Minden Miniatures

Prussian Greens

2012-01-26T16:46:00.005Z

Richard sent me these photos, after much nagging by me. They are the forthcoming new Prussians, consisting of new Grenadiers, Musketeers and Command. He is currently working on the new French as well and when I have them all I will be having them master moulded then released in batches. I hope you like them.

Back To Normal

2012-01-05T17:16:00.003Z

Well it's been a nice lazy month off, but I'll be opening up again on Monday for those of you who want to add to their forces.

Richards holiday is well and truly over already and I have him chained to his sculpting desk, working on a new set of French infantry, in the newer uniform than the one the existing French figures are wearing, so French players are getting a bonus this year.

He is also working on a new set of Prussian infantry in a uniform variation from the existing figures. These will have different cuffs and lace on button holes, etc . . .

He has only just started work on them, so please don't swamp me with e-mails asking to see pics etc, as there is absolutely nothing to show at present, other than some bent bits of wire.

Happy New Year to one and all and as usual happy gaming.

Frank

Closed for December Again

2011-11-28T13:02:00.002Z

As I was ill last year at this time, I decided to take the whole of December off to recuperate and it did me the world of good. I came bouncing back in January, full of beans and ready to go again. I think I also said that it was so good that I would do the same this year and every year and I have not changed my mind.

However, as I am giving notice rather later this year, I will take the remainder of December off, after the 6th, which is a Tuesday. This is significant because if you recall, I informed you that I only have Post Office Services on Tuesday and Friday afternoons these days.

Effectively, this means get any last orders in by the week ending 4th, to have any chance of them being posted on Tuesday the 6th.

I shall open up again after the Xmas and New Year holidays and hopefully get some new figures on the go soon after.

Thanks again to all my regulars for your loyalty and support.

Happy Holidays,

Frank

Back to the Military

2011-11-14T17:04:00.002Z

Well, loathe as I am to say it, the civilian project is dead in the water.

I have not sold many at all and haven't even come anywhere close to covering the cost of having these made, which has left me with no money to do anything else for the time being. This is the problem for a one man band I guess, in these troubled financial times.

So, when I get some more money together, it is going to be back to the military front and make some more soldiers. However, with xmas approaching fast and family to buy presents for etc, it might take a little while before I have anything new to show, as my finances must go towards these things first.

This is the first set of figures that haven't paid for their own production since the very early days and it appears that the vocal enthusiasm for them isn't matched by the desire to actually buy them. We live and learn though and now the planned range (which was going to be extensive) just isn't viable it seems.

I would like to thank, sincerely, those who did take the plunge and buy the civilians, but as I said,, the next thing will be military again, although I haven't decided what to do yet. I am not asking for suggestions like I have on previous occasions, as I will make the decision myself, in conjunction with Richard and see what we come up with. Hopefully, the New Year will see something new, that people will want :- )

Happy gaming,

Frank

New Civilians Now Available

2011-10-19T10:44:00.003+01:00

The first batch of the new civilians have arrived and are now available. Prices are as before, except the Blacksmith set, which is £4.00. Figures only available as sets and individual figures from the sets are not available seperately.

Some New Horses Available Now

2011-10-05T12:10:00.007+01:00

The first of the horse variants arrived back from Griffin Moulds yesterday and are available now. These consist of the heavy cavalry horses, the walking officers horse and the standing horse. The others will come at a later date, because I want to jump the new civilian metal masters, which also arrived yesterday, up the casting queue and I just can't afford to get everything cast at once.

I have decided to reluctantly make all the horses available seperately, without riders, but at a premium of £2.00 each if bought without riders. This is with immediate effect.

As I said above, the metal masters of the first civilians also arrived yesterday and even though I should have waited for them to be available before showing them off, I just had to slap some black wash on some of them and take a few piccies. I think posts with pictures are always more interesting than text only ones anyway. Click on pictures for a bigger view. So without further ado (and remember these are not available yet) here is what they look like in the metal :-

And a few different angles of the Blacksmith set. I couldn't get a decent shot where everything was in the same pic, so forgive the composition, it isn't my strong point :- )

The tools are all seperate at the moment, but as I type, they should be landing on Richards doormat to be put on sprues.

The 1st set will include the scythe, the crate and 2 x buckets, as an alternative choice for the two figures carrying the crate.

The 2nd set will include the pitchfork, shovel/spade, axe and broom and as soon as I get these back from Richard, they will be off to Stewart for production moulding and casting.

Happy gaming,

Frank

New Civilians Greens

2011-09-22T13:04:00.006+01:00

Richard has sent me the following pics of the new civilians (which should be here tomorrow).

First we have the Blacksmith and his assistant, complete with horse. We thought this would be a good crossover model between civilian and military use for the period, as it would be equally at home in a village/town, or an army camp. We haven't bothered with blacksmiths tools, or an anvil, etc, etc, as everybody seems to make them and they are easily enough found in manufacturers catalogues.

Next up we have the agricultural labourers, 2 x sets in fact, so they can be mixed and matched with whatever tools you fancy giving them, although one is pretty specific in that he is made to hold the scythe which Richard made to go with him. We followed the same pattern as the labourers we did before, by giving most of them open hands for the users flexibility in use and for conversion material. In fact, with these and the earlier civilian labourers, you can do lots of head swaps, etc, to make a lot of different figures from them, all different in some way.

And finally, a selection of tools which will come supplied with the figures, although I haven't quite decided which ones will go with which set yet, as I might need to make some different sprues up, once these are cast in metal.

Anyway, I hope you like them and they should be making an appearance before too long, although I will be more specific about availability, once they have gone to Stewart at Griffin Moulds for him to work his magic on them. Thanks for looking and happy gaming.

Frank

Mixed News

2011-09-21T15:55:00.002+01:00

When I went to the Post Office yesterday to send some orders off, there was a notice up on the counter informing everyone that due to the retirement of the current postmaster and the failure to find a new one in the village, that the Post Office service would be ending in two weeks. So basically come a week on Saturday, there is no Post Office in the next village to mine.

I always used that one, because it was open six days a week and provided a full service, as opposed to the one in my own village which opens only on a Tuesday and Friday afternoon. It's ridiculous really, that these village Post Offices are disappearing like this and the nearest main Post Office is 8 miles away.

So, it looks like I will have to resort to using my local Post Office again, in my own village, which in turn means that my usual fast turnaround time for orders is going to be trashed, because I will only be able to send out orders on a Tuesday or Friday afternoon. This is something I have no control over and all I can do is ask that you put up with a reduced service, as I am going to have to do from now on. I'm really sorry.

On a positive note, Richard has informed me that the civilians he has been working on, for what seems like forever, are finally completed, bar a few buttons, etc, to be added and that I should have the greens this week.

I also got the metal masters of the horse conversions back from Griffin Moulds today and I am very pleased with them. I can't afford to have all seven moulds made at once, so I have split them into two lots for production moulding and the metal masters will go back to Stewart this week. The first ones to be made available will be the standing horse, the Colonels walking horse and the two heavy horses for the Cuirassiers, Dragoons etc.

Once I get those in production, I will send off the two Hussars horses and the wounded one. I have decided not to make any specific dismounted riders for this horse, as it would involve having to make a load of new specific dismounted/wounded riders, because I couldn't just make a generic rider, as with the dead figure in tricorne/casualty marker.

I just can't face the thought of making specific wounded Cuirassiers, Dragoons, etc, for all the nations I cover and I don't think I would get anything like the costs back if I made that many figures, so I'm not even going to try.

I will also be having Richard convert the new standing horse to a standing Hussar horse to match the existing one.

I have had queries before from people, wanting to know if I sold the horses seperately, to use with other manufacturers figures and I have always railed against this, but I am now having a bit of a rethink and wondered what you thought? I have also had queries about muskets and other equipment and I wondered if there was any mileage in putting together sprues with muskets, swords, artillery tools, labourers tools, Tricornes, etc, to sell to people who want to do conversions and dioramas? Let me know what you think and I will mull it over.

Anyway, that's my mixed news for now. I'll post again when I have something to show you, or tell you about, hopefully, sooner rather than later.

Happy gaming,

Frank

Horses

2011-09-07T15:40:00.007+01:00

Richard has widened the variety of horses somewhat by doing some conversions of all the existing horses in the range. Once cast these will be supplied randomly as appropriate, For instance if ordering 20 heavy cavalry, I would normally put a 50-50 mix of the two heavy horses in with the order, but now that Richard has tweaked ears, turned heads' etc, I will be able to mix in 4 horses instead of two, while they will all still look right together as a coherent group. The horse below is a new one, a wounded mount, but as yet without any specific thrown rider.

The standing horse has had his back legs straightened out, so that as someone pointed out to me, standing horses in a row will now no longer look coreographed with their back hoof up. This horse, once back from the caster will also have the Hussar horse treatment and get a saddle etc, so that there will be two standing hussar horses.

The remaining horses are just straight conversions of the existing ones and you can have a look at the pics below. Please excuse the poor photography, but I don't know how to make the camera choose to focus on both the bright one and the dull one equally. However, you get the idea from the photos and you can click on them for a closer view.

The civilians are coming on, but are still only about 50% done as yet I'm afraid. This can't be helped, as explained before and things are not changing for the better at the time of writing. In fact if anything the situation took a dip last week, but we live in hope of better circumstances in the future.
The horses are going for master moulding this week and I will slowly introduce them into the range, as I can't really afford to do them all at once. The standing one will be the first one available and I'll let you know when it's ready. Thanks again to all for your patience.

Frank

Prussian & Austrian High Command

2011-07-07T14:59:00.010+01:00

Well the castings have arrived and I am delighted with them, as usual. I have decided to make them available in sets, split between the mounted and the foot. I am charging a little more for these as I don't anticipate many people wanting more than one set of each and they cost as much to make as any of the others, which sell in larger numbers. Anyway, the sets are as follows:

Austrian foot command comprising the three staff officers above. This set will be £6.00.
The mounted command set comprising the three mounted figures below, will be £12.00.

The set below, comprising Ferdinand of Brunswick and three staff Officers on foot will be £8.00

Finally, the last set of mounted Prussian High Command & Courier on foot will be £14.00.

Also, please note that for all mounted Colonels and the Mounted Generals shown above, there is now a choice of three horses, the original walking horse, a standing horse (as shown above) and the new, what I call "heroic" horse, starting to rear up. If anyone orders Colonels and doesn't specify a particular horse, I will continue to supply the walking horse, as before and standing horses for the Generals. Sorry for the wait and apologies in advance for our forthcoming, but somewhat delayed foray into the world of 18th Century civilians. They will come, but at this moment in time I just don't know when that will be. I will update the blog when we have some movement on that front. Thanks for your patience and to the great majority of you, your loyalty. Happy gaming!

Frank

Austrian High Command Greens

2011-06-07T16:26:00.006+01:00

Well after what seems like an eternity, I can show you the pics Richard sent to me today, to let me know the Austrian Command figues are done.

As you may recall, there were 8 Prussian Command figures, but there are only 6 Austrian, because I have had Richard make a new light horse, to freshen up the choices and a horse takes two figures worth of space in a mould. There are 16 figure slots on a mould, so when these arrive from Richard this week, I will have all the figures for the next master mould, yippee!!!

Anyway, without further ado, let me introduce the new stuff and I hope you approve.

Click on pics for a closer view.

Thanks and happy gaming,

Frank

Whats happening at Minden?

2011-05-11T16:05:00.002+01:00

Hello everyone,

I am sure some of you are wondering what is happening regarding the no show of new figures recently, so I am about to enlighten you.

Unfortunately, in life sometimes things happen which throw our normal routines into turmoil and this is what has been happening with Richard for the last few months. It is only beginning to manifest itself now with the lack of new sculpts coming through, so while I fully support him at this difficult time and have told him that there is absolutely no pressure from me regarding his production rate, I thought it would be only right to inform my readers too and Richard is ok with this.

Richard has an elderly mother and unfortunately, also elderly in laws, who have all become in need of extra care and attention at the same time, piling massive pressure on both Richard and his good lady wife. Her parents do not live near Richard, so his wife is virtually living with them through the week and only coming home at weekends and this is causing massive disruption in normal day to day life and involves lots of travelling and general inconvenience, resulting in Richard having to snatch short periods of sculpting where he can fit it in around his current domestic chaos.

This is not good for the figure production side of things, so new stuff is going to be very slow in coming through, but this is just to let you know we haven't gone away or anything and that we still have the same plans for figures etc, albeit at a much more prolonged timescale for the foreseeable future.

Life is unkind at times and the demands on Richard and his own health and well being are more important than toy soldiers in my book, so he has my full support and I hope your patience.

The Austrian command greens are not far away and when I have something more to report, I will do so here, so please bear with us for the time being.

Thanks,

Frank

No More Soldiers

2011-03-28T15:28:00.003+01:00

I have the Prussian Command figures (Greens) sitting in my garage, awaiting their comrades on the mould, which are currently on Richards work bench being finished off. There are Austrian command and a new standing horse. Because the horse takes up 2 x mould places, the Austrian command will only consist of 6 x figures. Oh by the way, some of you were enquiring about the availability of the current standing horse (see pic below) which at the time was just a master figure and used as the basis of the standing hussar horse

I have now had this horse cast up as a production model and it is available now, as an alternative to the current walking horse used for the mounted colonels. This is also the reason for getting Richard to make a new standing horse, as I didn't like the idea of every standing mount being the same model.

Anyway, on to the title of this post . . . No More Soldiers ???

Yes, that's right, you did read it correctly, BUT, it is a temporary thing, as for the rest of this year, we are going to make nothing but civilians!

Having looked around at whats out there, I have decided that we need a range of civilians like nobody has contemplated before and we are going to make them! Yes, everybody has a few peasants, the farm labourers with pitchforks, the odd gentleman and lady. However, nobody has made all of these in one range, all compatible with each other in heft and size, so we are going to do it.

Yes, we will probably repeat the generic fare that is already out there, but we won't be stopping there, we intend to do everything possible from all walks of life in the 18th Century, including all the stuff that has been done before, but also tradesmen (we are doing a farrier and assistant amongst the first lot), diplomats, children, lords, ladies, generic military figures, old war veterans with missing limbs (I got this idea from the movie Waterloo, where the old vet with missing limbs was moving about on a trolley). Bakers, millers, miners, politicians, tramps, whores, Innkeepers etc, we will do them all. They will also not all be slim figures, or the same size, as we intend to do skinny people, fat people, short people and tall people, but all compatible with each other.

One suggestion after my last post was a stag hunt with a stag in full flight. I like that idea and it is on the list. Hunting hounds etc all to be done at some point. You can make suggestions yourselves if you want and I will consider them, although I won't neccessarily tell you as much, but if I like the ideas, they will be used. Let's just say, that when we are done, nobody should need to say, "I wish somebody made a civilain XXXX" because hopefully it will be right here :-)

On a more depressing note, I have just been to the Post Office to send off some orders and was presented with a new postage price list, effective from 4th of April, so more price rises from another source. I wonder how much more they can hammer us before we give up the ghost? Anyway, this is not a forum for politics and I won't dwell on it, but it's bloody depressing nonetheless.

Right, that's all my news for now and I hope it meets with approval. Please leave any comments below.

Happy gaming and painting,

Frank

PS:- Congratulations to Jim Purky on his new AWI line, sculpted by Richard in 1/56th scale. I hope you have great success with them Jim, but please don't abandon the SYW :-)

Some New Arrivals

2011-03-03T15:32:00.011Z

Back from the casters are the four new Legion de Hainaut figures I had Richard make, to even up the numbers of Grenadiers and Fusiliers a bit. I don't know if there is really a need for these extra figures, but I liked the originals so much that I decided to do them anyway.

Also here are the Austrian Hussars. There are only four of these, unlike the Prussians, as they only wore the Busby, not the Mirliton as well. Note that Austrian Hussar buglers wore a tricorne and not the busby.

Just a little note here to remind people that no matter how much they want to know what I am going to make next, constantly e-mailing me to ask will not yield answers, as I always tell people I rule nothing out (except Russians) and often I don't know myself what I am going to do next until I decide, often just minutes before calling Richard to tell him. I am actually hankering after some decent civilians, townspeople, Ladies and gentlemen etc, both mounted and on foot. I would like to do something a little different to whats on offer from other manufacturers though, although I am not so sure that this is entirely possible, as there are a fair few civilians out there if you look hard enough, although most don't go very well heft wise with my range, so maybe just a bit of standard posing etc, but in scale with my own figures. If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom.

Anyway, on to the pictures. Please excuse my photography as usual, not the best, but sufficient to let you have a good idea what the figures are like. As usual, click for a bigger view . . ..

Sneak Peek

2011-02-17T13:57:00.008Z

Despite me saying right at the beginning of this adventure that I would do the rank and file figures first and high command etc last, people still constantly e-mail to ask if I will be doing command figures for the armies, so to clarify once and for all that I will be doing high command, here is a peep at forthcoming figures.

I don't often show you pics of greens anymore, as I find that doing so leads to an inundation of e-mails asking when they will be ready, despite me constantly saying that I will write here when things are ready. It becomes tiresome after a while to be honest and I still won't tell anyone in an e-mail when figures will be ready, so please just keep checking the blog for updates. As soon as anything is ready I will post it here.

Anyway, as the Prussians are getting to the point where they have most of whats needed for an army, I decided that they are ready to have some Commanders and here are the greens in somewhat poorly taken photos. I can tell you that in the hand these are gorgeous figures and I drooled over them for ages when I opened the box yesterday and saw them for the first time.

The personalities were sculpted from portraits and in the case of the man himself, Richard reasoned that most of the portraits would have been done after the SYW, due to his fame in that war, so has tried to make him look like his portrait, albeit a tad younger than the stooped over figure we have come to recognise as Frederick. I hope you like them as much as I do and I really can't emphasise enough how much better these are in the hand than in these photos.

Can I just stress again that these will not be available for a while yet, as I currently have the four new Legion De Hainaut figures and Austrians Hussars being production moulded and these will all be released before I get round to adding the command figures. Anyway, on to the photos, click on them for a larger view.

I haven't decided how these will be available yet, as a group, or split into smaller groups. I can tell you that they will be a bit more expensive than the other command figures though, as I anticipate most people will only want one of each and these were not cheap to make by any means.

Happy gaming,

Frank

Dismounted Prussian Hussars

2011-02-02T16:00:00.002Z

The new production figures are here and available now. See the list on the front page at the right side, under Prussians.

Some more new figures will be going for production moulding at the start of next week, inc mounted Austrian Hussars.

Forthcoming Releases

2011-01-24T15:46:00.006Z

I have had a fair few new figures sculpted while I was ill and most have been master moulded already, but not all have gone for production moulding yet. However, the following Dismounted Prussian Hussars and Horseholders are with the mould maker as I type and should be available soon.

If you recall I was thinking about making the horseholders into a set for release, with one horseholder and either three or four horses and I asked what would be most popular. Well there wasn't a conclusive vote either way (in fact nobody seemed too bothered) so I have decided to make the horses available individually, then people can have as many as they want for their own particular set up, without me dictating how many horses they should have with each horseholder.

Anyway, without further ado, here are some pics of the metal master figures, blackwashed for photography purposes, for your perusal. As usual I will post on here when they are available. Click on the pics for a bigger version.

I'M BACK !!

2011-01-08T15:34:00.004Z

Having attended a doctors appointment and a clinic appointment yesterday, it appears I am over the worst now and I certainly feel a lot better than I did in December, which was a horrendous month for me. I don't recall ever feeling so ill in my entire life as I did then.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all the comments on the blog and to all those who sent personal e-mails. I have not managed to answer them all, (yes,there were that many) but I want you to know that every one was appreciated. Treatment continues of course, but I feel 100 times better than last month and I am now ready to cope with taking orders again. Once again, thanks to one and all for the good wishes.

Frank

Happy Xmas

2010-12-24T10:51:00.002Z

My recovery is taking far longer than I expected and I have been quite ill due to a mixture of medication which has not agreed with me and has made me quite sick. I am still not fit to do much and am spending most of my time vegetating on the couch or falling asleep during the day, as I am not getting much sleep at night due to continual back pain.

However, I wanted to make the effort to wish everyone a happy Xmas and prosperous New Year and to assure you that I want to be back in January, with everything back to as normal as possible. I will post here when I am ready to take orders again and I hope you will all bear with me.

While I have been out of action, Richard has not however and there are new greens to be cast in the new year, including the dismounted Prussian Hussars, 4 x new Legion de Hainaut figures ( 3 x grenadiers and 1 x fusilier) and a set of Austrian mounted Hussars at the charge. I will continue to keep Richard busy, so that I can have a steady stream of releases when I am back on my feet.

Have a great holiday everyone !

Temporary Shutdown

2010-11-25T11:03:00.002Z

For the last few months I have been given advice by doctors and surgeons on how to help myself with the problems I have with my legs and back.

Quite frankly, I have disregarded the advice and now it is coming back to kick me up the arse. Part of the self help doesn't involve standing in the garage packing orders, running about all over the place to the Post Office, etc and getting a chill in my back.

So, with immediate effect, I am not accepting any new customers for the time being and I am going to take the whole of December off. I have one or two orders already received, which I will make up and send, but I really don't want any more for the time being.

Apologies to anybody wanting to place an order for the first time and the rest of you, I am sure will have enough in your lead piles to keep you going.

I won't move on this, so please don't e-mail to ask. In fact I won't be checking my e-mail much over the next month or so.

Thank you.

Hussars in Busbys

2010-11-17T15:46:00.005Z

Just to complete the Prussian mounted hussars, here are the Busby version of the mirliton wearing ones. I have not made a trumpeter, as all Prussian Hussars wore the Mirliton, so the one already available can be used with these. These are available now.

On the workbench currently, are dismounted hussars in both mirliton and busby and horseholders for both are already made to master mould stage, but not yet production mould. I also like the Legion de Hainaut figures so much that I have asked Richard to do some conversions which will result in another four figures for the Legion, inc Grenadiers & Fusiliers. Austrian Hussars are on the workbench also and my sculpting slave is chained to his desk, where he will remain for some time :-)

Anyway, here are the new hussars. Click on the pictures as usual for a larger view.

Pre Price Rise Orders

2010-10-31T18:16:00.002Z

With the price rise coming into effect tomorrow (or from midnight tonight) it seems that half the people on the buyers list have placed orders in order to beat the rise.

Well, as I have communicated to those of you have, you are going to have to wait a while to get your figures, as I am now awaiting not one, but two orders from Griffin Moulds, as he has been busy supplying every figure manufacturere in the country (or so it seems) with stock for next weekends convention/show in Belgium.

I have not been able to get the stock I asked for and the orders just continue to pile up (although I imagine they will stop dramatically at midnight) and by the time I work through the orders, once I do get stock, it may be up to two weeks before those at the bottom of the queue finally get their figures.

Ironically, I will be supplying all these "beat the price rise" orders with stock I am paying the new prices for, so I have in effect shot myself in the foot this time round.

Also, please be patient if you don't hear from me, as I am also ill at present and attending hospital appointments all over the place. I cannot maintain the pace of getting all the orders done at once and am actually supposed to be having bed rest 24/7 according to the vascular surgeon I saw recently. However, this is the real world and one can't just take to ones bed and let the world roll by, but bear with me, I will get your toys out to you as soon as I can.

A review and a rethink of future plans

2010-10-09T12:30:00.003+01:00

Firstly I apologise in advance if this turns out to be long winded and with no nice pictures to break up the tedium.

After considering the whole price of metal situation and looking at my own circumstances and how I run this project, there has to be a change in how I do things, as I am not operating efficiently. While I still maintain I am not a business, I am throwing money down the drain to an extent and have to make the project more efficient. I plan to make some changes to the way I do things, to reflect changes that have occurred during the last year.

For instance, when Richard was accepting toys as part payment I was happy to carry on developing the British, French and Hanoverian lines equally with the Prussian and Austrian, but this has changed now, so I am going to change the priority of new releases to reflect this.

To date (over the last two and a half years) my best sellers have been, in this order, Prussian, Austrian, French, Hanoverian and lastly British. I hardly sell any British compared to the Prussians and yet I have been pouring money into them to keep them abreast with the other releases and having little or no return on them, while the Prussian and Austrian releases have subsidised them with their sales.

Remember, when I started the project, I only intended to make a comprehensive range of Prussians and Austrians, but Richard persuaded me to do the western theatre also, as they were his preference (and he was willing to take figures in part payment).

Since Richard has basically stopped piling up his lead mountain, I feel that I should give priority to the nations which sell best and bring in revenue, to press on with more figures. To this aim, I will be prioritising the Prussians, Austrians and French, with the Hanoverians and British getting more occasional releases, when funds permit, rather than equal releases, which sit in the garage unsold.

I know that there are one or two of you out there who buy the British, but the hard facts are that there are not enough of you to warrant the equal investment that the vast majority of Prussian, Austrian and French buyers warrant and in the cold light of day, this has to be reflected in the future releases.

Fear not however, because those lines have been started and they will get finished eventually, although not until I have gone to town on the three nations cited above, which bring in most revenue. This will be reflected immediately and have just this last week comissioned Richard to make dismounted Prussian Hussars, in both mirliton and busby. These will probably be ready for release in the first weeks of November, if he gets in gear and cracks on, although you can't rush these artistic types because they can be temperamental :-))

New Hussars in Busbys (mounted) should be ready shortly. Thank you Stefan for reminding me that musicians all wore the mirliton, whether the troopers were in busbys or not. You saved me from making an unneccessary mould there :-)

Anyway, I digress and we now come to the dreaded price rise situation.

Yes, I am putting my prices up and this too reflects sales of figures into realistic brackets. I am seperating foot command figures from the rank and file for pricing purposes, to reflect the fact that I don't sell anywhere near as many command as rank and file (obviously), even if they are just as expensive as the others to make. I guess there will be some who don't like that idea, but I'm afraid the decision is made and will not be reversed, so, please don't send me e-mails complaining.

I define command figures as Officers, Ensigns, NCO's and musicians and all others as rank and file, including the civilian labourers, drovers, wagon drivers, casualties etc.

Mounted figures continue to be all one price, including Colonels.

The new prices are:-

Foot rank and file - £1.10p
Foot command - £1.20p
All mounted - £2.75p

These new prices will come into effect from 1st November 2010. All orders placed between now and midnight on 31st October (U.K. Time) will be at the current price.

I sincerely hope that this increase will cope with the current rise in metal and a couple of future rises too, which I will inform you of if they happen. I will not be hiking prices on every metal price rise and will not raise prices again, until, or unless, I am backed into a corner and have no option. Thats about it and I hope I have explained what I am doing in a way which will allow you to continue to support me in the future, as you have until now.

Thanks and happy gaming & painting.

Frank

I DON'T BELIEVE THIS !

2010-10-07T23:32:00.002+01:00

Just saw this posted on the Frothers forum tonight:-

http://frothersunite.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28731&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight

I have got an order for 200 horses with Griffin Moulds that is going to be subject to this rise, days after the previous rise that I just posted about. I really don't know what I'm going to do and will have to have a long hard think about things, including whether it is worth carrying on, because this is becoming crippling.

Legion de Hainaut

2010-09-29T18:51:00.004+01:00

The new arrivals are here and ready to serve in the various French Armies that abound wargames land. I hope you like them. As usual click on images to enlarge.

On another note, Stewart advised me that this order was subject to yet another metal price rise, which is the third one this year if I recall correctly and while I am going to absorb this one, as I have with the previous two, I am not sure how much longer I can keep doing this to be honest.

I note that many commercial advertisers around the various forums are putting prices up again, but I won't be joining them, at least not this time round, but I can't promise that if metal keeps going up, that I will be able to keep taking the hits and not put mine up too.

It seems that no matter how good ones intentions are, they are ultimately dictated by others to a degree, but we are not at that point just yet.

Happy gaming and painting.

French Light Infantry Greens

2010-08-30T15:11:00.002+01:00

Richard has sent me photos (he is not the best photographer in the world) of the finished French Light Infantry and I should have these within a week or so, as he is just finishing up some other work he is doing for me (Prussian Hussars in Busby) before sending them through. Once I have them, they will be straight off to Stewart for master moulding. Anyway, without further ado, here they are. Comments and feedback welcome. As usual, click on the picture to see a bigger close up version.

New Stuff

2010-08-18T20:00:00.008+01:00

Well that was a surprisingly quick turnaround. You can tell there is no major show upcoming like Salute, when Stewart at Griffin Moulds can turn these around in just over a week. So, on to the new stuff then, which arrived by courier this afternoon . . . .

Six different bonnie laddies to reinforce his Brittanic Majesties Army and terrify the French. Front and back views for your inspection gentlemen. Click on the pics to see an enlarged view as usual.

Did I say terrify the French? Well, these fellas don't look too terrified to me. The French Dragoons are here, in the following order:- Officer, Ensign, Drummer and two views of the trooper. Again, click on each pic for a bigger view. I hope everyone likes them as much as I do.

For those who have orders outstanding, I will get to them tomorrow, I promise! :-)

A couple of Titbits

2010-07-27T14:03:00.003+01:00

I know it's been a while since I showed you anything new, so I thought I would just stick these two pretty awful photos (taken by Richard) of some new stuff which he (Richard) is popping in the post tomorrow and will be going straight off to Griffin Moulds when they arrive.

First up, the Highlanders, from left to right: NCO, Standard Bearer, Musketeer, Drummer, Piper and Officer. These could probably be used right through from the '45 to the AWI with a little creativity, although I have little experience or knowledge about the AWI and could be totally wrong :-) There are also firing line poses in the offing for these, but not for a while yet. Click on pics for a bigger view as usual.

Then we have the Prussian Horseholder and standing horse. There are no reins on the horse, as I would imagine most people (including myself) will use wire or paper for this purpose. My plan is to make a set of one horseholder plus 4 horses with these, although if somebody informs me that this number would not be correct, I will change the proportion of horses accordingly.

Also in the package coming from Richard are a set of French Dragoons, but his photo was so rubbish, I'll let you wait until I can show you those in the metal :-)

All the above will be going off for master moulding on Thursday, as soon as they arrive, or if there are any circumstances which prevent me getting them off, they will go on Monday, as I never send "Special Delivery" (Next Day Delivery) items on a Friday, to loiter in the hands of the Post Office over the weekend.

Having spoken to Richard today, I can tell you that he has been given his next job, which is to convert the Prussian Hussars (including the horseholder) to busbies and to make 8 different figures for the Legion De Hainaut (6 in Tricorne and 2 Grenadiers)

Well, that's my news for now and I hope it meets with the approval of you goodly gentlemen out there who have given me so much support over the last two years.

Hanoverian Dragoons are here

2010-07-07T14:13:00.006+01:00

The Hanoverian Dragoons arrived from Griffin Moulds yesterday and present themselves now for your inspection. I hope you like them . . . . .

Coming soon . . . .. .

Highlanders!!

Prussian Hussars

2010-05-20T15:47:00.011+01:00

The Prussian Hussars are here!

The officer and both Troopers have a seperate sword arm, with a peg which inserts into the figures shoulder. Theoretically, this should give the option of having the sword arms at different heights etc and provide greater variety in the charging unit. They do not all have the same sword arm and there is one for each figure, that was sculpted for each figure, but although I haven't tried yet, they could possibly be moved around between figures to further increase variety.

Anyway, the pics below have the arms which came with the figure they were intended for attached for the purpose of showing the completed figures as they are provided. I hope you like them. As usual, click on the photos for a bigger view. The order of the photos is; Officer, Musician, Hussar 1 and Hussar 2.

French Cavalry

2010-04-30T17:20:00.006+01:00

It just occurred to me today, that although I have said the French cavalry are here, I didn't take any photos to show you, so without further delay, here they are:-

A Further Update

2010-04-27T15:12:00.003+01:00

It seems my plans never run smoothly and there is another slight hitch to add.

When I ordered all the figures which were out of stock, I thought I had covered all bases, but I very stupidly forgot, that with all the cavalry figures in the range these days, I would need lots more horses and I forgot to add them to the order. However, a quick call to Stewart and he has saved the day, as the horses arrived today too, so I now have everything I need to catch up.

With the back orders I have, plus the new orders that have come in, I will need a day to catch up and that would have been tomorrow, but we had a family bereavement last week and were waiting to hear when the funeral was. It is tomorrow and is a four hour drive away from here, meaning that I will be away from home for quite a few hours, although I will be playing catch up in the evening.

So, what this means is that I will crack on today and get as many orders packed as possible and by tomorrow night I should be sending out invoices, with parcels going in the post on Thursday morning (for those who have paid the invoices). This should hopefully bring me bang up to date.

I sincerely apologise to those of you who have been kept waiting for what seems like an age for your toys, but you should all have them very soon now and normal service will then be resumed.

Light at the end of the Tunnel

2010-04-21T20:15:00.002+01:00

Well the delay is nearly over, as I spoke to Stewart at Griffin Moulds today and he tells me that all the outstanding moulds he has of mine are made and my order is well up the queue for casting. In fact he guaranteed that it will be here on Tuesday next week, so although this is slightly longer than I had suggested to one or two of you via e-mail, at least the speculation is over now.

So, back orders will be filled and the new French Cavalry will be here sometime on Tuesday. However, please be a little patient with me if you send new orders, as I don't think I will clear my backlog on Tuesday and I will have to check all the new stuff for quality control etc, but I should be back to well within normal service by the end of next week.

This will probably be an annual hold up from now on I think, as Stewart has more traders using his services now than ever before. I wish I hadn't praised his service so highly over the last few years now and reccomended him to so many people. Oh well, I am sure we can all cope with a little disruption once a year and nobody has died :-)

Also on the plus side, there will be a lot of happy people at Salute. Anyway, thank you all for your patience, particularly those of you who have outstanding orders. The Icelandic volcano crisis is also over now and airmail will be back in full swing, so it's all systems go again.

Happy gaming and painting.

Frank

The Consequences of Salute

2010-04-16T03:15:00.003+01:00

For those who are not of these shores, "Salute" is the biggest gaming convention in Europe, held in London and this year it is on the 24th of this month. Because all the traders attending Salute require a full stock of wares to display and sell, it seems they all want their stock replenishing now and most seem to use Griffin Moulds as their caster these days it seems.

This means that I just have no hope of getting my restock for probably another week yet and I mention this because several people have just placed new orders with me and others have outstanding orders placed, for which the figures are on order, but are unlikely to arrive until probably the back end of this week.

Pressure of work is high at the Griffin casting house, so I don't want to hassle my good buddy Stewart at this time and I know he will get to my stuff as soon as he can and I will just have to be patient. I would ask the same of those of you who are awaiting orders, as this is just one of those things that cannot be helped.

For anyone thinking of placing an order, it would probably be best if you waited a week or so, as most of my stock is depleted to the point where I probably couldn't meet the whole order anyway and I hate letting people down and not being prompt, as I always try to be. I hope you understand and I thank you in advance for your patience.

British Dragoons and news of the French cavalry

2010-04-08T22:16:00.010+01:00

The British Dragoons are available now and pics below for your viewing. Click on the pics for larger image. The French cavalry have at last gone off for production moulding and should be here within the next week or two. I'm not quite sure what to release next, but it is between Hanoverian Dragoons and Prussian Hussars, so we'll see, after the French Cavalry.

Information on those French Light Infantry is as scarce as rocking horse droppings and we may have to wing it a little with regards the officer and drummer and I am also not sure whether the grenadiers were also light infantry for the unit in question. I must admit that it was their uniform in the plate in the Osprey book which attracted me and I initially thought that the helmet was the light infantry uniform, until I actually read the plate info and somebody else pointed out that this was a grenadier. So the non grenadiers wore tricornes . . ..bah! I fancied a unit of those shown in the plate . . . oh well, I'm sure Charles will advise me accordingly :-)

Reality Bites

2010-03-25T21:34:00.002Z

Since I started this range, I have had more luck than most people would expect to have in the short time this blog has been running.

An extremely talented sculptor, at the top of his game, sculpting for me for half price and a bunch of knowledgable enthusiasts who have supported my dream with hard cash, without any of the empty promises seen elsewhere.

Well it had to come to an end sometime and this is where the reality check comes in. Now before anybody starts thinking that I am not going to complete what I started or anything like that, rest assured that Minden goes on, but it's going to continue at a much slower pace now, because after long and frank discussions between Richard and myself, Richard has informed me that he just cannot afford to continue sculpting for me at half price.

The range is much bigger than he ever thought it was going to be, as it started as a project for me to build a collection for myself and was only going to be Pruussians and Austrians. Consequently, he has spent more time sculpting for me than he has for people who pay proper money for his valuable time and skills and being that there are only so many hours in a day, he is working for peanuts.

I fully agree with him that he now charges me full price for future work on the range as the poor man makes his living doing this and how many of us would work for half our normal earnings?

This will only impact on the rate that new figures will become available and not on the continuation of the range, as we will go on and finish what we started. There are still a few works in progress that Richard has to finish off under the old terms, before we start with the new arrangement, like the French Dragoons, Prussian Hussars and marching Highlanders.

The first of the new figures, which will not be made using dollies, but will be individual sculpts are going to be French Light Infantry in the shape of the"Volontaires de Hainaut". The primary reference we have is the Osprey book on the French light troops, which only shows a private and if anyone has any plates of Officers and Musicians, I would greatly appreciate seeing them. Most of you know how to contact me.

So gentlemen, there we have it, the latest news from the Minden camp, nothing drastic, just a little bit of a slow down after a charging start to this year :-) I would also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Richard for the endless hours he has put in for me and for putting up with my nonsense on the phone at least three times a week. One in a million!!

More Dragoons

2010-03-17T16:01:00.006Z

The Austrian Dragoons arrived today and are rather spiffy. I didn't notice before, but Richard has sneakily sculpted the Standard Bearers hand open, instead of the usual closed fist which needs to be drilled. I was miffed at first, then realises that with the nature and shape of the cavalry standard pole, this is probably a better option, as the standard pole needed to be cut and pinned with the closed fist option. Anyway, I'll wait and see what the verdict is from you lads.

Piccies of the four figures below and as usual, click on them for a bigger view.

Next up will be the British Dragoons, as I still await the completion of the French cavalry (Sorry for the delay Charles), but rest assured they are coming soon . . .. :-)

New stuff black washed

2010-03-04T15:24:00.008Z

I've splashed some black wash on the new releases so I can show you some pics, so you have an idea what they are like. Not as good as painted figures I know, but at least you can see them in the bare metal. Hanoverian Horse, followed by Hanoverian Gunners and then the Casualty Marker. Click on images for a bigger view as usual.

Austrian Dragoons are next and they are with Stewart at Griffin Moulds now, for production mould making. More news on them in a week or so I hope.

A Major Milestone

2010-03-03T12:57:00.004Z

I just had to take this opportunity to tell everyone that Richard has reached a major milestone in his sculpting career by sculpting his 3,000th miniature ! He has sculpted for many companies over the years and I'm proud to say he has reached this milestone sculpting Mindens for me. So, without further ado, here is his 3,000th figure:-

I'm sure you'll agree that it's a beauty and sets the tone for the forthcoming light cavalry of all nations. This chap is a Prussian Hussar (as if anybody needed telling) as are the ones in the background. There will be a headswap on these at a later date to present the Hussars with busbys too. Click on the photo for a bigger view.

New Arrivals

2010-03-02T13:08:00.002Z

The nice courier man delivered me a batch of new stuff from Stewart today. I have inspected it and all is well with this lot, so no worries there.

Todays new arrivals are Hanoverian Cavalry Officer, Musician, Standard Bearer and Trooper, the Generic dead figure/casualty marker and the Hanoverian Artillery Gunners (set of 4).

This casualty figure is a generic corpse, lying face down, wearing gaiters and coat with turnbacks, with a tricorne on the ground at his head. He also has a cartridge pouch on a strap across his shoulder. He can be painted as any nation you like, more or less, depending how fixated you are with casualty marker uniform accuracy, which I'm not personally.

I will get some black washing done on these and put piccies up asap. There is another little delay with the French Cavalry (don't ask, please) but they will be done shortly, so all you French players out there, please bear with me a little longer. Going off for production moulding next will be Austrian Dragoons and the British Dragoons hot on their heels.

SUCCESS!!!!!

2010-02-19T18:51:00.005Z

Yippee! The French trooper has cast successfully, third time lucky! He has turned out perfect.

I suppose I had better give you an update on where I am with different stuff, but first, for those who don't understand the process of making figures, let me explain the process and the different stages of production, before we end up with toys for all to play with :-)

1st Richard sculpts dollies for different figures in the range. These are basic building blocks for figures, with minimum detail which he sculpts in epoxy putty, which I send off to Stewart at Griffin Moulds to be moulded and cast in metal. This is an example of one of the first dollies:-

After we get the metal dollies back, Richard can then start adding the detail of the uniforms and add equipment etc, until we have what we call a "Green" which is in effect a completed figure, consisting of metal dolly with putty detail added. I sometimes refer to these as masters (rightly or wrongly).

Next thing is then to send a set of competed "greens" or "masters" to be moulded, which if all goes well, results in a set of first generation figures which we call metal masters. These masters are moulded once more, resulting in "Production castings" from what we now call production moulds and these are the figures that we all paint and game with.

The mould making process is very destructive and virtually destroys the greens in the process, because of the heat and pressure applied to make the cavities in the hard rubber. This is why I was so frustrated at the two previous mishaps with the French Trooper. For those not familiar with the contents of this blog, you have to go back a few posts to find a picture of the first four mounted Colonels, post mould making process, to see the level of destruction caused to the greens.

Anyway, now that everyone knows what the different stages of figure making are, I can bring you up to date with what I currently have in what stage of the process and from this you will get an idea of what will be coming up soon and what will take a little longer.

Firstly, at the production mould stage (metal masters are with the mouldmaker) are the Hanoverian Heavy Cavalry Officer, Musician, Standard Bearer and Trooper, plus the generic dead figure (casualty marker for Black Powder). I am expecting to have these available next week sometime. I will post here when they are ready.

At the metal master stage (here with me now, ready to be sent off for production mould making and casting) are the French Heavy Cavalry Officer, Musician, Standard Bearer and Trooper, Hanoverian Artillerymen (set of 4), Austrian Dragoon Officer, Musician, Standard Bearer and Trooper and the British Dragoon Officer, Musician, Standard Bearer and Trooper.

At the greens stage (here with me now) are the Hanoverian Dragoon Officer, Musician, Standard Bearer and trooper.

At the "being sculpted stage" (still with Richard in various stages of development from dolly onwards) French Dragoons, Prussian Hussars and Highlanders marching.

We have also made Highlander firing line dollies, but I have not asked Richard to do anything with these yet and I want to do some French light infantry very soon.

So, as you can see, there is plenty going on and the only thing holding me back is hard cash. I actually have more figures ready to produce than cash to produce them, plus the demand for the mouldmakers time of course. However, all is well with Minden and the new stuff will keep coming, I promise you that.

I also have a few new customers, from, would you believe, Australia, so it seems that not all Aussies hate me and my figures, despite comments on some forums I have been reading lately.

Oh and one last thing, if you are reading this Burleson Bill . . . I have just become your biggest fan and you made the case for me on PMT better than I ever could have, so a BIG thank you and if you ever decide to change scale, be sure to let me know :-)

Good gaming all,

Frank

Curse The French!

2010-02-11T00:09:00.003Z

Or rather, the French are cursed ! In this case I am referring to the French Heavy Cavalry Trooper, who was damaged initially. Apparently his sword moved in the mould second time around, resulting in an abnormality John Merrick would have recoiled at. This has meant a third resculpt of the figure by Richard and I have him back yet again, to send off to Stewart at Griffin Moulds in the morning for another and I hope final, attempt at a master casting worthy of making a production mould. Along with him will go the greens for the Austrian Dragoons, British Dragoons and the Hanoverian Artillerymen.

Although very annoying, these mishaps can occur from time to time, as there are tons of pressure put on the moulds to form the cavities for the castings and it is just one of those things that can't be helped, although it is particularly annoying in this case, as the French were the ones that I initially intended to release first, with the Prussian Dragoons. Now they will be the last of this current batch to be released. The Hanoverian Heavy Cavalry are currently with Stewart being master moulded.

The Prussian Dragoons and the British Heavy Line Cavalry arrived today and are available now after a longish wait. Due to the quality of moulding and casting, Griffin Moulds are becoming increasingly more busy, as more and more figure manufacturers finally catch on and partake of their services, which means I can no longer send greens off and expect figures within a week, although I have told Stewart that I still expect priority treatment due to our long friendship :-)

Right, that's about all the news I have for now, so rather than waffle on I'll leave it there and get back when there is something new to tell you about. Happy Gaming!

Minor Hiccup!

2010-01-12T23:33:00.002Z

The master castings arrived back from Griffin Moulds today for me to sort out into production moulds and send back. I cannot afford to make all the moulds at once after all, so I planned to make the first figures available the French Heavy Cavalry and the Prussian Dragoons.

However, the mouldmaker must have had the post Xmas blues when he made this master mould, as he has managed to bend the French Cavalry Troopers musket/carbine in such a way that I cannot correct it with the pointed nose pliers without contorting it further and removing details, so, unfortunately, it will have to go back to Richard and be resculpted and then remoulded again, which is going to take a little time. He also managed to lose the field sign off the Hanoverian Standard Bearers tricorne, although after consulting with Stewart, it appears that it has moulded ok, but come off in the mould, thus blocking the cavity. Stewart is going to recast these for me this week.

So, the upshot of this is that the first figures cast will be the Prussian Dragoons and the British Heavy Cavalry, as they passed my inspection and cleaning up process this evening. Both will be going off in the morning. More news when I have any.

Frank

Happy New Year !!

2010-01-05T21:39:00.006Z

Well I hope everyone had a great holiday and may you all prosper and continue to build armies in 2010. I have got my painting mojo back and am making a start on some Jäger. I am also rebasing all my figures again because I have found my ruleset of choice at last. I am going with the Black Powder set, after having a good read through it and I think it will be the choice for the horse and musket era at my club, the Newark Irregulars too, as Steve and Laurence both have the rules and seem to be happy with them. I haven't been to the club for a good 18 months or so, so maybe it's time for me to get off my bum and start going again.

Here's some pics of the command group of one of my Prussian KR No2 squadrons, painted by Roy Duffy (an appropriate surname for painting SYW figs eh?) who did the figures and I did the horses. Click on pics for bigger view.

I am going with 30 figure infantry battalions and 20 figure cavalry regiments. Anyway, I'm sure you don't want me to ramble on about my own figures and want to know what is upcoming this year from the Minden range.

Well, I think it is going to be a bumper year for new stuff and I am very excited about forthcoming figures. Firstly, the British, French & Hanoverian Heavy cavalry and the Prussian Dragoons arrived with Stewart at Griffin moulds today, so the production process with those is under way and we can forget about them until I tell you they are ready, which shouldn't be too long, probably well before the end of the month. I will release as many as I can afford to at once and with any luck might even manage to release them all at once. One of my regulars bought several hundred pounds worth of figures over the holidays and that is financing this current push. Thanks Eric :-).

I have placed my order with Richard in good time, so as not to miss my slot this month and the next master mould after the one which is at the caster, will contain Austrian, French, British and Hanoverian Dragoons. As you can see, I want to really push on with the cavalry this year, although I intend to slip a few other things in between, but more of that in a minute.

At the same time, I have also asked Richard to make some dollies for the Scots, which will be marching and firing line (Sorry Ioannis, none charging), so those of you doing the Western theatre will be able to reproduce the 87th and 88th Scots with these. At this time, the Scots were also used as light troops in lieu of dedicated light troops in Europe, hence the firing line poses, as well as the marching poses.

Also at the same time, Richard is to make a Hanoverian Gun Crew, to complete the set of gunners for all armies and finally, the icing on the cake . . . . the first of the Hussars!!! I have asked him to make the Prussian Black Hussars as the first foray into these delightful, colourful troops, with an officer, musician and 2 x different troopers, as these is no standard bearer in the hussar regiments (correct me if I'm wrong).

These are going to be very different from the staid heavy cavalry we have done so far and are being made for the charging light horses that we haven't used yet. They will be animated and waving their sabres around like wild things.

There is also another unused horse in the set, which will be used for high command etc at a later date. This is a standing light horse and I have asked Richard to sculpt a saddle etc on it, so that I can do dismounted Hussars too, as I have a mental picture of a horse holder and some skirmishing hussars on some frontier outpost, or harrying an Austrian baggage train etc.

Casting my mind even further ahead I envisage this range containing, high command or personality figures, Frie corps, civilian ladies and gentlemen and loads more, which I won't bother listing yet, as the above is a lot to deliver before promising even more.

However, my plan has always been to make this as complete a SYW collection as I can possibly make it, but I mustn't get ahead of myself, although it makes me smile when I think back to comments on PMT, oops, that should be TMP, where somebody commented along the lines of, "Well I'll wait to see if he ever gets any cavalry done" Hmmmmm I think I passed that test then . . . Well thats all for now, Happy New year to one and all and happy gaming !

Frank

Sorted!

2009-12-18T09:22:00.004Z

Well, looking at the comments on my last post, one would think that nobody responded to my call for help, which couldn't be further from the truth, because as well as writing that post, I sent an e-mail to the majority of the knowledgeable people who buy from me, directing them to the post and asking for their opinions.

The response was very, very, impressive and I am indebted to those of you who sent me replies, backed up with quotes and reference material, in particular Harald Howe and Ioannis Mavromichalis, who showed me that the Prussian Standard Bearer is indeed an NCO and NOT an officer. Thus, Richard is adding the neccessary detail now to that figure.

Surprisingly, not one of the replies I got mentioned the French, Hanoverian or British standard bearers at all, so I conclude from this that we have got them right and they will be cast as they are, officers.

Once again, thanks to all who responded and a special thanks to Dannie Fogleman in the USA who instigated the querie, by suggesting that the Prussian Dragoon should be an NCO. You were right Dannie :-)

HELP!!!!

2009-12-17T17:03:00.003Z

Since I put up the photos of the greens of the new cavalry and suggested that we wait to see if anyone pointed out any errors, I have had one querie, suggesting that the Prussian Dragoon should possibly be an NCO.

I relayed this to Richard and he thought it was an officer. He also then asked if the other figures should be NCO's or officers, as he had made them all officers. I can't take the chance of having these cast them somebody telling me they are not right, so I got out every book (pictorial and text only) and plate that I have on the SYW and after two solid days of scouring them from back to front, I have come up with the following:-

Prussian Dragoons (and Cuirassiers actually):- 1 reference says that standards were carried by an NCO or junior officer. 3 references says officer. This is how the currect green is sculpted.

French Cavalry (generally) Standards carried by officers. This is how the current green is sculpted.

British Cavalry (Generally) Standards carried by officers. This is how the current green is sculpted.

Hanoverian Cavalry (generally) Standards carried by officers. This is how the current green is sculpted.

So, after my own research, I am happy to have Richard send me the greens so I can get the mouldmaking process under way.

However, I know that there is great knowledge out there among you, so I invite confirmation or denial of my own research, so that I can confirm to Richard that we are good to go. Please either comment on the blog, or as some of you are more likely to do, e-mail me with you opinions asap.

Thanks,

Frank

At Long Last . . .

2009-12-15T16:53:00.008Z

Well praise be to whoever is the diety of wargamers!!! It's been so long since I made an entry, that I had to check to see if I still had the blog. Anyway, all's well that ends well as they say and here we are with some news at last (I did say that this blog went from feast to famine).

Richard sent me photos today of the newly finished French Heavy Cavalry, British Heavy Cavalry, Hanoverian Heavy Cavalry and Prussian Dragoons.

He laughingly put in his e-mail, "Should I send them now, or do you want to put the pics on the blog, to see if anybody finds mistakes with them first?" I did laugh when I read that, but then remembered the Austrian Gunners blooper and there was one other some time back, although I have forgotten what it was now.

Anyway, here are the photos in the order of :-

Prussian Dragoons
French Heavies
British Heavies
Hanoverian Heavies.

Remember to click on the pics for a bigger view. I hope you like them :-)

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish a very Happy Xmas and New Year to my small band of faithful buyers and indeed friends, as lots of you have become over the last couple of years. A special thank you goes to Charles S. Grant for the complimentary copy of his new book with Phil Olley, called "The Annexation of Chiraz" which is a set of 5 table top teasers in a mini campaign, featuring lots of colour photos of his new Minden collection.

I am extremely proud to see the transformation of the legendary armies of Lorraine and Vereinigte Freie Städte from brittle ageing plastic into metal, with the Minden range featuring heavily in this process.

Hanoverian Grenadiers are here at last.

2009-09-28T14:58:00.002+01:00

Well after a bit of a delay (The mouldmaker/caster has been snowed under with work) the Grenadiers arrived today. Comprising an officer, nco, drummer and grenadier, this completes the Hanoverian line infantry.

The next master mould will be for the long overdue French and British heavy cavalry, Hanoverian heavy cavalry and the first of the Dragoons, being the Prussians of course.

However, these are not being worked on immediately, as I missed Richards strict deadline for having info to him about what I wanted making next, so he is sculpting Alban Miniatures stuff at this moment I believe (curses) and I have to go back in the queue. I will post again when I have an update on these, but please bear with me and be patient.

Partizan II Sunday Sept 6th

2009-08-28T16:30:00.002+01:00

If anyone is going to this show in Newark and wants to order any figures, please let me know in good time to prepare the order, as I will be in attendance for most of the day and can hand deliver, saving postage costs.

First Hanoverians here now

2009-08-26T19:41:00.001+01:00

Just the Musketeers and the Colonel. The Grenadiers will follow in the next couple of weeks.

Acknowledgements and an update

2009-08-03T13:28:00.012+01:00

Among my buyers and readers of this blog, there are some really generous and kind hearted people out there, who I feel should be recognised for their contributions to this project.

Everybody who buys the figures are committed and enthusiastic SYW gamers and collectors, but a few go the extra mile and actually send me research material, some of which I didn't even know existed and other stuff which I was aware of, but didn't think I could acquire, due to either rarity or high cost.

I would like to acknowledge Ioannis at Leuthen Journal for all the uniform plates and information he has sent me on all the armies we are currently making, as his help has been invaluable with the stuff we have made to date. He continues to be a supporter and enthusiastic contributor. Thanks again Yanni.

Next up I would like to thank Harald Howe of Germany for all his help regarding Prussians and Austrians. Harald has paid for a CD of the Menzel plates on the Prussian Army to be sent to me and also one on the Hanoverian Army. These contemporary plates are fantastic source material, which help to make this range of figures as accurate as any other out there and probably more accurate than most.

It was also Harald who spotted the mistake with the Austrian Gunners having gaiters instead of boots when I showed the greens here and Richard was then able to rectify this before we had them cast, saving a lot of money. So a heartfelt thanks to you Harald.

Torstein Snorrason from Denmark wrote to me, not to buy figures, but remarkably, to offer both Richard and myself an english language copy EACH, of the Niemeyer/Ortenburg book on the Hanoverian Army of the SYW.

I was overwhelmed by this generous offer out of the blue and I forwarded the e-mail to Richard, who was every bit as astounded as me. Neither of us had access to this source of material and it is invaluable.

Torstein said that he was impressed with the project and had the books, which he would like to give us as a gift, to help the project along.

Needless to say, I accepted the offer gladly on behalf of Richard and myself and offered Torstein some cast figures when they were ready, but he declined and insisted that he didn't game the period at present, but just wanted us to have the books. They arrived in the post today and are pristine copies. Absolutely gorgeous! Thank you again Torstein.

I am quite lost for words regarding this sort of generosity and the general feeling of comradeship that exists within the circle of people I have come to know through this project since we first started it.

In stark contrast to the downright rudeness, ignorance and hostility that has been directed towards Richard and myself recently, on another forum, by a would be "expert", the feeling of friendship that exists between ourselves and those who have bought into this project is refreshing and extremely uplifting. Long may it continue and a heartfelt thanks to all of you out there who support what we are doing here.

For those who do not have access to the sometimes rare reference books on the uniforms of this period, both Harald and Torstein offer links to online sources of information. Firstly Harald links directly to the Niemeyer/Ortenburg plates:-

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/category:Gmundener_Prachtwerk_1761

And Torstein says, "If you want inspiration and correct pictures, I would suggest you look at some of the online catalogues for 30mm German Flats of the period." He says the uniforms are as accurate as anything anywhere and the detail just needs to be copied. He suggests :-

http://www.zinnfiguren-gruenwald.de/pages/rug_katalogepag.html

Back to the figures then . . . The master casts will probably be going back to the mouldmaker for production mould making, sometime next week, as cash is a little tight again at present and the situation is not being helped by both my wife and son having a birthday this month (one week apart), so I'm sure you can guess where my funds are being diverted to.

I wish they played with toy soldiers like the rest of us . . . .. sigh.

New Stuff

2009-07-16T16:04:00.011+01:00

Richard and I were discussing the range one day and he pointed out that we were favouring the Prussian and Austrian perspective of the war and that we were a bit light on the western theatre. He then suggested that maybe we needed the Hanoverians too, so that we didn't have an all-British vs French line up. I wanted to press on with the British and French cavalry, but persuasive bugger that he is, he got his way . . .. so we have now added Hanoverians to the range.

We don't have much info on the Artillery and cavalry uniforms, so for now, we have done the Line Infantry and Grenadiers, with a spiffing Colonel to lead them. If anyone can help with uniform details of the above, any images would be very helpful if we are to produce the missing elements. My contact e-mail is at the side of the page.

Anyway, here is what we have so far, but these are only master castings as yet and we have not got any production moulds made, as these only arrived at my doorstep this morning. As usual, feedback and critique welcome, although it's too late to change them now if some expert finds any major faults at this stage :-) As usual, click on pics for a bigger view.

Musketeer Officer

Musketeer Ensign

Musketeer NCO

Musketeer Drummer

Musketeer

Grenadier Officer (with Fusil)

Grenadier NCO (with Fusil)

Grenadier Drummer

Grenadier

Colonel

Sit Rep

2009-07-08T15:29:00.003+01:00

Firstly, I would like to thank all those of you who have left get-well comments on the blog and those who have e-mailed their best wishes. It is truly appreciated and my wife, who came out of hospital yesterday, was amazed at how many people who did not even know her, were wishing her well. I told her wargamers are like that :-) Thanks again everyone.

Well, as I said, she came home yesterday, with the surgery being successful and everything going according to plan so far. She is currently sunning herself in the back garden, while I snatch a few minutes to write this. My, this domestication lark is bloody difficult isn't it? An hour nearly to change a double bed duvet cover? I thought it would be a 2 minute job dammit, but it's not easy at all. I'm learning a lot these last couple of days, just exactly what my good lady does every day and I'm more than a little embarrassed at how little I seem to have contributed in the past. I think I need to reform . . . .

Anyway, back to the toys. The Jägers are here and available, but if you place an order, please be a little patient with me if things don't turn around as fast as they usually do, for obvious reasons.

Richard has finished sculpting the "secret" project and the masters will be here tomorrow, if all goes as planned, but I think I will have them cast before I show them to you, so I can black wash them, like the last ones. Greens don't always show things up nicely.

Thanks again for all your good wishes.

Latest News

2009-07-04T18:42:00.003+01:00

Stewart at Griffin Moulds informs me that the Jägers will be with me on Monday, but please don't rush to order, as I have a bit going on from Monday, as my wife is going into hospital for surgery. Hopefully, if all goes well, she will be coming out again on Tuesday, which is our 30th wedding anniversary. What a way to spend it eh?

Anyway, she will require 6 weeks complete rest following the op and I will be stepping in as mum, dad, housekeeper, nurse, taxi-driver and whatever other role comes up during that time, so my turnaround of orders is going to be hit quite drastically I fear for a few weeks.

Feel free to place orders as usual, but please be patient waiting for them to be processed, as I am obviously going to be quite busy and distracted, as my wife is much more important to me than the toys and her care is going to be my highest priority.

Thanks for your understanding.

Frank

Oooooooo They're here . . ..

2009-06-17T11:20:00.002+01:00

The Grenz arrived late yesterday afternoon, but I didn't have time to sort through them as I was getting ready to go out last night.

My good lady and I went for a trip back through time, to watch a live performance of the 30th Anniversary tour of Jeff Wayne's War of The Worlds. It was fantastic !!! Justin Hayward singing "Forever Autumn" was like listening to him 30 years ago. A night to remember.

Anyway, back on topic, the Grenz are here now and available to those who want them :-)

Just a bit of an update

2009-06-04T12:32:00.002+01:00

After much deliberation, I decided that the best way to go with the Grenz and Jägers was one figure in one mould, because wargamers being what they are, probably wouldn't want these in packs or sets.

I did consider putting the Officers and Drummers in one mould and the rest individual, but even then people would probably want uneven numbers which would leave me with multiples of officers or drummers every time I ordered more. Also a lot of gamers don't like kneeling figures etc and as these particular figures could operate as small skirmish groups or formed units, I'm sure there are some out there who would want all the same figure in multiples so that they looked right in a formation and wouldn't want some of the others at all.

All this taken into consideration made me opt for making the figures available individually and to this end, I have sent off the masters for the Grenz to Griffin Moulds today, so they will be the first available. As soon as I can afford to, I will follow this up with the Jägers and will announce here when this happens.

With mould making time and casting time, I would imagine that the new figures will be ready within the next fortnight, but of course I will post when they are ready.

I have also been looking at the bigger picture of the SYW and after consultation with Richard and my uniforms guru Yanni (Ioannis), decided to add another element to the range, but I will elaborate more on that another time.

I am adding the Grenz to the list of available figures on the right, but please don't order any yet as they aren't actually available yet obviously. I will let you know when they are.

Happy painting and gaming, guys :-)

Frank

Forthcoming Light Infantry

2009-05-23T12:06:00.018+01:00

I got the metal masters for the Grenz and Jägers back from Griffin Moulds the other day and I have given one of each the black wash treatment, so you can have a look at them. These are some way off being produced yet, so please don't e-mail me any orders for any. I think it is going to be a case of one unique figure per production mould with these, in order to offer the variety that people will want, other than whacking them all on one mould and saying it is a set of skirmishers, as I can't see many people wanting multiple drummers and officers etc for these.

Consequently, it is going to be a very expensive setup and will take some time for me to get round to it, because I have family birthdays and my wedding anniversary (30th), all coming one after the other, starting in July through to September and I anticipate being broke for the duration :-)

Anyway, here are the piccies of the forthcoming Croats and Jägers and I hope you like them. Click on pics to see an enlarged version.

Ok, thats your lot for now, so I guess it will be a period of famine for a while, until I have something new to report. Have a nice weekend everyone. I'm off to the Partizan show at Newark tomorrow and am really looking forward to it.

New Figures Ready Now

2009-05-15T14:54:00.007+01:00

The shipment of Civilian Labourers, Drovers and Wagon Drivers has arrived and are available now. Please note that the labourers tools and all other items of equipment/accessories are not available seperately.

Coming soon :-

As usual, click on the images to see a larger version.

Partizan May 24th 2009

2009-05-06T18:54:00.002+01:00

I will be attending this show, as it is one of my all time favourites and just wanted to say that if anyone else who reads this is going and wants to order anything and save on postage, I will be happy to deliver in person on the day.

All I would ask is that if you do want to order anything for Partizan, please allow enough time for me to order anything that may be low on numbers from the caster, in good time for it to be delivered and for me to make up the order.

I would hope to have the drovers, drivers and labourers in time for Partizan too, as I am sending them off this week.

Note for overseas buyers

2009-04-22T14:34:00.002+01:00

I have just filled an order for a customer in the USA for 60 cavalry and the horses alone came in at just under the 2kg weight limit for airmail, meaning that the riders had to be boxed seperately.

This has a great bearing on the cost of postage and I just wanted to let prospective buyers from overseas know about this, so that they may wish to revise any future orders downwards in order to come within the 2kg weight limit. I would estimate from the weight of horses and riders, that probably about 40 cavalry (horses and riders combined) would be within the weight limit, before costs start to rise significantly. I hope this is of some help to anyone considering placing an order.

The cavalry are proving to be very popular, although my latest casting bill of over £1000.00 (mainly on horses) scared the living daylights out of me when it arrived yesterday, as I have never had one that big before. I was hoping to release the civilian labourers etc, soon, but may have to wait a little longer yet, until I have cleared my debt :-)

First cavalry available now.

2009-04-17T12:22:00.003+01:00

The Prussian and Austrian Cuirassiers have arrived from Griffin Moulds and are ready to be assigned to their various depots. The listing of available figures is on the right side of the front page, as usual.

I hope to have the engineers/labourers, drovers and wagon drivers available before too long.

NEW FIGURES ON THE WAY

2009-03-30T13:11:00.026+01:00

These are metal masters of the cavalry figures I have sent off to the mould maker today, to have production moulds made and they should be back with me by the end of next week with a bit of luck. The first 8 pictures are of the Austrian Cuirassiers viewed from both sides, followed by the Prussian Cuirassiers, viewed similarly. I hope you like them as much as I do. As usual, click on a photo to see a larger version.

Prussians

I also have the following to send off when I have a bit more cash available to spend on mould making and casting and I think that these will be very useful, as there are not many of this sort of figure to choose from on the general market. First up, civilian workmen, which can be used as additional artillerymen or sappers etc. These come open handed with a sprue of 4 tools.

Then there are the 2 wagon drivers and 2 drovers for rounding off the supply/baggage train. These are photographed with a Front Rank wagon and draught horse (although you don't see much of the wagon)

Well, as always it's either famine or feast on this blog and we are in feast mode at the moment so tuck in and let me know what you think. If anyone is awaiting the British and French heavy cavalry, you are going to have to wait for a while longer, as I have already comissioned the next set of figures from Richard and they are going to be a set of 8 Austrian grenz (Thanks for the info Ioannis) and a set of 8 Prussian Jàger. After those, I will address the British and French Cavalry.

Masters here at last

2009-03-27T15:15:00.002Z

Well it has been some time coming, but at last the masters are with me. Rather than post more pics of the same greens, albeit slightly modified, I sent them straight off to the mouldmaker and now have the metal masters back here with me.

I am in the process of sorting out which figures will go on which production moulds and they will go back to the mouldmaker on Monday and then be cast. Because of the nature of the figures and the uncertaintly about how many of each figure will be needed by people building units, all the cavalry figures will be going on individual moulds. Others like the civilian labourers in waistcoats will be in a set of four, so can all go on one mould.

Then there are the civilian drovers (for walking beside wagons) and the civilian wagon drivers, plus the labourers tools sprue and the cavalry standard bearer pole, which all adds up to more moulds than I have the money to pay for once again and I am not going to get into debt to my good friend Stewart at Griffin Moulds this time, for the sake of getting everything made at once.

So I will start with the release of the two sets of cavalry and then the income from the sales of these can hopefully let me release the civilian stuff soon after.

I have a couple of spares of each of the masters, which I will ink wash and photograph for the blog, so you can see what's coming, but remember there are no new figures actually available, until I announce them as being available here, so don't bombard me with e-mails in the meantime.

Work has already started on the next set of masters, which I will put no time frame on at this point, but just let me say thank you to Ioannis for the reference material for the Austrian Grenz :-)) The next release after the current crop of masters was to be French and British Heavy Cavalry, but I am putting this back a bit because of the variety of different "heavy" cavalry they had and am still researching and deciding what would be best to make. Stay tuned for some photos over the next few days and for all those going to Salute in London tomorrow (I am giving it a miss this year) I hope you have a great time.

Cavalry Delayed

2009-02-10T16:36:00.002Z

Due to new information on the Prussian Curassiers made available to Richard, he has decided to redo the the greens I previously showed on the blog.

He says he hates inaccuracies and being the perfectionist that he is, he said to me that he would never be able to look at, or use the new figures, knowing that they were wrong. I thought they were great, but what do I know. We are now looking at March before they will be ready.

A Sight for Sore Eyes

2009-01-16T01:45:00.005Z

Although I don't have the figures here with me yet, I got a wonderful boost today when Richard sent me the following pics of the completed Prussian and Austrian Curassiers. It will probably be a couple of weeks more yet before I have them, as he has yet to finish the other figures to make up the master mould, which these will be on, but I can wait patiently now after seeing these photos, as they are well worth the wait.

As is my usual whim, I asked for solid hands on the standard bearers, so that they can be drilled out to take the flagpole, as they always look better to my eye than open handed figures, which never look to me as if they are holding the pole properly.

He has captured the look I was hoping for with the steady advance of the heavy cavalry, as opposed to the all out charge and waving swords and I think these will look great lined up in squadrons. Anyway, enough of my rambling. Have a look for yourselves and let me know what you think. Feedback appreciated and valued as always.

As I said at the start, I don't have these figures here with me yet, but when I do, I will post up some more pics and also some of the other figures which will go on the mould.

I have a question which maybe you can help me with, which will probably help me decide how many of each to put on a mould etc and that is, would you envisage having a standard and trumpeter/coronet in each squadron, or only one of each in each regiment that you painted up?

For that matter, the same question applies to the Officer . . . .. I look forward to your feedback.

Bits and Pieces and year-end roundup

2008-12-23T20:28:00.011Z

I am the first to admit that I have been slacking of late and haven't updated the blog for a while, as several of my friends and followers have reminded me by e-mail, so here goes . . . .

The arrival of the artillerymen saw the overall project reach a milestone much faster than I anticipated. The line infantry are now complete and the artillery crews have filled a much needed slot in the overall army composition. I would not be at this stage now if it had not been for your enthusiasm, encouragement and of course your purchases, so for Minden, 2008 has been a very good progressive year.

I anticipated having Prussian and Austrian Curassiers by the end of this month for the start of the cavalry arm, but silly Richard fell over and hurt his arm last month, which derailed the whole timetable, as he couldn't hold a figure, never mind sculpt one. The knock on effect is that my figures have now encroached on the December work he had for a commercial business, which means that they have priority and mine are being fitted in where he can, but he assures me that by the end of this month or the start of January, I will have cavalry greens and thats good enough for me. I am so happy to have Richard doing the sculpting, that he can take as long as he likes, so long as he keeps making pretty toys for me.

I haven't done much painting lately and my own Prussian artillerymen are only undercoated so far, although I have been rebasing like a maniac, as I have had a surge of enthusiasm for a "Charles Grant Setup" and have been reorganising my 30 man battalions into 48, with each figure now having a 15mm frontage and 20mm depth. This is slighly more open than I had the 30 man battalions, but still nice close order. I have mixed the basing up to include multiples of 4 and 2, with a certain amount on single bases too for casualty removal in the Grant way.

The Wargames Companion and the Wargame have been read and re-read lately and while it is totally impractical for me to have these sized units, it's the way I am going. My pal Paul who paints for me has just completed a 48 man battalion of Austrians inc mounted Colonel and they look fantastic. I haven't based them yet, but will stick up some photos of them when I do.

I have been chewing the fat of late with Ioannis of Leuthen Journal (there can't be a wargamer who plays SYW who hasn't visited his website) and we got round to the time he said he liked the figures but could never paint them. remember that post on TMP?

Anyway a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then and Ioannis ordered a Prussian Artillery Crew and a mounted colonel to have a proper go at them. He told me he would have to refine his style a bit because of the fine detail on the Mindens, so I sent the figures and he set about the Colonel . . . . . I am not going to say anything about the paintjob, but YOU decide if he can paint these figures or not folks . . . .. I give you Ioannis's Minden Colonel . . .. .

I think it's safe to say that he vastly underestimated and understated his ability with that post on TMP and I am delighted to produce this evidence to that effect now. He is still not happy with it in parts, but I am delighted with it, particularly as it is winging its way in the post to me, as a Crimbo pressie from him to me. What a star!!! Thank you Ioannis.

Right, that's about it from me for now, but I can promise you more goodies in 2009 and we may just about see the armies taking final shape, with all components available and some nice extras to round things off. The cavalry and light infantry will take priority next year and I want more command figures on horses, with personalities and generals etc, oh and perhaps a proper officer figure for each gun crew, just standing there looking like . . . well, that he's in charge :-)

Finally, I would just like to say a huge thank you to those of you who have bought figures throughout 2008 and those who have orders pending right now. Your support is heart warming and genuinely appreciated. It is because of you that I have been able to get so much done this year. I also want to sincerely thank Richard for the sculpting work and his patience with me during the design process and also Stewart, Phil and Rob at Griffin Moulds, whos skill has ensured that the sculpts have been faithfully reproduced without blemish since the very start.

Happy Xmas and a happy, healthy New Year to you all.

Frank.

Gunners here at last!

2008-12-08T15:02:00.003Z

I have got the gunners in my sweatly mits at last and am seeing to the outstanding orders of those of you who have been waiting. Sorry for the delay and sorry, no piccies as yet, haven't had a minute to spare of late.

Gun Crews on the way

2008-11-18T16:42:00.003Z

It seems to be taking ages I know, but the metal masters came back from Griffin Moulds yesterday and I sorted them out into sets and returned them today, for production mould making. I would estimate about just over a week or so more before I have them back and available.

Also, thanks to the generosity of Stewart (Griffin), I am able to have the crews for all nations at once, instead of just the Prussians and Austrians first, followed by the British and French later. Stewart is more than just my mouldmaker/caster, he has become a really good friend over the last 4 years or so that we have known each other.

The crews will be available as sets of four, with 2 sprues of tools with each set and will not be available seperately, so please don't ask for individual gunners, as I won't be able to accomodate you. The prices are just the same though, so a gun crew will cost £4.00.

Richard is beavering away on the Prussian and Austrian Curassiers and has already finished the waistcoated labourers/gunners and the set of pioneers tools. It dawned on me the other day, that Richard is not working on enough figures to fill a mould (16 figures) as the Curassiers and waistcoated lads only add up to 12, so I have set him on making another four figures to fill the master mould.

I could of course, tell you what they are now, but I'm not going to, as just for once, I am going to wait for the greens and show you instead :-) This batch should be ready by the end of the month.

Austrian Gunners Redone

2008-11-06T19:33:00.005Z

I got the redone Austrian Gunners back from Richard today and took a quick piccie before I sent them off to the Mouldmaker this afternoon. I'm very happy with them and so grateful to Harald Howe of Germany for pointing out the error to me, that I am going to send him a complimentary set when they are cast. Here they are:

And while I was snapping away, I recalled that somebody had asked for a photo of the Prussian Gunners with a Foundry 12 pdr, so here's that pic too . ..

The camera seems to have focussed on the gun, blurring the gunners slightly, but as the picture was only to show how big the figures are next to the gun, it doesn't really matter.

Well, thats about it, until the mouldmaking and casting is done on these lads, although Richard is just about finished with the waistcoated workers and has made a start on the first of the cavalry, so it's all still going on in the background.

OOPS!!

2008-10-27T15:00:00.002Z

Well we did say that neither Richard or myself were authorities on SYW artillery and so it has turned out, with an error being pointed out to me over the weekend, so thank you for that Harald :-)

It would appear that the Austrian Artillery Gunners wore Dragoon like boots and not gaiters, as we have made them, on the greens. I did a bit of looking up in various publications following this bit of advice from Harald Howe and lo and behold, the evidence was staring me in the face.

The Austrians also had Artillery Fusiliers, whose role was to manhandle heavy equipment and protect the gunners in the field and they did wear gaiters, but because of the poses the gunners are in, we couldn't just leave them and say they were Fusiliers, as they are in gunners poses.

So, at the last minute, I have unwrapped the parcel which was set to go off to Griffin Moulds this morning and will be sending the Austrians back to Richard, to have the gaiters replaced by boots, but this will delay the production of all the artillerymen, as they will all be going on the same master mould.

However, it won't take too long and we will soon be back on track I'm sure.

Just a word to anyone who may send me an e-mail over the weekend . . .. please don't expect anything sent between Friday and Sunday to be answered before Monday, as I have two sons, one at University and one who works away from home Mon - Fri, who both descend on the Hammond household on Friday afternoon, whereupon chaos reigns until Sunday night when they both go back and by then I am too knackered to start answering e-mails etc, so it gets left until Monday. Any orders sent over the weekend will obviously also be attended to on Monday.

Thanks for your understanding :-)

Feast or Famine

2008-10-24T14:24:00.012+01:00

Well I did say a couple of posts ago that this blog would be a bit like that, with lots to say one week and nothing for ages afterwards and sure enough, with a couple of posts already within the last week, here I go again with more news and piccies.

The Artillerymen greens arrived in todays post from Richard and will be going off for mould making and master casting on Monday, so I thought I'd take a few snaps, to let you have an idea of what they are like, bearing in mind that the finished, cast article usually look much better than the greens. We have used dollies for the basic poses and then Richard has embellished these with the uniform details in greenstuff.

I hope you will like these as much as I do and I have posed them alongside a Foundry Prussian 12 pounder and they look fine for size with it, so I am a happy bunny, as I bought 15 Foundry Guns in their recent 20% discount week :-) I will make a new post when I get the masters cast and let you know when the production castings will be available.

It is unlikely that I will be able to afford to put all four nations into production at the same time, due to mould making and casting costs, but I will be able to do two lots, so will probably start with the Prussian and Austrian gunners, with the others following soon after.

Richard will be making a start on the cavalry next week, so hopefully it won't be too long before I have more new stuff to show you.

Smallest Command Ever?

2008-10-22T14:39:00.008+01:00

I have finally finished my first mounted Colonel and seeing him in these photos, has convinced me that no matter how well you think you have photographed something, it is still nothing like holding the finished article in your hand. I wasn't too happy with the Coat d' Arms matt spray varnish this time however and it seems to have ended up with a kind of satin finish. I have used this stuff for years and always sworn by it for the flatness of the finish. Maybe it's time to look at another brand . . . Anyway here he is . . . click on the pic for a bigger version . . . .

Now the embarrassing thing about finishing this proud fellow is that he has the smallest command ever I think, hence the title of this post. I have only painted 4 rank and file and one officer for this army so far. I am running two projects, a multi-figure based Prussia v Austria one and a single figure based The Wargame/Charge one and these are from the latter. I am becoming an increasingly slow painter and just can't make myself skip finer detail in the trade off for getting more figures painted quickly.

At this rate, I will probably be dead of old age before I get to fight a battle with them and still I can't make myself go any faster. Oh well, at least I get the feeling of satisfaction every time I finish a new figure, where other people probably get a feeling of satisfaction with every newly finished Battalion :-)

So, for what it's worth, here are a few pics of the smallest command of all time

I am expecting the greens for the new Artillerymen by the end of this week, if Richard can finally get through all the buttons he's been complaining about to me for the last few days :-)

Feedback review and a decision

2008-10-16T15:03:00.002+01:00

Firstly, thank you all for the comments and to those who didn't leave a comment but e-mailed me with their views and ideas.

I have pondered over the replies and after a long chat with Richard on the phone today, have reached a decision about the way forward for the whole range, not just this particular option for the waistcoated figures.

Firstly it would seem that generally, from the e-mails I've had and comments made over time on the blog, my thinking to do ALL foot figures before starting cavalry was flawed, as it would appear that most of you would like to balance out the armies a bit with more core figures, before getting into the specialist stuff, like skirmishers, personalities etc etc.

So, to try to maintain a balance I am going to try to fill master moulds with core troops and a few extra at the same time, with moulds holding a bulk of core troops with a little bit of something else in there too, to keep everyone happy.

I know I have said that I will make what I want for myself and if you like it you can buy some too, but as you are a fairly small group who buy from me, I have decided to relax my rules a little and try to accomodate some of your wishes at the same time, so that everyone is reasonably happy with what I am producing. I know that I won't be able to please everyone every time I make a new mould, but if I can please some of you each time, then I will be doing ok and still making the figures that I want too.

So, after all that here's what I have decided . . ..

I won't make battalion gunners. There will be 4 sets of Line Artillerymen for the 4 nations and that will be the end of the artillery output. (I think)

I am going to make the waistcoated figures, but for now, will only make 4, so that if you want them, they are there and if you don't, no matter, as I want some for my own use anyway. There will be a sprue of tools to go with them and they can be used as whatever you want to use them for, including mixing them in with your gunners for more variety if you so wish.

However, the master mould after the gunners will be the one those figures will be on, but the bulk of that mould will now be take up with cavalry!!

I am going to start with Prussian and Austrian Curassiers, as they were the first line of the cavalry and then I'll take it from there in future moulds, adding heavies for France and Great Britain, then Dragoons, Hussars etc, with spaces on the mould filled with light infantry for all.

Now this is going to take some time, for as you know, after each master mould, the production moulds have to be made and then I have to sell some figures before I can move on, etc etc, so please don't press me about when different things will be ready, for I will announce developments here, as they occur.

That may mean that there are quiet periods on the blog when it doesn't seem like much is going on and then there will be periods like now, when there is plenty to say, but rest assured that all the time in the background, things will be moving forward and while Richard is sculpting, there is nothing much I can tell you, until I have some masters to show you photos of, etc.

I hope you will all be happy with my decision to go forward the way I have described and I hope that all of you who buy regularly from me will get something you want out of this, as I want you to know that I sincerely appreciate your patronage and hope that you are satisfied with my service back to you. Long may we continue to move forward together, as it is your purchases which are making my dream a reality, much faster than I would have ever hoped for.

Thanks again to each and every one of you.

When is a poll not a poll?

2008-10-15T18:36:00.003+01:00

Ok so the title is a bit cryptic, so let me elaborate . . . ..

The Line artillerymen for all four nations are nearly made and I expect the greens from Richard by the middle of next week sometime. There will be four sets of four figures, with open hands and a selection of artillery equipment, so that a bit of variety can be created. This goes against my usual practice of not having open handed figures, but it is neccessary for these, so I'll live with it.

Now neither Richard or myself are experts on SYW artillery, but we believe that the British for sure and maybe the French had line infantrymen trained to use the Battalion Guns, but we haven't got a clue if the Austrians or Prussians did.

So, what this would mean would be making up to four new sets of artillerymen in infantry uniforms for historical accuracy and we are talking about a lot of money to do this and being a Scotsman who hates wasting money, I don't believe it is worth it, when I consider that for the same money I could be getting the light infantry started. I won't be using Battalion Guns, so I don't want to make them and as you know, I'm not a purist, so would even be happy to use line gunners to man any Battalion Guns I might use anyway. I know, shock, horror, blasphemy and all that, but . . . .. . . and here is the where the title of the post comes in . . .

Would you fellas out there like to see a set of figures, maybe in waistcoats, with their coats off, which could double up as battalion gunners, sappers and the like, with open hands and a variety of equipment sprues, so that you could make them be gunners, sappers, pioneers or even civilians or artillery train, by equiping them with the variety of equipment on the different sprues?

I know I have said that what I want will be made and that I won't take requests for figures, but on this occasion, I would like your input and will listen carefully to what you would like, particularly those of you who buy from me regularly.

I would like this feedback fairly quickly, because I need to nail Richard down as soon as he finishes the line artillery, before he goes and gets absorbed in somebody elses work project :-)

The colonels have proved very popular and I am delighted with how many of you have bought them and as I said before, the masters will be returned to Richard, so he can have a play around and make some changes to them, to give us a bit more variety.

By the way, ever been curious about what a master looks like after it has been for mouldmaking?

It is heartbreaking to see what were lovely greens turned into trash, but thats what happens and to prove it, here is a pic of the poor colonels upon their return from the mouldmaker . . .

Click on the photo for a closer look at the carnage :-)

The Colonels are here

2008-10-12T14:39:00.003+01:00

The mounted Colonels arrived on Friday afternoon and I am delighted with them. I was going to put the notice of their arrival up here immediately, but then stopped, as I hadn't determined a price for them.

Working out the casting costs for the horses and riders seperately, it quickly became obvious that the light horses are almost double the cost of the riders, with the heavier horses almost exactly so. So I pondered the cost of £3.00 per mounted figure and I didn't like it very much to be honest, as I felt that it was too expensive, but no matter what, the costs were staring me in the face from my invoices.

I decided to do a trawl round the internet to see what others were charging for mounted figures and I checked out those considered to be "good brands" for the comparison, as I consider these figures to be up there with the best around. Not all do SYW cavalry and I used any mounted figures they do for the comparison.

Hmmmm .. interesting results . . . Here is the list of those I checked out . .

Although some sell in packs and others sell horses and riders seperately the cost of each horse and rider combination is as follows:-

£2.50: Perry Miniatures, Front Rank and Gripping Beast.
£2.66: Crusader Miniatures
£3.00: Artizan Designs, Eureka Miniatures
£3.83: Copplestone Castings
£4.00: Foundry Miniatures.

So, after much deliberation I have decided that I will match Perry and Front Rank and set the cost of mounted figures at £2.50, until further notice.

So, for the benefit of anyone newly aware of this site, with an interest in buying some figures, the prices are foot figures £1.00, Mounted figures £2.50.

I am busily painting a British Colonel and hope to have a picture of the finished article to show you in a few days.

Mounted Colonels

2008-09-27T19:34:00.010+01:00

Well after what seems like an eternity, I finally got the Colonels in the post this morning from Richard. They will be going off to the mouldmaker next week.

I've taken a photo of each one from both sides to give an idea what they are like, but believe me, the photos do NOT do these little fellas justice, particularly as I don't even seem to have got the camera focussed properly on one or two of the shots. Anyway, without further ado, here the gentlemen in question . . ..

British Colonel

Austrian Colonel

French Colonel

Prussian Colonel

British Grenadiers have Arrived

2008-08-20T17:49:00.002+01:00

Well with the arrival of the British Grenadier and Grenadier N.C.O. yesterday, that is the last of the outstanding masters made into production moulds and I am ready to embrace the new sculpts from Richard :-)

As I said in the last post, the next available figures will be a mounted Colonel for each country and a load of new master dollies for the artillerymen and skirmishers. I can confirm that it will be the artillerymen after the colonels, as I have just splashed out on Foundry guns, taking advantage of their 20% discount offer, which is currently on.

I have ordered a total of 15 guns and with the discount it came to £56.00 with free postage included, which is very good for a purchase from Foundry I think :-)

This also gives me ample guns for my own needs and also works out an awful lot cheaper than if I had made my own, so I am quite happy with things as they stand.

Hungarian Reinforcements

2008-08-04T16:05:00.003+01:00

The Hungarians arrived from the caster today and as usual I am delighted with how they turned out. They consist of:-

Musketeer/Fusilier
Grenadier
N.C.O.
Drummer
Ensign
Officer

So all that remains to be cast now are the British Grenadier and Grenadier N.C.O. which I will get sent off for production moulding this week.

Okay, I was going to hang back with this news, but I am so excited myself, that I am going to share it with you . . .

This months new greens will be dollies for the artillerymen and the skirmishers, which unfortnately won't result in finished figures this month, but as well as those, there will be four finished new figures and they will be British, Austrian, Prussian and French mounted Colonels for the infantry.

This isn't the start of the cavalry proper that I planned, but it will at least allow those of us who want them, to have our units led by the senior man.

The cavalry dolly was just a basic stick man really, with no detail on, because of the diversity of SYW cavalry and Richard couldn't sculpt on anything which would be universal, so each cavalry figure is going to be a complete new figure sculpt and this is costing me twice as much as the infantry figures, so unfortunately, I am going to be pricing them accordingly, but not until I have scouted out the going rate for commercial cavalry these days. I will keep it as low as I possibly can, without selling them at a loss however. More on this another time though.

On a side note, I now have 9 Prussian battalions of 30 men each painted, with one of them as yet unbased, but I have got myself sidetracked by reading and re-reading "The Wargame" and have so far got 2 x British Infantry painted for my fictional North Nottinghamshire Regiment and they are based singly too :-) There will be 3 x 16 man companies, plus each will have an Officer and Drummer. I may replace one hatman with an N.C.O. just because I can and I don't know if Charles Grant had them available to him or not, when he built his original armies, but I think he would have approved, had he seen my N.C.O's.

Moving on

2008-07-20T17:01:00.003+01:00

The new Prussian Officer and the French Grenadier have been added to the "Available Figures" list on the right, as they came back from the caster at the end of last week. This effectively wraps up the Prussian and French Line Infantry, certainly for now at least.

The Hungarians are going off for Production Moulding tomorrow (Monday) and upon their return that will take care of the Austrian Line Infantry for now, with only the British Grenadier and NCO to go after that to complete the British, although I have a real hankering for Highlanders, which won't please Richard I don't think, but I think I'm going to have to have them anyway.

Richard is starting work on the next set of masters next month, which will include all new dollies for the Artillerymen and possibly the start of the skirmishers. With luck we may also get finished Artillerymen by the end of next month, but this will depend purely on Richards workload. I've asked him for somethng else too, but I'll not elaborate on that for now and see how things go :-)

Ok that's it for me for this time, except to say that I had a good old chinwag with Henry when I rang him to renew my Battlegames subscription.

Slowly moving forward

2008-07-12T21:58:00.006+01:00

Well since I opened the door, there has been a trickle of new people showing interest and one or two who have taken the plunge, my thanks to them and welcome aboard.

I sent off two more figures to the mouldmaker last week to have production moulds made and they are the new Prussian Officer and the French Grenadier, so I should have those back and available, sometime in the next week I hope.

I would like to move the Hungarians forward next, but as they will involve six moulds at once, it may have to be the two British Grenadiers instead, the NCO and Grenadier.

Richard is starting the next batch of figures next month and there should be something in there to whet a few appetites (I hope) but I'm not saying what there will be just yet. Put it this way, I'm getting a bit excited :-)

Remember what seemed like an age ago I said I had some Alban Miniatures British Napoleonic Riflemen ? (Sculpted by Richard to the same scale as my SYW figures) Well I finally got them painted up, not all by me I must confess, but my buddy Dave Woodward stepped in to help me get them done. He has another 12 at present which he is painting for me too.

Anyway, the six I have, plus the Too Fat Lardies "Sharpe & Harper" were photographed tonight, in rather failing light I must say and I present them now for your scrutiny. These are going to fight over my Anglian Miniatures Spanish buildings, which I haven't painted yet, but are delicious models.

As usual click on the pics to enlarge. I hope you like them.

The Way Forward

2008-07-01T16:32:00.002+01:00

Firstly, I am amazed by the response to my request for feedback and opinion from you the buyers and particularly by the amount of e-mails I've had from you, expressing your opinions.

A dozen blog comments was reasonable and I thank you for those, but special mention goes to the great number of you who took the time to send me an e-mail letter and express your feelings about whether I should open up the list to new buyers.

I have had suggestions about different ways to have "Club Memberships" with various incentive schemes, etc and advance ordering, as ways to bring in revenue to take the project forward.

However, the overwhelming point is that not one single person who responded, had any objection to me opening up the list again, which makes things very easy for me now.

I won't be adopting any of the suggestions to have a "Club" or "Incentive Scheme" and taking money in advance of having something to send out in return, is not something I want to do either, so I will merely open the list again, as before, noting new buyers and adding them to the list. This situation will not remain open ended, but for now, the door is officially open . . . . . .

I would once again like to express my thanks to those who wrote to me and some of the letters showed that a good deal of thought had gone into the replies and it is very much appreciated.

The Austrian Grenadiers are here!

2008-06-26T15:09:00.002+01:00

After what seems like an eternity, the parcel arrived from the caster today and although I haven't even had time to open the box yet, I can announce the arrival of the Austrian Grenadiers.

I am also wondering whether to open up the buyers list to a few more people, as my calculations regarding buyers helping to pay for mould and casting costs seems to have gone somewhat awry and people have the bulk of what they want now from the existing figures, which means that my production has slowed down tremendously, as I can't afford to have all the masters made into production moulds yet, as things stand.

I'm not sure if this is fair on the people who rushed an order in to beat the deadline though and others who bought a few figures, only to be on the list for when the cavalry arrive. The dilemma is a moral one, so I would appreciate a bit of feedback from those of you who are on my list and I will be guided in the main, by your views, which is something I don't often do.

If it is not thought to be a good idea in general, we will all just have to accept that the new figures will be a little longer in coming, which isn't really a hardship in the greater scheme of things.

On another note, I got impatient with the slow painting of my 95th Rifles from Alban Miniatures and sent them to my buddy Dave Woodward to finish them off for me. I have them back and they look great. I'm just basing them up now, then I'll take some photos and whack them on the blog for your perusal. Right, thats enough for now, as I had better go and open that box of new shiny toys :-)

Future Releases

2008-06-16T18:17:00.009+01:00

Here are a few more photos of black-washed masters, which will be released as and when I can afford to have the moulds made and the casting done.

Austrian Hungarians:-

British Grenadiers:-

Prussian Officer:-

French Grenadier:-

Metal Masters are ready

2008-06-13T11:27:00.013+01:00

Well its been a couple of weeks now since I reported the dodgy camera and the arrival of the new greens. I think I've fixed the camera now and Bluebear Jeffs idea to consult the manual was a stroke of genious :-) You can decide for yourselves after looking at the following photos.

I didn't have it sorted in time before I sent off the greens for casting, but I have the metal masters now, so will black wash those and take photos to let you see what the new figures are like, or at least give you a good idea, as pictures are never as good as the real thing.

The first 5 master figures have gone back to the caster to have production moulds made and I decided (as I can't afford to make them all at once) to start with the Austrian Grenadiers (German Variety). I expect them to be ready towards the end of next week or the beginning of the week after, so here are some pics of them black washed. Remember these are just the masters and no production figures are ready yet.

Just for a bit of a change from the usual officer with sword etc, this one carries a musket and the inspiration for this figure is taken from plate number 52 in Mollos book, Uniforms of The Seven Years War 1756 - 63.

I will get the rest of the metal masters black washed and photographed over the next few days or so, to let you have a look at them, but remember none of those will be available for a while yet. They include, the new Prussian Officer, French Grenadier, British Grenadier and Grenadier NCO, Austrian Hungarian Fusilier, Officer, Drummer, NCO and Grenadier.

Just to give you another look at different uniforms, here are two Austrians painted by Gaz and a Prussian Grenadier NCO painted by Paul. I hope you like them as much as I do.

New Greens are here

2008-05-30T15:16:00.002+01:00

Well the new masters arrived from Richard yesterday and I was full of good intentions regarding photographing them and getting the pics on the blog, until I actually took some photos and they were rubbish!

My camera still isn't right after my son messing about with it and I am most disgruntled. I've had the damned thing set up perfect for taking minis photos for over 2 years now and he has messed it all up in the course of taking a dozen photos of his damned car! I am not sending the masters off for moulding until Monday, so I'll keep trying to sort out the camera in the meantime.

The figures are gorgeous of course (well I would say that wouldn't I?) and if I can't get any pictures sorted out before they go, I'll try again when they come back in metal. This is therefore a very short note and much shorter than I intended.

I have 3 more painted battalions of Prussians back from my painting friends and they are pretty snazzy. Thanks to Paul, John and Gaz. I am in the process of basing them up and sorting out the flags. I feel another march past coming on, so I hope that damned camera behaves . . ..

Alban Miniatures

2008-05-22T15:10:00.004+01:00

Well I wondered why it was taking me so long to get anything for the camera and then it dawned on me that I was supposed to be doing one miniature to completion, instead of what I am so used to doing, which is painting several at once.

So, after much faffing about and my son changing all the camera settings, I have finally completed and photographed one of the Alban Miniatures 95th Rifles. These are 1/56th scale and sculpted by Richard for Paul Hammond, who runs Alban.

Just to illustrate how much of a luddite I am, with my son changing all the settings on my camera, to take pictures of his car to sell it, it took me an hour and a half, with the manual by my side, to get it back to how I leave it set, for taking photos of minis. I set it up when I first got it, two years ago, using the manual and have never changed the settings again and even now I'm not quite sure if I have got it exactly how I had it before.

I wish kids would bloody leave things alone! Anyway, here is a pic of the first of the 6 figures Paul gave me and I have the Sharpe and Harper to do yet as well. I'll probably have time to finish painting these before there is any pics of new greens for my next mould, so I'll better crack on. Click on the photo for a bigger view.

A bit of a distraction . . .

2008-05-14T18:50:00.004+01:00

Arrived in the post yesterday, in the shape of the new ruleset from Too Fat Lardies, entitled Sharp Practice. Now as the name suggests these are for skirmishing primarily in the Napoleonic period, although they state they can be used for all black powder periods.

Included with the rules were two freebie miniatures, sculpted in glorious 1/56th scale, by none other than Richard, who as you know, sculpts my toys.

The figures are of the TV version of Sharpe and Harper and are rather exquisite. They are companion figures to the excellent 1/56th scale 95th Rifles figures sculpted by Richard, for Alban Miniatures, owned by Paul Hammond (no relation), although Paul is also a customer of mine and has a considerable force of Mindens already.

I was lucky enough to meet up with Paul at Salute recently and he very kindly gave me half a dozen of the 95th Rifles figures, which were pre-release at that time. I immediately placed an order for the 16 figures he has coming out as they are gorgeous. I have started painting them and will probably have the first one painted and a piccie on the blog in a couple of days.

You can find Pauls toys at http://www.albanminiatures.com/ and I thoroughly reccomend them.

More on my next mould when I have something to tell you, as things are quiet at the moment, with Richard chained to the sculpting bench, beavering away on my next masterpieces.

The Next Master Mould

2008-05-02T12:21:00.002+01:00

Well I know that it's been a long time coming, due to Richards commercial work and finishing up work for companies, but he has now got started on the figures for my next mould.

As a mould holds 16 figures, I needed to prioritise what went on the next one and came up with a list, which some people will think is good and others will think is rubbish, I've no doubt. However, as I can only have 16 figures this time round, it is about being practical and making steady progress. I would love to have announced Hussars, Dragoons or Curassiers, but I'm afraid it's not cavalry time yet.

So on to the list then . . .

German Austrians:-

Grenadier, Grenadier Officer, Grenadier Ensign, Grenadier Drummer and Grenadier NCO.

Hungarian Austrians:- Fusilier, Officer, Ensign, Drummer, NCO and Grenadier.

I'm not doing all the extra command figures for the Hungarian Grenadiers, as they were too few in the overall establishment and I will just attach the Grenadiers to the ordinary Battalions I make up, which will only be a couple anyway, compared to lots of Germans. I did say I wasn't a purist and something had to give somewhere.

British:- Grenadier and Grenadier NCO. (These figures are already sculpted)

French:- Grenadier.

Prussian:- Officer, as I am not too happy with the officer with the bendy sword.

The 15th mould slot will go to a generic cavalry dolly, which Richard will use later as the basis for the forthcoming cavalry.

I'm sure the list above will generate a few comments, both positive and negative, so let's be having them then . . . . . . :-)

How I do my Bases

2008-04-24T13:26:00.019+01:00

This will probably not be of much interest to many of you, but Der Alte Fritz asked me to show him how I did my bases and I promised that I would, so this is it. I must warn in advance that this is not rocket science and may well be old hat to most, including Jim Purky himself, but it is how I do my bases for nearly all periods and it works for me, being neat and tidy, if a bit laborious at the same time.

So, after sticking the figures to the base with any general purpose glue, I apply my own recipe of "gunge" to even out the figures integral bases and create a base of one level with no steps up to the figures. This stand is a company of Grenadiers (IR41) painted by my buddy Gaz.

As I said at the beginning, the "gunge" is my own recipe and is just a mixture of cheap PVA, Filler and Brown Poster Paint, mixed together to a consistency resembling wet mortar. I keep it in a resealable margarine tub and it stays wet for months, only requiring the addition of a drop of water every few months to keep it damp.

Not very pretty, but very effective. This particular batch is about 4 months old and still going strong. This is how the base looks when the gunge has been applied. It is quite heavily watered down over the figures integral bases, so that the feet are not buried and the whole thing is smoothed over to present a level, uniform surface, ready for the next stage.

Once dry, I then cover the whole base with unwatered down PVA and dip the whole stand into a tub of Games Workshop Sand and Pebbles, to give the groundwork for the stand.

Then remove from tub, tap the stand to shake off excess and leave to dry. Any "rocks" that are up against the figures feet are removed and this looks horrible later when painted, so I take them off at this stage. Any little bald patches where the rocks were don't matter, as you will see shortly.
Once the pva has dried and the sand and pebbles mix is secure, I just run my finger round the base edges to remove any litle bits which might be sticking out, disturbing the straight lines of the base edges.

Next up I apply an ink wash to the whole base in preparation for drybrushing. I just use an old paintbrush to soak up lots of ink and then let it seep out into the sand mixture. It soesn't even involve any painting actions, just apply the loaded brush on to the base and let it soak in, which means that you don't have to paint round the figures feet or anything, as it soaks right up against them.

Leave to let the ink dry (I usually place near a radiator) and then drybrush with the colour of your choice. My colour of choice is Vallejo Yellow Ochre. I don't know why I chose this, but I just did it once and thought it looked good, so have continued to use it ever since. I'm really scientific like that :-)

So with the base now drybrushed and the edges painted with Miniature Paints Chocolate Brown, it's time to add a bit of static grass to finish it off, before a spray of matt varnish. I just paint on some slightly watered down pva with an old brush, where I want the grass to be . . . .

Then dip the whole stand in an icecream tub of static grass, moving it around to ensure a good covering . .

Then I remove it, beat it down a bit with a cocktail stick all over the base, to ensure good adhesion, then tap off the excess and leave to dry. Once dry, I blow on it hard to remove any loose fibres. There is often loose static grass fibres on the actual figures too at this stage (see next photo) and I remove this with a dry paintbrush, before giving a coat of matt varnish to seal the whole thing.

. . . . and that's all there is to it. I seem to have written quite a lot and taken too many photos for what is such a short job in reality, but I suppose it's like that really for step by step articles. Anyway I hope it was useful for some, although I doubt it, knowing the expertise of most of this Blogs' readers :-)

Salute '08

2008-04-15T03:47:00.003+01:00

I will be away from Friday until Sunday at Salute, so if anyone e-mails me during that time, please don't think I am ignoring you, as I won't be here :-)

I will answer all e-mails as soon as possible upon my return.

Now, just to clear up a bit of a misunderstanding about minimum orders of my figures . . . . There is NO minimum order. All I said was that I won't sell "one of everything type orders" as they are no use to anyone, but if you want to buy a company of six figures etc, thats fine with me, so long as it resembles a unit with more rank and file than command.

One person who has the bulk of his armies by RSM95, asked if he could just buy some officers to lead them, (six figures) and I said of course, no problem. I am not the monster I am made out to be in certain quarters, so don't be afraid to ask for small numers of figures, in the belief that I will refuse, as I won't.

Anyway, it won't be long until I can post that the figures are no longer for sale and to be honest, I am looking forward to that, to get the hassle of late put to bed once and for all.

Happy gaming!

Some basic rules

2008-04-09T13:02:00.002+01:00

Guys, having been in the figure manufacturing business and having been a figure collector, gamer, painter etc, etc, for more years than I care to remember, I have seen the rise and fall of figure recasters over the years and am quite paranoid, nay, extremely paranoid, about them.

I have seen Games Workshop and Foundry figures ripped off by recasters and offered on e-bay etc and I am determined it won't happen to me, with these beautiful figures.

Now while I am not suggesting that anyone who writes to me is a rip-off merchant or recaster, I have had several orders for "one of everything and two of this line " etc and I'm afraid I am going to disappoint those people, because through my paranoia, I can visualise moulds made up of these "one of everything" type orders and I am not risking it I'm afraid.

I can imagine that people may want to see a few figures before jumping in with a proper order, but I am not going to sell in these sort of quantities.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that small orders are not acceptable to me, because they are and all contributions are welcome. I understand that the 12 figure battalion is very much alive out there, but I am not going to sell figures which don't at least resemble some sort of unit, with at least a handful of rank & file and a couple of command figures at least.

An order along the lines of 2 officers, 2 nco's, 2 ensigns, 2 drummers and 2 fusiliers etc, will not get processed. Some may think me a strange sort of bloke, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, particularly when the orders like these come from overseas.

Pirates in the UK can be found quite readily when one puts ones mind to it, but overseas is another matter and is a lot harder to deal with, so the bottom line is that I won't accept orders like that, from here on, from anywhere.

I know that if people are determined enough, they can order small units and still duplicate the figures and I'll have to live with that risk.

I have come to know most of you who have ordered from me previously and you are a bunch of generous, enthusiastic gamers, who share my passion, so please note that none of this concerns any of you. Thanks for your understanding.

Confirmation of cut-off date

2008-04-07T16:37:00.002+01:00

Having given the cut off date for new customers some more thought, after being asked to consider people who don't need infantry, but would like cavalry when they are available, I can confirm, that come 1st of May 2008, you will either be a buyer or not, ie; you will either have bought some figures from me and been entered on my buyers list, or you won't have bought any figures and will not be on the list.

The last day to place an order to ensure being on the list is April 30th 2008, thereafter no orders from "new" buyers will be accepted.

I don't like unpleasantness, so please note the dates if you are interested in being part of this and please don't e-mail me after the dates given, to ask me to sell figures, if you are not an existing buyer, as I don't want to offend, but I will refuse your custom. I think giving a months notice is plenty of time for someone to decide if they want to partake of these figures or not.

The next figures to be released either right at the end of this month or early next month, will be British Grenadiers, Austrian Grenadiers, French Grenadiers, Hungarian Austrians and a new Prussian Officer.

Richard is up to his neck sculpting for companies at present, so I can't promise when we will be seeing the Jägers, Croats, etc and the Artillerymen, but they are coming, as are the cavalry, eventually, as soon as Richard can find a window of opportunity to sculpt them.

That's about it for now, so until next time, if you are a casual observer of the blog, considering getting on the buyers list or not, it's time to focus your mind, as the door will be firmly closed on the last day of April.

The British are here

2008-03-31T17:43:00.003+01:00

As the title says, the British castings have arrived. Well actually they arrived last Thursday, but I have been too busy to make a blog entry. Orders for the British have gone out and I am in discussion with Richard about moving on now to the next master mould, which will contain masters for the British, French and Austrian Grenadiers. Also the Hungarian Austrians and a new Prussian Officer, as the current one with raised sword, has a fragile sword blade, due of course to it being in scale. This way, people will have the option of a different officer, although the existing one will remain available.

With the British release, I have now got the four nations I want to do figures for and don't have plans to do others at this time, so I have decided that in a month or so (around the first of May) I will close shop and stop accepting orders from new customers. I have said all along that this is not a business and if I don't close the door at some point, I may as well be trading as a business, which was never the plan.

Figure availablility will become like a private club thereafter and I have already made a customer list of existing buyers. I will be adhering strictly to the list after the public door closes.

The four chosen nations will have all arms of the respective armies available eventually, and as regular visitors know, the horses for the cavalry are already made, well at least the metal masters are, so that Richard can be working on the riders.

I have decided not to make artillery pieces, as the cost V's my needs don't make sense, so I will be buying in any guns for my own use. Artillery crews will be made though, to keep all figures in scale for the benefit of the look of the armies.

If anybody knows which manufacturers guns would match the size of my figures best I would be glad to hear about it, or I will have to buy one gun from each of them to see for myself :-)

People keep asking me to provide lists of which figures are available, so instead of typing out a list to every individual, I have typed up a word document listing available figures and this will be sent as an attachment to anyone who wants a copy. Just e-mail me.

The problem with a blog instead of a website is that I can't have a "catalogue" page with all the listings on, as every page becomes part of the archive and is only the front page, as it were, until the next post.

Right, I think that's about it for this time, with apologies to Der Alte Fritz for the lack of a basing guide as promised. I will work on it for a future posting Jim, I promise :-)

Painted Frenchman

2008-03-12T16:51:00.005Z

Finished him today, although I must admit I did rush things a little bit, because I wanted to get him done and photographed. However, he shows up what the figure is like and the details sculpted on him, better than the pics of the bare castings that I put up before. So without further ado, here is private Pierre for your perusal . . .

and a look at him from above rear . .

Comments and constructive criticism welcome as always. I'll be doing a basing step by step next time, at the request of Jim Purky, who has been asking for that for a little while now and although it is a quite simple job, it is quite effective.

Someone has asked me to sell them some of my finials and cords/ribbons, but I haven't had them up for sale, because I couldn't decide how much to charge for them. I have decided that I will not sell them individually, but may give them free to people who purchase standard bearers from me, particularly to those people who have become regular customers. Please don't e-mail and ask me to sell them seperately.

Painted Battalions

2008-03-10T18:10:00.010Z

Several people have asked to see pictures of the painted units I have, after me saying that I had three battalions back from my painting buddies, so without further ado here they are.

They are only on my painting bench though, because unlike Jim Purky and Co, I don't have a lovely gamesroom with permanent table to set them up on. However, that doesn't stop me parading them on whatever surface happens to be free at the time, be it the workbench, the kitchen table, the coffee table in the lounge, or the kitchen worktops. So, here they are and as usual please excuse the less than perfect photography. Click on pics for a closer view.

Mass march past

1st Battalion IR20

2nd Battalion IR8

2nd battalion IR38

On the news front, I have sent off the British masters today for production moulding and casting, so should have them by next week. The Prussians, French and Austrians have been very popular, so it will be interesting to see how the British do once they are available. I have just about finished the Frenchman I am painting for the blog and should have a pic in the next day or so.

Painted British Master

2008-03-06T14:58:00.007Z

Well I got round to painting this master figure eventually and although he appears reasonable, I'm not sure that the red of the coat is right. He was easy to paint though, like all of the ones I've done so far and I still can't believe that a pro painter would have any difficulty painting this range.

I just realised while doing this fine fellow that I haven't done a Frenchman, even though they are available and the British are not yet, so that's what I'll do next.

I've just finished basing up my third Prussian Battalion and they are starting to look the business now. The first was painted by Paul Sanderson, the second by Jon Atter and now the third by Nick Speller. The first two are Musketeers and the third is a battalion of Fusliers. The second battalion of IR38 to be precise.

My own battalion, is still taking forever to do, although I put this down to packing orders and generally not painting as intensively as I probably could. However, I have also got the knowledge that I will end up with 10 line battalions and two of Grenadiers, due to the painting efforts of others, without even counting my own battalion, so there is the core of a very healthy army there.

I must crack on with this Prussian battalion I think, so I can make a start on the Austrians, which I am really looking forward to painting. Anyway, without further ado, here's the British Hatman.

Please excuse the differing light conditions evident in the pics, as I am not the best photographer in the world and use the flash facility with a kleenex held in front of the flash to take the glare off the figures. I think I must have had it folded double on the second one :-)
Depending on the sales of the Austrians, the British should be available in a few weeks with any luck and if they prove to be as popular as the French have been, maybe even sooner, but I'll post a more definite timetable when I have more of an idea of how things are going.

I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of you who have bought figures and helped me push ahead of the production timetable I had previously envisioned. It's great to know that there are so many like minded souls out there, who love this period and nice figures.

INVASION!

2008-03-04T11:22:00.003Z

Well after seriously underestimating the demand for the French and having to re-order twice to meet requirements, I was taking no such chance with the Austrians and consequently a huge box has landed on the doorstep this morning.

The casting bill is frightening, so I hope some of you will want some of these fellas, or the British will not be released for some time to come :-)

Talking of which, I painted up a British officer master figure as a Prussian officer, to lead my Grenadiers, by way of a change from the two Prussian officers available and I think he looks ok.

There is obviously a slight discrepancy of authenticity here, as the British officer has his sash across his shoulder instead of round his waist, but I am quite happy with this to be honest and am not a purist, as I have said often enough. I'll take a photo later on and stick it up for perusal.

I'm also painting up a British hatman master casting and will stick up a piccie of that when it's done too, although that won't be today, as I have domestic "jobs" to do and won't get round to him I fear. Why do women always find jobs for us men, when we can't see the need for them?
I think they must have a built in "Husband is idle" detector which triggers their job finder instinct.

Edit:- Piccie of British/Prussian Officer.

Update and a Few Questions Answered

2008-02-21T14:59:00.009Z

I guess after a 13 day absence of input from me, the arrival of the first French production castings today, warrants an update.

As usual, Stewart and the lads at Griffin Moulds have made a smashing job of the Frenchmen and I am delighted with the final castings. Those who have placed a firm order should have them very soon, as I will start making up orders today and sending out the Paypal invoices. I don't think I ordered enough initially, so I have been on the phone to Stewart to order some more, which he assures me will arrive by courier on Monday.

Also on Monday, I will be sending off the Austrians for production mould making and should have some production castings back within a week or so. I'm looking forward to those particularly, as they will be my second army.

Ok, thats the news part, so now I would like to take this opportunity to answer a few questions and make a few comments about myself, my figures, this blog and also about the kind of people out there who have passed comment on my figures.

Firstly, one of my customers has started a thread on TMP about my figures. I don't recognise him from his log-in name on that site and while I'm sure his intentions were good, I think he chose an unfortunate title for the post, considering the past aggro on that site between me and the webmaster. Actually from the webmasters cynical comment on the thread, it appears to be ongoing on his part.

Anyway, the thread raised some questions and because I am banned from that forum, I couldn't answer any of them there, so I will do so here.

I was rather pleased that one poster who had concerns actually contacted me to get information from the horses mouth, rather than leave it at vague guesses and speculation as to where the future of Minden Miniatures lies.

Anyway, it seems that some people are concerned about the longevity of this project and also how long it will take for me to recoup costs and then stop selling figures to the public at large.

Yes, this is a private venture and I am having the figures made the way I want them to look, in limited poses, which for my pleasure reflect the armies of the SYW marching to battle. There is no opportunity for people to make requests for any particular poses or varieties of figures. What I want is what will be made, end of story.

However, because I have made them available to like minded individuals, in return for hard currency, I am making better progress than I would if they were not for sale at all and my production is ahead of what I originally thought my schedule would be. For that I would like to offer heart felt thanks to my customers and I am pleased to say that many of you have placed repeat orders many times, while others have placed substantial first orders. I hope you continue to enjoy the figures and that I continue to offer satisfactory service to you, by way of prompt delivery and reasonable costs.

I am satisfied that I am doing something right when I can name amongst my customers Jim Purky (Der Alte Fritz) Charles Grant (who is starting to replace his 40 year old Spencer Smiths with metals and has chosen Minden for the job) and Mike Macgillivray (formerly of Spanner & Yank and a SYW nut) and where would I have been without my very first order of over 600 figures from Mr Christopher Stuart-Sinclair, to whom I will be eternally grateful for the cash boost which helped me launch this project from the off.

I may indeed reach a point where I do not need to sell any more figures to be able to continue the project in the latter stages and indeed when that time comes, I may not accept orders from new customers. This will not be any time soon though, as this is a very expensive adventure I have embarked upon.

However,I can categorically state here and now, that anyone who has started building an army using figures from the Minden Range, will be able to complete their army at any time, even if the project is done and dusted in several years time.

I may not be a business, but the figures are made, I am always here and am not going anywhere, so all it will take to get more figures, is an e-mail, just as it is now. I like to think of myself as an honourable person and would not like to think that I ever let anyone down, or at least not deliberately.

Yes, I can be blunt and to the point and don't suffer fools gladly, but I pride myself on straight talking and straight dealing. I hate being ripped off and wouldn't dream of doing it to anyone else. That is why I don't charge a % rate for postage against order value, as that to me is a rip off and I weigh each order individually and charge at cost. If I use a new box or padded envelope I charge for it, because I have had to buy it, but if I use a recycled one I don't. That seems fair to me and my customers seem satisfied with this.

I know I am rambling on now, but this is too good an opportunty to miss, to clear the air and leave people in no doubt about where I am going with this project and how I will deal with people who buy from me.

I have become quite cynical over the years due to encountering people like the moron on TMP who suggested that this is a "Brag Blog" and an opportunity to "make a few quid" A completely negative comment in the middle of a reasonable thread where people have expressed reasonable opinion and aired concerns. His lack of knowledge about how expensive sculpting by a top sculptor and mouldmaking and casting, also by the best in the business is, is evident from the comment. Good taste prevents me from saying more about this creep, so better to move on . . .

On the other side of the coin, I have been staggered to receive over the last two weeks, offers to pay in advance for figures not even made yet, by three different people (you know who you are) to the tune of several hundred pounds, in order to speed up the process.

Now if I was in business this would be called pre-ordering and I would be delighted to accept their money, but it's not and as an individual, I wouldn't dream of taking anybody's money without having something to send back immediately in return.

The money wasn't even offered in a pre-order manner as such either, more of a "I'll pay now for figures to help you make quicker progress" This is kindness and enthusiasm rolled into one and I am indeed grateful for the offer. However, anything worth having is worth waiting for and at the rate things are ticking over, more and more figures will be available pretty soon.

I think I have covered everything that I wanted to, but will probably remember something else after publishing this. If there is anything anyone wants to ask about something I haven't covered, please feel free to ask in the comments section, whether annonymously or with your name attached (I can't see what is to be gained from being annonymous really) and I will do my best to answer, unless of course you are a mischief maker and I will ignore you :-)

Metal Masters III - The British

2008-02-12T17:55:00.001Z

You know, I thought the detail on the French Drummer was good, but even when handling the green for the British Drummer I never noticed just how much detail was on it, until I got the metal master and black washed it.

Anyway, judge for yourselves with the pics below, although my photography leaves a bit to be desired. They give a fairly good idea of all the details, but as I always say, and truly mean, the photos really don't do them justice.

You can't really beat having them in your hand and eyeballing them up close from all angles :-)

Painting Practice - Austrian

2008-02-11T17:13:00.000Z

Well As Austrians are to be my next project after the Prussians, I couldn't resist having a go on one of the spare master castings to see how I coped with an all white uniform. I'm 54 years old and have NEVER in all those years painted a figure with so much white on it, so as you might imagine, I started with no little trepidation and had a horrible feeling that everything would just merge into a big white blob.

However, such is the skill of the sculptor, that there are clear defining lines and ridges all over this figure, which made seperating all the different components a lot easier than I thought, so trepidation passed into satisfaction as the layers went on and I am actually quite pleased with the end result.

This is the first Austrian I have ever painted and I think the units are going to look good as I get better at painting them. It's not nearly as boring to paint white as I imagined it would be, so I can't wait to get these cast, after the French are done. I've still got some masters of the British to black-wash and I'll do that over the next couple of days and get some photos up as soon as I can.