Apology first - I know I've not 'blogged' for some time. I can only offer up that my new job has made a huge impact in our life - not simply as it provides the first steady income I've had in 3 years but also that I have that experience again of coming back from a hard day's work and being too knackered to do anything save slump in front of the gogglebox with a 'thousand yard stare' and read the odd book.
I'm currently studying various tank and vehicle colour schemes for WW2 to ensure my tanks don't look ridiculously out of place. With the Russians its fairly easy - Russian Green plus wash and highlights. But the Germans seemed to change their minds every year as to what made up a good colour scheme and even then there seems to have been little standardisation. The original Afrika Korps for example turned up with dark grey panzers which they camoflaged with mud! But they then decided to paint some tanks yellow - but not all. You sometimes get a view with the Germans that after 1940, 'anything goes' and you can pretty much colour them any shade you like and festoon with all kinds of junk and foilage and get away with it!
The Americans fall a bit into the Russian mode - but with a bewildering number of different shades of olive drab - dark, light, faded. I've got (holding my head in shame) no less than seven shades of olive to demonstrate this 'one colour rainbow' and I have to say that putting them all together does give a truer indication of what an American division would look like - with brand new models sitting alongside veteran units and the 'worn and bashed'.
The British offer their own unique problems - I'm developing two 'armies' (one for the desert, one for 'Europe') which means completely different colour schemes and incorporating changing camo options as they progressed.
But all this takes time - which I have little enough of at present.
The weekends are taken up with family stuff and golf - which is not all bad as I get some fresh air, exercise and - after our triumphant 6 shot win on Sunday in the Bottle Competition - a huge bottle of Famous Grouse whisky! Not that I like whisky - I hate the stuff BUT it signifies only the second victory in my time at the club and I have to say I played some of my best golf ever on Sunday. For a 16 handicapper like me to come in with 2 net eagles and seven net birdies (including a closing run of gross 4,4,4,4,3,4,4) is nothing short of miraculous. But golf also eats up time - usually a good 5 hours on a Saturday.
As a consequence, rather than knocking off a hundred 10mm ancients or a battallion of WW2 tanks, I am crawling through my painting to do list like a pyramid builder in ancient Egypt who knows that the day its completed he's going to get locked inside. Not through choice, of course.
This hasn't stopped my buying a ton of metal from e-Bay - mainly WW2 tanks and vehicles. I did pick up an absolute bargain of literally hundreds of British and American vehicles and tanks for £5 plus postage, and have supplemented this with the odd purchase of small batches like 5 Tiger or Panther tanks for £2 and the like. My WW2 metal now covers every available flat surface in my 'painting room' and I will need to crack on and at least finish the Russians off so I can move on to make a dent in the American army. Which will take longer than the actual war itself!
My guiding principle has been 'don't pay more than it would cost to buy new from Heroics and Ros' - a principle that lasted all of 24 hours when I bought some really nicely painted American units. These had been supplemented with camo netting, recognition panels and foilage which has inspired me to spend a bit more time on my units to make them look more realistic. So rather than having 20+ identikit T-34's, I'm looking to give each unit a bit of its own personality. This includes the strategic placement of a rock / bush to denote the commanding unit in each regiment.
With that in mind, I was taken aback when I saw people bidding in excess of £15 for 5 not particularly well painted H & R Tiger tanks. Given that you can buy these for £2.50 plus postage direct from the manufacturer, either the bidders have no idea that you can buy these direct OR the tanks were actually painted by Damien Hirst, Banksy or Tracy Emin which explains the massively inflated value.
So now I'm back in the blogging saddle, normal service is now resumed - with a cracking Seven Years War battle report up next (once I manage to download the pictures).
Thanks for your patience - it will be repaid. If not in this life, then in the next.