The start of my SCW Republicans

Having recently painted a small contingent of Spanish Foreign Legionaries to get started on the Spanish Civil War, it was only a matter of time till I'd get to the opponents.

First entries to the LPL and a new camera

Again it's been quiet around here for a few weeks, but work on various projects has continued nonetheless. As mentioned in my last post on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge blog (which I completely forgot to post on here), this year I'm taking part in the so called Lead Painters League over on the Lead Adventure Forum. It's an interesting experience to actually compete with other painters for the first time and I do enjoy it quite a lot.

As a positive side effect I'm painting both more in terms of quantity and more frequently as I want to submit a new team for each of the 10 rounds. We'll see how this works out ;-)

As an aside I've shared out some cash and bought myself a new camera. I decided to spend a little more than for the last, in the vain hope it'd improve my photography skills by just owning better equipment, and went for a Canon EOS1300D. It's the first reflex camera I've ever owned and as it turns out it needs quite some more practice than my former compact cameras.

I'm still in the process of getting the colour balances right... *sigh*

But on to the pictures.

First let me introduce you to the Occulites, some small and quite fancy miniatures from a game produced by Darwin Games in Australia. These are the original metal sculpts I bought for my wife a few years back, not the newer plastic figures.

Commissar Ciaphas Cain - Hero of the Imperium

For this post I'll once again stroll off my habitual historical path and will enter the grim darkness of the far future. All kinds of threats are roaming between the stars, the home of a mankind beset by enemies from the outside as well as from within. It's the 41st millennium and everything is dark and humorless.

La Legion

This years challenge has started quite slowly for me but at long last I'm finally able to squeeze in an adequately sized submission. Curt, ChrisS, PhilH and myself are running a Spanish Civil War side challenge and if I'm not completely mistaken this entry should put me in the lead... for the moment at least. As per our agreement it's a legally playable force for Bolt Action.

Western Roman Cataphractarii

The Cataphractarii were the tanks of late antiquity. Like their eastern equivalent, the Clibanarii, they were heavily armoured and also made use of the contus. The contus was a long cavalry lance of between 3 and 5 meters. It should be noted that medieval lances only measured about 2.50 to 3 meters in length. Due the extreme length the contus had to be used with both hands and thus the Cataphractarii didn't use shields, or if so only very small shields strapped to the upper arm.

Balbus the disfigured - Early Republican Roman command stand

Finally I've made it! My first scheduled friday-submission!
Well, live is rather busy around here with me being away on in-company training for much of the time as well as taking over new responsibilities in my job. Normally I would have planned to have more time for painting this challenge, but alas it was not to be. I'm rather sure most of you know such real live issues only to well so I stop blathering and will come straight to business.

If walls could talk...

It was a sad day for Frank Sperber, Obergefreiter of the Wehrmacht, when he returned home for the first time in over a year. The last time he saw the house he had called his home was when he departed for his first assignment after basic training, sitting on the floor of a horse cart, holding a lock of blonde hair in his left hand. He was to join a newly raised Panzergrenadierdivision in France and he could still vividly remember his parents, standing at the garden gate, waving him goodbye with tears in their eyes as if they'd knew what was to come. And there was Anne... 

Eastern Roman Clibanarii

The Clibanarii are thought to have been the eastern Roman equivalent to the western Cataphractarii. Both were inspired by the heavy cavalrymen Rome encountered in her battles against the Parthians and later Sassanids. The word Clibanarius probably stems from the Persian word griwbanwar (neck-guard wearer).

'Liberated' R35 in German service

As certainly some of my regular followers will be aware of, I'm currently taking part in the frenzy that is the Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Thus service on this blog might be even more erratic than usual. 

Panzerkampfwagen 35R 731(f) - France June 1940

Red Devils on the prowl

I actually wanted to start this post ranting about the latest update to the Blogger Dashboard...
but it being Christmas Day and all I decided to save my breath. But I'm in all honesty considering to stop using Blogger. It became a pain in the butt to work with on the tablet and thus I'm considering different possibilities for the future. Also I want to apologize for a lack of comments on your collective blogs. I'll try to make good for that in the next few days. But that's enough of my whining for now, so on to the miniatures I'd say!