So, I'm planning to make this the first in a series of posts about my foray into a wonderful hobby: assembling and painting miniatures! Over the next few weeks/months, I'll report the progress on my current project: assembling a box of plastic French Napoleonic Infantry by Victrix. This first post will serve as a brief introduction into the wider world of historical wargaming, of which painting miniatures is just one small part!
BTW, click on the pictures for the full glory!
So, what's all this about miniatures?
Miniature soldiers! Soldiers for the painting and wargaming hobby are produced in a variety of sizes, materials and styles, and are designed to represent nearly every conflict imaginable. The historical settings range from cave-men-times to Alexander's successor states, from the English Civil War to the "imagi-nations," made-up German states of the eighteenth century, from Napoleonic button-counting to WWII and modern conflicts. Essentially, wargaming brings history to life, and seeing other people's projects on the web has introduced me to whole conflicts and nations I hadn't known existed!
Familiar with the Battle of Blenheim, 1704? I certainly wasn't until I saw this!Figures painted by Matt Slade and Martin Holmes.
But what about the minis themselves? Again, they come in a whole slew of flavors. As far as scales, the smallest I've heard of are 2mm high, though those are stuck together in units. 6mm is a popular scale for small individual soldiers - if you want a superb example of what can be done with 6mm figures, head over to Mike's Leadpile, love him, and despair!
Other popular scales include 15mm and 28mm. I only have experience with the latter - Games Workshop produces 28mm LOTR figs, and almost every Napoleonic soldier has a lead 28mm counterpart.
Wait, did you say Lead Figures?
Until now, historical miniatures have always been made of lead or some white metal. But recently, there has been something of plastics revolution, and I'm very lucky to have jumped into the hobby at a time when plastics are just beginning to offer a cheap, safe(?) alternative to pricey metal lumps!
High-detail "hard plastic" fantasy and sci-fi miniatures (the LOTR minis I paint!) have been available for a long while in 28mm plastic, but historicals were apparently too much of a high-risk investment, since tooling the machinery for detailed hard plastic is prohibitively expensive. "Soft plastic" 1:72 historical miniatures, which stand about 20mm high, have been available for decades, but many of these are less-than-optimal for wargaming. I used to purchase sets of 1:72's from my local hobby store, and they are quite fun to play with. I can vouch that some are "hard" enough (not bendy) and detailed enough to paint - I was always just put off by their small size - but, supposedly, paint and glue do not take well to their surfaces.
Plastic Soldier Review shows that painting these soft-plastic figs is quite possible! I own a set of these Brits and they are beautifully detailed.
