CAT-astrophe

The Cavenderian National slogan prominently displayed on the Leib Flag of each regiment (pictured left) is "Non Cadmus" or translated "We shall not fall." Events of the past few days are surely testing the legitimacy of that slogan.

In a prior post "Brought to you by the letter D" I displayed a picture of a shelf I had installed in order to keep our young cat Bindi, a.k.a. Bin Diesel, a.k.a. Bindi Spears, from curiously batting the Cavenderian army about.

Two days ago, I retired to my painting den and low and behold the shelf and the entire Cavenderian 10mm army were on the floor, I had forgotten to remove a piece of plywood leaning on the same wall, a perfect cat ramp. WARNING: the next image is not for the weak of heart.

IR-Aurora in the after-math of the catastrophe. When the shelf fell it landed on top of several units bending them into what can only be expressed as the first Matrix regiment, note the fusiliers bending to slow time and dodge the bullets of the enemy. Surely this tactic was taught to them by there fearless leader,



The culprit, how can she sleep having wrought such destruction on innocent lead men. What evil lurks in her dark kitty heart.










In staying with our "We shall not fall" theme her is a shot of the Birch tree limb which decided to cut the power from our house. Not a very focused picture but I believe it gets the point across. I am not complaining we are very fortunate that the limb did not hit the house or garage. In retrospect hardly any damage at all, I did a stint working with the EPA in Waveland, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, now that was a massive amount of knocked down trees and general carnage.

Picture of the ice on our plants in front of the house. Mother nature she is powerful, eh!

Did my good deed for the day, my neighbor Dr. Lumpkin, Literature Professor, got her car stuck in a ditch by her driveway. With the assistance of the electrician who was at my house to reconnect the power line to our house mast, managed to get her car out and on the road to university so huzzah.

So we may "bend" in Cavenderia but not "fall" makes stronger veterans.

Ice and Power

The large Birch tree behind the Cavenderian manor decided that the weight of so much ice on it's large southern branch was too much to bear and let loose of the limb at 9:00 p.m. E.S.T. last night, while yours truly was surfing on the Internet in our back room. What an awe inspiring sound a crashing tree limb full of ice makes. Crack, creak, crack, crack, snap then whoosh, then darkness as the branch successfully separated the electrical cable from our home. As we ventured out there was a succession of limbs falling throughout the valley, neighbors gathered in the street to comfort each other and ascertain the damage. Even without power our house maintained 52 degrees throughout the night while our goose down comforters kept us comfortable.

We have been informed that we may not have power until Sunday February 1, 2009, disappointing but not unbearable. I am currently at my father-in-laws house, warm and well fed. Painting will be on hold for a few days until the power is repaired.

Now for the good news, I took several pictures of our newly arrived ambassador from Beerstein and will be posting them soon. Our last house had an entire tree fall down during a wind storm and took out our power box so we are batting 0.100 on trees taking out our power, however we are very lucky as neither tree destroyed our homes or hurt anyone. I am sure that there are people all over the east coast right now that are not nearly as fortunate. Hope you all are warm and safe out there.

ciao,

The Letter D

This entry brought to by the letter "D"

D - Diplomats; The second bunch of diplomats is awaiting to be properly attired and dispatched to their various nations. I can not thank Nic from Eureka Miniatures http://www.eurekamin.com.au/ enough for supplying the bulk of the Cavenderian Diplomatic Corp (CDC) with his fun teacup ambassador, pictured. I have detailed on EvE http://emperor-elector.blogspot.com/ where the new diplomats will be headed and I hope to get to work on them this weekend.

D - Dragoon; To the left are some 10mm dragoons I have started working on. The idea for the uniform is from Tradgardland Master, looks nice rose cuffs and lapels with the green coats. One question, these are Old Glory 10mm figs, what is the sash from the left shoulder? I painted it red but I have no idea what it is, if anyone knows why these Austrian dragoon figs have a sash please let me know. One theory is that they are ACW bed rolls.

Dragoons from the side and some D - dead 28mm Crusader Bavarians in the background.

D - Dungeon or Den; A peek into the dungeons of Cavenderia, my new den in the basement. There are some water issues that will need resolved prior to putting in flooring painting etc. but the room serves my and my gaming friends' purposes. The table in the picture is my greatest hobby purchase ever!!! The table seats 8 - 10 and is about 12' x 4'. The store Gabriel Brothers has a furniture sale about once per quarter. This D - dining room table's legs were not screwed on very tight, therefore customers thought that it would fall over. I tightened the screws and it works perfectly, not even a wobble. Now the exciting part, D - drum roll please, I bought it for $12.50, that right $12.50, D - Dollars, huzzah.

D - Dice boot, my friend Fitz made this great dice boot for my Christmas gift. He built it out of wood and used textured paint on the outside. Works very well, my opponents always roll great using it. I believe I will make a nice tile roof for it and use it as scenery, just kidding, maybe.

D - Dastardly, you can make out a small Bashi Bazouk raiding party trying to carry off my Osprey book.

D - Display, a little shelf I hung up to put my 10mm and 6mm figs up so the cat can not get at them.

D - Discipline, just a fun entry today, need to get back to work on those Bavarians. I need to order some flags if anyone has any suggestions.

ciao,

Bavarian Update

I have been working on my 28mm Crusader Bavarian Infantry Regiment (IR) Kurprinz for the Bring Your Own Battalion (BYOB) game for this year's Seven Years War Association Convention. To the left is the four (4) pound regimental gun that will be accompanying my battalion. Historically, Bavarian regiments had four (4) regimental guns per regiment, I am going to have four (4) crew members when complete so that will represent this will represent the entire regimental guns. These figures are not complete but I could not help posting them anyway. Thanks to TMP members who helped me with uniform and gun carriage color details. The different colors in the carriage and artillery uniforms will add visual interest to the battalion as well as give me some additional fire power to make up for the smaller 54 man battalion.

This is a side shot of the artillery. Crusader did a good job in making the wheels at the miniatures chest-height. These miniatures are Austrians as Crusader does not make a Bavarian line yet, hence no lapels on the uniforms. I may paint them in later but probably will not. Any critiques on the painting, uniforms etc. is appreciated.

In order to save a little money I ordered two 24-man regiment packs which would give me 48 miniatures in order to fill up the ranks economically I decided to order a pack of eight (8) grenadiers to up my number to 54. The grenadiers are proportional to the actual scale and they are fun to paint and will make the unit a little more interesting. As mentioned in an earlier post I went with the blue breeches and I added the detail of the stockings showing just below them.

This is the rear of the Grenadier showing the hat-cloth with yellow trim. I am not sure what color straps the bag on the left hip should have, anyone?

This is one of the better faces I have done recently. Just a close-up of the eyes. Biles list the artillery uniform as having light straw facings, these may be too yellow. The cuffs are listed as dark blue. This is the blue I have been using for the fusilier and grenadier uniforms. I thought it would make the artillerymen appear as part of the unit but they may need to be darker. Comments appreciated.

Here is the first grand division in progress. The less painted miniatures are in the back. I think this photo gives an impression of what the unit will look like when completed. I noticed the fusilier second from the left has a misshapen nose, he will be relegated to the back ranks for his uncomly appearance in the future.

To the far left is a Crusader general I purchased a while ago to represent Prinz Geoffrey. Bavarian generals had no ser uniforms at the beginning of the Seven Years War but slowly were directed to outfit themselves as the Austrian generals (let me know if I am incorrect on this), therefore I am going to paint this miniature in Austrian white coat and red lapels cuffs etc. similar to my Field Marshall Duan picture I use as the Prinz Geoffrey Avatar. Let me know your thoughts on these.

The next set of Cavenderian diplomats arrived from Eureka Miniatures yesterday and I will start painting and dispatching them soon. I have a list of where they are headed but will post that when they are painted up. As always, you can click on any of the pictures above to make them very large and close up.

Cavenderian Diplomatic Corp en Route

I mailed the first members of the Cavenderian Diplomatic Corp (CDC) this morning. They should reach their respective imagi-nation owners within a week or so. When the diplomats arrive I hope they will start sending reports to the Prinz via the Emperor versus Elector web-site. I give complete freedom to the imagi-nation owners to control every aspect of these characters, one can only hope that the diplomats behave themselves but one can never know. As these are gifts, please do not feel obligated in any manner to send a miniature diplomat by mail to me. As an alternative Cavenderia would gladly accept a fictional character from your nation for EvE narratives. I hope to hear from the CDC soon with details of life in the other imagi-nations.

Painting, painting everywhere and not a pic to post

I have been painting quite a bit the past few days but have nothing to show for my progress. I think the problem lies in my current attention span. I am currently painting my 28mm SYW Bavarians for the Bring you own Battalion (BYB) game at the SYW convention in March. I have been painting fusiliers assembly line approach so I have 12 fusiliers with the flesh painted and basic colors blocked in but none finished. The remainder of my 28mm Crusader Bavarians arrived two days ago so now I have 48 fusiliers with command, 8 grenadiers and a 3 lb. cannon with 4 crew. Also in the order were the Governor and the Governor's Daughter miniatures from Black Scorpion. I started painting the Governor and his daughter and am now in the "what color should I paint there outfits" holding pattern, plus had a question posted on TMP about how to paint make-up. So I started working on 10mm dragoons. In 10mm my squadrons will be 6 figs per stand, so I have 3 painted up as Tradgardland inspired uniforms but have run across a strange issue with the mini, they seem to have bed rolls or sashes around their shoulders. I will try and post a picture tomorrow, I am not sure what they are or how they should be painted. So, there it is a great amount of painting with nothing to show. Oh well I will try and get some things finished and posted this weekend.

On another note, I have the Cavenderian diplomats finished and in envelopes ready to be mailed out this Saturday and Nic from Eureka sent me 6 more so I should be starting on them by next week. I have the new diplomats names and destinations but wish to wait until they are complete to post them. That is the current state of affairs here in Cavenderia, hope everyone else is enjoying painting this winter as much as me.

Dragoons

I have recently received, primed and dry-brushed my first 10mm old glory dragoons. However, Cavenderia currently has no uniform designs for dragoons, no official colors etc. As Cavenderia has a rich equine tradition i.e. The festival in Twinj I believe the cavalry arm of the Cavenderian army will be of considerable proportion perhaps as high as 45%. The Prinz is hereby soliciting uniform ideas for Cavenderian Dragoons. Cavenderia was originally occupied by Hungary, then the Turks, the Venetian Republic and finally awarded to the family of Prinz Geoffrey by the Imperium for service to the crown and has become a haven for repatriated Catholic peoples of many races, hence about any background or colors would suffice. To the left is a template from Not by Appointment of an Austrian Dragoon. If you have any ideas please send them to me. I will also be fielding several Hussars squadrons considering the irregular nature of the Cavenderian people. Thanks in advance for your ideas.

Uniform Evolution IR-Kurprinz

I have been experimenting with my 28mm Crusader Austrian fusilier figure which I am painting up as Bavarian IR-Kurprinz to bring to the Seven Years War (SYW) Convention in March. After some discussion with The Miniatures Page members and my own artistic taste I have made some modifications from the first miniature I painted for the unit, far left. The first mini has a dark blue coat and white breeches and a more pronounced separation of layers of colors. I liked the mini, historically there is some debate on the color of the Bavarian coat was it cornflower blue or a darker blue like Prussian blue which had faded a bit during the campaign season. I opted for the dark blue coat, however the first mini ended up looking more Prussian than Bavarian to me.

So on to the next mini, Center. I decided to lighten the coat a bit more and include blue breeches. I had read about IR-Kurprinz wearing blue breeches in a couple of sources and I thought it gave the mini more visual interest and less of a Prussian look. I also attempted to paint this mini with less severe separation between shade colors and highlights for more of a blended look. I also decided to paint the small clothes starting with a dark brown color building up with sand then an off-white while the straps were painted stating with medium gray building to a pure white. The thought behind the differnet whites was clothing would discolour more quickly than the straps and soldiers would be constantly applying piping clay to the straps. This mini probably looks the best up close but I have to remind myself that the miniatures will be seen en mass from approximately three (3) feet distance so no one will be holding them up to inspect them and I should paint a bit bolder for visual appeal at this distance hence the last mini on the right.

The final mini has a much brighter blue coat, blended small clothes and blue breeches, I added the gap where the stocking would show above the gaiter and believe this is the way I will paint up the remainder, perhaps not historically accurate but certainly identifiable as Bavarian. As you can tell from the picture he is not completely finished I need to paint the gun, metal, details, straps, etc. I believe my first New Year's resolution will be to not post a picture of a mini unless finished or for tutorial purposes.

I was reading on the Alte Fritz Journal his painting projections for 2009 and thought this was a good idea, so here is my attempt at what projects I will be attempting to complete in the first half of 2009

SYW Bavarian IR-Kurprinz 28mm Crusader 48 fusilier including officers, drummers, standard bearers & NCOs, 6 Grenadier, 1 four pounder and 2 Artillery crew, this will need to be completed prior to March 18, 2008 so that is an average of .72 minis per day seems doable.

Anatolian Sekhans 15mm Old Glory 50 total, Bashi Bazooks 15mm Old glory 25, 15mm Old Glory Austrian Fusiliers (IR-Jung) 50, total OG 15mm: 125 I need to complete these to have my first raid by the Bizerrcans on Cavenderian soil will try to work them in batches. The turks are very fun to paint.

10mm Old glory Dragoons, 10mm Old glory Austrian fusiliers, total 118 including horses and a general, this is my speed scale, I need to complete these and order some curassiers so I will have the Cavenderian army completed in 10mm and can either start painting up a European style enemy or contact Pendraken miniatures about getting some dastardly Bizerrcans in 10mm.

28mm Cavenderian diplomats, Eureka, I hope to get a few of these out each quarter. The initial group should be going out this week.

I hope to get a post out on the blog at least once a week and hope for more in 2009.

Final note: I spent this past weekend building the Battle of Scary creek, American Civil War battle fought in our backyard here in West Virginia in 15mm, Musket Miniatures with my 12 year old nephew for his social studies project he is not a bad painter and enjoys painting.