If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and-- WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

It was in the long hot summer of 1898 that caravans started going missing to the south of Wadi Phukwa'zaht. Harassed by the Colonial Office and - perhaps more importantly - seeing the gifts and gratuities he had become accustomed to receiving from various businesses vanish like a mirage, the Governor General suggested an investigation was in order.

Thus it was that a small section under the command of one Lt. Keene was dispatched to find out who or what was responsible for the disappearances. He and his faithful Sergeant Cordwangle were quite unprepared for what they found...









Well, here it is. I'm eternally grateful to everyone who's supported me in my efforts to get back in to the hobby. Your compliments and cheerleading have been vital to the success of this little project.



I am quite happy with how it's turned out; perhaps more importantly, aside from the few places where the brushwork isn't up to much, I'm glad that I have started to built up my confidence and remember some techniques after the long gap.



Perhaps more importantly, it looks pretty much like what I had in my head when I had the idea for it in the summer looking at Mr Awdry's wonderful Whitechapel CD-based vignette at 28mm Victorian Warfare. 

The last few in progress shots are:

The bases were blended in with some simple basing sand which then had a wash applied:





And the last details were added to Barney




And then finally some static grass was added to give some variation to the ground cover. I would have liked to add some moss to the rocks but I can't find my flock anywhere.




The total cost for the project was a quarter of a box of British Line Infantry, so call that a fiver; an old PS2 game, 50p for Barney and £2 for the aquarium plants. Everything else was offcuts and leftovers.

 See you all next week for the next project which is a little bit Hammer and a little bit folk horror...

The Dark Continent Takes Form

I played around with lots of different ideas for foliage to get that Lost World vibe. I was going to construct some palm trees with wire and fabric, a technique I'd had some success with in the past; but I decided that it was more important for me to get the first thing actually finished to get the mojo flowing. So, thanks to Dave (@thefrugalgamer) who reminded me of aquarium plants, I popped onto the Bay of E and awaited delivery. A bit of chopping and sticking has started to give me a pretty good bit of visual interest to frame the figures on the ridge: And with the valiant chaps of the Prince of Wales Own Volunteers in place, facing the monstrous spawn of the Dark Continent: So tomorrow it's time to dip the brush into the wet stuff. I'm intending to start easy by working on Barney do I can get back into the swing of blending. My plan is to do the whole thing with a rather muted, realistic palette to really make the redcoats pop. Of course, I might ditch that and go for one of the more garish recent suggestions for what a tyrannosaur might have looked like...