Pics from the Chicago Old Toy Soldier show

I attended OTSN from Sept 24th - Sept 26th.  It is a great show for the 'larger' sized figures - 54mm and up.  I really enjoy those sized figures along with the sculpting and painting detail.  The Russian figures will leave you speechless.  By far they are the best in the world at producing collectible figures.  I wouldn't recommend gaming with them but hey, each to their own.  If you want to chance damaging a $500 one-of-a-kind figure then go for it.  I'll upload a lot of the pictures I've taken over the next week or so.  I don't want to over load one post.  One thing that is very interesting with this show is that the first few days are generally not announced or open to the public.  The 'dealers' each have a room in the hotel and primarily they are on the 4th & 5th floors.  During the day dealers or whoever is selling items will hang a small sign off the room number plate.  They then leave the door open and you just go in and browse to your hearts content.  The big day is Sunday and everyone moves down to the big hall on the mail floor so the general public can look & buy.

So without any further comments -

A beautiful elephant - this is the quality of the Russians!

The Duke of Wellington

The Duke's BFF

Watch out for Geeks bearing...hey...they lost half their ship!

These next two pics are from a company that makes terrain.  What you are seeing here is Devil's den and Thermopylae.

Some people bring different militaria

the next two pics are of Rourke's Drift but what I want you to see from these poor photos is not only the detail of the figures but the detail of the 'extras'.  Also, see if you can figure out what the grass is made of.  It is suppose to be a secret of one company's.

Here's another close up of the grass -

That's enough for now.  I've got a lot more which I'll be presenting over the next week or so.

New unit almost ready

I thought I'd try some pics of a unit that I'm just about done with.  I need to add the flags, add the unit name label to the back of each base, and then put the clear glossy coat over them and they should be ready to go!  You'll notice my messy painting table and paints in the background.  Sorry about that but I thought I'd show them at this point before I get them on the table.  I've got some cavalry to paint up so I think I'll try my hand at showing the different stages I go through when I paint up my horses.

This is the du Roi (sometimes I've seen it called Le Roi)

I'm trying to get a decent pic of the drummer.

I like to have at least 2 drummers per unit on either end.  If I can have them stand a bit apart from the unit then that is even better.

The King's Regiment of the line ready for action.  Well, one can hope.

That's it for now.  As you can tell I'm still getting use to the camera so I apologize for the poor quality.  As always, thank you for looking and comment, tips and suggestions are welcome.

Where I get my flags from

Some people have asked where I get my flags from.  I use The Flag Dude for all my flags now.  I have a few that are GMB but I'm switching over to the TFD for everything.  I use his 'cloth' paper and ask for them to be oversized a bit.  It does cost more but I'm happy with the results.  His site is at http://www.flagdude.com/

One more update on my figures

In case you haven't noticed all of my figures are quite 'shiny'.  If I've not mentioned it my gaming group likes the glossy look so we put a clear glossy coat of acrylic sealer on the figures.  I've used the matt sealer in the past and even with that the horses still retain the sheen you'd expect to see on a real horse.

Pictures of my cavalry

I thought I'd share some pictures of the French cavalry I've painted so far.  I've painted up a few line cav units along with 4 of the Maison du Ro

Here we have the Premier Compagnie de Mousquetaires

This is the Deuxieme Compagnie de Mousquetaires

This is a picture of my 4 Garde units from the rear

Next will be the Cheveaux-legers de la Garde, unfortunately I don't have a good picture of the Gendarmes so we'll have to wait until I can get to the gaming table which isn't at my house!

I have to apologize for the fuzziness of the picture. 

I paint most all of my horses using oils.  It takes a lot longer but I like the results and I feel it is worth the time plus I do not consider myself a fast painter to begin with and I enjoy the whole process of working on the figures.  I will prime the horses black and then spray on a base coat color - this isn't the oil yet.  I let the horses then set for at least 48hrs to make sure the base coat has throughly dried.  I've tried to rush it and found that it was a disaster so I take things slowly now and I don't mind one bit.  Once the base coat is dry I then apply the oil paint (lightly thinned so it fills everywhere) and then 'lightly' wipe it off with the highest quality cloth (usually the best undershirt I can afford).  I will 'oil up' 3 horses at one time and then do the wiping.  I wear latex gloves, a coverall over the front of me and I have cleaning rags (old diapers) in my lap ready to go into action if needed.  For a grey horse the process is a bit different.  I prime the horse black, wait for that to dry which to me means at least overnight.  Then I prime the horse white and wait for that to dry, again overnight.  The final step is the put black oil on the white horse thinned down at a similar level as the 'brown' I use.  But for this I don't just wipe the oil off.  I literally rub the darn thing as much as I can.  If done correctly you will have a beautiful gray horse when finished and by adjusting how hard you rub you can have a very light or dark grey color.  If the color doesn't suit me I dab the horse with the cloth I'm doing the rubbing with which puts a little of the oil paint back on the horse which then allows me to try again.  The key is to not wipe or rub too hard otherwise your'll go straight through your base coat and down to the prime or even worse, lead.

Next is a picture of the Cuirassiers du Roi

Finally a picture not really worth keeping but I'll show it anyway.  I was just starting to take pictures with that new carmera and all of our cavalry units were put off to the side as they were not going to be involved in this game.  So I took some pic and you'll see more line cav units in the background.  I promise to get better pictures of all my units as soon as we return to gaming.