Painting projects for 2017 & beyond....

I can't believe it'll be August 1st tomorrow.  This year has cruised by me.  However, I didn't start painting again until February 2016.  I'm so behind on my current painting projects, I don't really know where to begin....

Proposed Painting Schedule:

2017:
1)  70 man 30mm GW High Elf Army.  I know.  I sold my old GW High Elves off.  I got talked into doing 28mm Fantasy again.  I bought a bunch of new 30mm GW High Elves.

2)  90 figure 28mm Eureka Miniatures Amazon Army.  Another 28mm fantasy army to fight my 30mm GW High Elves using the OOP Warlord Rules.

3)  90 man 28mm Viet Cong infantry company.  Part of a too huge 28mm Vietnam game using Ambush Valley.  I should be running three squads aside instead of whole platoons.  Ugh.

4)  36 man 28mm Vietnam US Marines infantry platoon.  US troops for said 28mm Ambush Valley game.

5)  32 man 28mm ARVN Ranger mechanized platoon.  Thought I'd do something different.  ARVN Rangers looked interesting.  I also have the 28mm M113s to go with the four squads.  Part of 28mm Ambush Valley.

6)  30mm Warmachine Rhulic Dwarf Army.  The figures are already primed and based.  Just need to paint and dry brush them.  Should take a month to do.  The other 30mm Warmachine army took several weeks.

2018:
1)  230 man 28mm Mahdist Ansar Army.  This finishes my 28mm British Colonials for Africa.  It's a Sudanese army that could be used for 1880s to late 1890s.  This will probably take an entire year to paint.  I have no plan for the Indian subcontinent.  I leave that to adventurous others.

2019:
1)  18mm SYW Swedish Army.  Swedes to fight my 18mm SYW Prussians.  However, the Swedish Army was horrible during this time period.  The Prussians faced them off with third line troops.

2)  18mm SYW Prussians.  They finish all my 15mm SYW collections.  I have no plans to collect 15mm SYW Russians.

2020:
1)  40 figure 28mm 1863 French Foreign Legion company.  This is part of my future Camerone 1863 game.  Some of the figures are already painted.

2)  120 figure 28mm Mexican Republican army.  The comedic relief for the Camerone 1863 scenario.

3)  6mm 1980s Angolia.  Good news is I have all the micro-armor painted for this game.  Bad news.  It needs to be based.  I want to use Fist Full of TOWs, III for rules.

Painting plans for the rest of 2016....

I'm currently working on 15mm SYW Saxon cuirassiers.  I also have a 15mm SYW Saxon infantry brigade to finish painting.  Those figures should be done by Labor Day 2016.

I also have the following to work on for the rest of 2016:

84 28mm Masai Warriors
42 28mm Colonial German regular infantry

That should take me through X-mas 2016.  I'm also working on 18mm Fantasy football teams for Mute Bystander.  He also has another project of 15mm Roman gladiators for me to paint afterward.  That should take me until New Years Day, 2017...

Blake

Late July 2016 reading....

This past week, I read the following:

1)  The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier:  Guardian by Jack Campbell.  I finished the book and posted a review on the blog.

2)  Making God's Mischief by Glen Campbell.  Read 50 pages in a new fantasy novel about a mortal who kills gods in a fantasy medieval world set during the Crusades.  Interesting premise.  I'll see how it plays out.

3)  Analog Magazine/September 2016 issue.  Interesting article on artificial intelligence.  I don't know if I'll renew my subscription.  Things have been hit and miss regarding short stories and writing articles.  Read 50 pages in Analog this weekend.

4)  Proxima by Stephen Baxter.  The main character becomes a father and the native "builders" moved the lake the humans depend on ten klicks by busting up a dam.  Read three chapters.

5)  The Last Stand of Fox Company by Drury.  Read another two chapters on the Chosin Reservoir saga of the 7th US Marine regiment in 1950.  Now in the second day of battle. 

Review of The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian by Jack Campbell

Author:  Jack Campbell.
Title:  The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier:  Guardian.
Publisher:  Ace Science-Fiction.
Copyright:  2013.
Pages:  407.
Price:  $7.99 (US).

Overview and Impressions:

Alliance Admiral "Black-Jack" Geary has his hands full in The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier:  Guardian.  Geary has to lead his vessels back to friendly space.  His travels take him to the former Syndicate World of Midway, where he beats off an enemy fleet.  After packing up with the liberated locals, Geary's fleet moves onto other Syndicate Worlds who offer guerilla resistance to his demands, even though the Syndicate Worlds have sued for peace and lost their century long struggle against the Alliance. 

Though trial and error, Geary comes home with an alien battleship and friendly "wolf-spider" extra-terrestials named the Dancers.  However, the war has not been kind to the home front.  The Alliance is on the verge of collapse and civil war itself.  The Dancers want to go to the cradle of humanity, Sol itself.  Geary takes his flagship, the Dauntless, with the rest of the Dancer ships to Sol, which is demilitarized.  There, he is forced to deal with a minor power who has been holding Sol hostage. 

After smashing the upstarts' flotilla, the Dancers proceed to Earth to return the body of a former astronaut who died in Dancer space.  The aliens land in Lyons, Kansas, the dead man's birthplace...

I devoured this book and read it through several sessions.  I'm a fan of Jack Campbell.  He writes decent military science-fiction.  After reading several of his series, some things repeat themselves.  But that is the nature of sequels.  Recommended.

Mid-July 2016 reading: part III

I spent the weekend reading.  Here's what I covered:

1)  The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier:  Guardian by Jack Campbell.  Determined to make a dent in it, I read another fifty pages.  I was sucked in following Alliance Admiral "Black-Jack" Geary as he led his flotilla from Midway to Alliance space through a "hyperlink" system.  Even though the Syndics have been defeated, they still want to wreck Geary's plans to get home.  I'm only a third of the way through Guardian.  It's getting interesting...

2)  Analog Magazine July/August 2016 Issue:  Some of the stories are good.  Some aren't.  The nonfiction articles have been interesting concerning the art of writing.  Outside of a steampunk novella, I'm about done writing original material.  Most of my time has been spent editing.  I'm at a point I want to stop editing and just write.  I'm afraid that might not be until the end of summer.

But the Niven short story was disappointing.  I thought the trick ending was rather shallow for someone like him...

Regards,
Blake

Mid-July 2016 reading: part II

I spent this week on my NOOK e-reader.  I read several more chapters in Proxima.  Yuri Eden and another survivor spent their time in an alien "fall-out shelter."  Some that was designed to withstand solar flares from Proxima Centauri.  The two protagonists were away from their shelter and were forced to spend time with the "builders," natives of Proxima c. 

The action then moved back to Earth with a scientist who studied a fuel source for interstellar travel being recalled back to Canada for a meeting with several bigwigs.  One being a hologram of the computer complex that ran North America.  That is where I left on on Proxima by Stephen Baxter.

This morning, I read more in The Last Stand of Fox Company by Drury.  Fox's first platoon had been overrun by the People's Liberation Army.  The company's second platoon held their ground, but lost half of their effectives.  Dawn was coming and it was still snowing on Fox Hill near the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War.  I'm been impressed by what the Marines went through.  And this is only Day 1 of the week long battle!

I'll have more blog postings as I read more chapters read in my electronic and hard copies...

Blake

Mid-July 2016 reading...

I spent the weekend reading.  Here's what I accomplished:

1)  Analog Magazine July/August 2016 issue:  I read another 35 pages in Analog Magazine.  There was a story about a sentient Chinese starship and its wayward captain stranded in a newly discovered star system.  The second story was about an alien anthropology professor teaching on Earth.  His subject was the "Stone Age," lol...

2)  The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier:  Guardian by Jack Campbell.  I read another 50 pages in my latest The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier novel.  Admiral "Black-Jack" Geary had a tour of an alien battleship his fleet is towing back to Alliance space.  Geary also has a game of chicken with Syndicate CEO Boyens fleet over the Midway star system, which Boyens bugs out via a Starjump portal...

Those are my latest selections.  I'll post more as I continue reading.

WIP, 18mm Fantasy Elf Football Team, 04JUL16

Here's a completed 18mm Fantasy Elf Football Team for a friend of mine:

Early July 2016 reading...

I spent the weekend editing a manuscript.  That set my reading time back a few days.  Here's what I got accomplished:

1)  Proxima by Stephen Baxter.  I read another three chapters on my NOOK e-reader.  The main characters are conversing with their robotic advisor on Proxima c, an Earth-like planet circling Proxima Centauri.  The star is a red dwarf that supports alien life-forms.  The human colonists are learning more about them and try communicating with them...

2)  The Last Stand of Fox Company by Drury.  Read another chapter about a night attack on the Marine company by a battalion of Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army infantry in November 1950 on the Chosin Reservoir.  This was also done on a e-reader. 

3)  The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier:  Guardian by Jack Campbell.  Picking up with Admiral "Black-Jack" Geary and his Alliance Fleet in hostile territory near the star system of Midway.  Just got through the first chapter before I had to put the book down this weekend.  Ugh!  I started with The Lost Stars series.  Campbell originally started out with The Lost Fleet series.  I read some of those books after getting started on The Lost Stars.  The Lost Stars is based on the characters who rebelled from the Syndicate World's empire at Midway.  The Lost Fleet series is complete.  The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier is still going (I think).

4)  Analog Magazine/July/August 2016:  Read a short story about a British princess falling in love with an alien ambassador.  Followed by nonfiction on possible future energy sources.  I'm still behind on my weekly reading for Analog Magazine, though... 

WIP, 18mm SYW Saxon Cuirassier Brigade, 02JUL16

I just got all the base coats done on a 18mm SYW Saxon Cuirassier Brigade:

WIP, 02JUL16

Here are photos of some of my WIPs:

                                          WIP, 18mm SYW Saxon Cuirassier Brigade, 02JUL16.

                                          WIP, 18mm SYW Saxon Infantry Brigade, 02JUL16.

                                          WIP, 25mm Ral Partha High Elves, 02JUL16.

                                          WIP, 28mm German Colonial Infantry, 02JUL16.

                                          WIP, 28mm Masai Warriors, 02JUL16.