Thursday 15 May 2014

Presenting Miss Bonnie Taylor


Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you Miss Bonita 'Bonnie' Taylor; Morale officer for my Welsh Nationalist faction.

Miss Taylor was born in Patagonia to a poor but hard-working family of Welsh settlers. Her father, a Methodist preacher, brought her up with the traditional Welsh songs, stories and poems that his father had taken with him to Argentina, as well as tales of the desperate conditions that compelled him to emigrate.


An imaginative and strong-willed girl, Bonnie quickly identified with the land of her forefathers, performing the traditional songs with gusto. When the cause of Welsh Nationalism became intertwined with the stirrings of civil war in Britain, she stepped up her already lively correspondence with various literary and academic figures among the Welsh diaspora and espoused a free Wales to anyone who would listen.

Desperate to support the cause, Bonnie yearned to do her bit in Wales, but being a mere preacher's daughter, felt unable to do so. This changed when she found herself betrothed to a local rancher, a well-off but rough and uneducated man who had little time for her old songs. At the same time, a trickle of men began to leave the area to fight for the embryonic Welsh Nationalist militias.


Seizing her chance, Bonnie slipped away one night with a group of volunteers and armed with nothing more than her lusty voice and her great-grandmother's cawl recipe, found herself on a steamer bound for Britain.

Some say that any true-blooded Welshman will happily charge into the very teeth of death just for a chance to hear that voice or taste that cawl. Others maintain that dashing into those fiery jaws is a distinctly preferable option!

 

The miniature is a camp follower from a Perry Miniatures camp set, with a hat and shawl of Greenstuff.

Wednesday 14 May 2014

We Are The Passengers..

Seeing as my new armoured car from 1st Corps has an open hatch, I decided to chop up some spare miniatures, representing different VBCW factions, to fit in it.

Group shot

A smoking cap wearing Anglican League officer putting on his old mess jacket

A sinister BUF officer with red beret and sword

A flat cap wearing militiaman with rifle

A Blackshort officer with pistol

A Major Bloodnock style Territorial officer

A Francophile Welsh Nationalist reading a map

Thursday 8 May 2014

Thanks 1st Corps! Part 2


So here are the models assembled!

Thankfully, these vehicles came together without any major hassle, despite my ham-fistedness (I've put on one of the truck wheels a bit wonky, which I'll have to re-do at some stage.)

I had to use some tiny blobs of Milliput to help hold the hatches on the armoured car in place, and on the truck, attaching the straps that run from the cab canopy to the grille (not pictured above) made me think a little, but otherwise these blighters were easy to build.

Mike from 1st Corps has kindly answered a couple of points from my previous post:
The figure in tank-top does come with the armoured car.
The truck I've got has the early war wheels. There is a late war set of solid wheels which are made to fit without the need to pin.

Time to slap on some paint...


For the armoured car I went for a pseudo slow dazzle camouflage effect.


To tell you the truth in retrospect I'm not very happy with my paintwork - it certainly doesn't do the model justice in my opinion, but it'll have to do. (I'm rather pleased with the chap poking out of the hatch though - a conversion job from the lead pile with a Greenstuff Major Bloodnock nose!)


I'm much happier with how the truck came out (apart from the wonky wheel).


I experimented with a black undercoat and drybrushed base coat method for the main truck body, and I think it worked rather well. Alas you can't see the figures very well in the photos.


I've left the truck bed canopy removable.


Here are some size comparison pics...

Truck between a Matchbox Crossley and a 1/50 Corgi steam lorry

Armoured car between a Warlord M3 and a converted 1/48 Tamiya car

Going by my experiences so far, I heartily recommend 1st Corps' stuff - the vehicles didn't take much cleaning up and any problems in the construction were down to my own ineptitude. They paint up rather nicely too and Mr. Tank-top now ranks as one of the favourite minis in my collection!

For my next step I've hacked at some more spare figures to fit in the A/C hatch, enabling me to use it for various factions - watch this space...