I put in two five or six hour sessions to complete the painting of my remaining four small adobe buildings.
I painted them using the same process as the first one, save for the not using the very watery 'highlight'  of yellowy-white and reverting to Magnolia, from a quick visit to Wilkos. I've been using tester pots of paint from Wilko's for a lot of my recent paint jobs. It's cheap, acrylic, thins well with council thinner and has great coverage (Imo anyway).
With three layers of paint and a large surface area, these took a long time to paint !

The step-up to the roof acts as the lifting tab

The generic batch of doors were all individually cut to fit

Carpet and large bowl of olives (roof 'handle')still need to be glued down

'Camelport house'

The 'camleport' house had the central roof support removed to allow easier paintbrush access to the interior and still requires gluing in place and painting ! The roof step allows for easy roof removal.
I intend to add a few more details and colour to these otherwise drab buildings. Larger buildings I intend to make a a lot less dour-looking (though I'm not completely sure how yet !).

Whilst waiting for paint to dry and daylight to return I managed to get more pots underway

More beads and more work to do on them, BBQ skewers help!

Taking advantage of a a break in the weather I undercoated the civilians shown last week, having already based them up (in a break from painting buildings).
The figures are based to match the rest of the Sudan stuff, 20mm square, thinnish card, covered in filler (Poundland's - of course),  pva and sprinkling of sand  - after the filler has completely dried !

Salesmen (I do love their almost cartoony appearance)

The chap presenting the ladies' "unmentionables" is obviously my favourite and...

...now we know what this bevvy of beauties wear underneath their robes !

As an afterthought (and padding for this very thin post - ED.) here are some finished British gunners that somehow were omitted from previous figure posts !

Late gun crews to the left, earlier to the right. Figures mostly OG with a few Redoubt (Top right)

And that's it then for another week where time was at a premium and will unfortunately be again this week as on Friday I will be out of action all day with some serious eye-drops, from yet another clinic visit  (the first of several varied hospital/clinic visits for November) .

Thanks for taking the time to visit, I hope you've found something of interest and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.