Looking back and looking forwards

So this is the obligatory what I did and what I plan on doing.

In my personal life,  I got my first car(cargo van)  still don't have a license to drive. I  got married and I lost my grandmother. She died just a few weeks after the wedding,  Looks like she held on until I  got married.  It was not a sad death, She was 96 years old and she died in her home of 60 years. She had a massive heart attack a couple of years back,  at her age she could not get any surgery. But she lived another two years,  eating what she wanted and drinking her delay cream.  She died in her home happy with her gossip magazines and tv. I near had any other nanny than her, she lived 5 minutes from where I grew up. So not a sad death, a natural death after a long good life. But it's strange not having her around and missing her.


The Wedding was perfect,  we were told by a fellow student of Anita that June 4th was going
to have wonderful weather,  as her husband's birthday is on June 4th and he always had nice weather on his birthday. And she was right. It was probably one of just 4 good summer days this summer.

Wedding on the terrace of the inlaws summer home.

Anitas best friend is her maid of honour  and my dad is my best man.

The day  was perfect with good food and good people, After the wedding dad in law drove us with  his  boat to a resort  where we stayed in  the honeymoon suite 

So we also had a new litter, Freke and Naisha went on  a date. And we got a litter, We kept one we named Huldra.

Huldra!

Hobby  wise, I    have been quite productive. I managed   to paint some 230 figurs for my GNW/WSS project, I still have quite a  few unpainted  laying around, but loost steam. I have also painted some 105 SYW figures, again  a  few laying  around waiting to be painted. Add some Russian and Prussian Napoleionics and a few 30YW I'm not far from painting  450  figures this year.

After an intensive first 8  months the steam started to go empty. The last few months I've painted sevral things not having finished  them, I have painted  12 French Legere, that was supposed to become a 30 figure unit,  I painted 6  troopers and 9 horses for some Chasseur a Chaval,  also not finished.

So I don't have much to show, But I have this.

Had some random  British light infantry I painted up and ordered a movement base from warbases.

I did however, have a late year project. The theme of this year's Christmas gifts was homemade.
Antia made some wonderful embroidery with the names of our nephew on and we put them in some frames. It took a long time to make, She also embroidered some Christmas oven mitts for her and mine parents.

So  I decided to make Anita's gift too.

And  Here it  is:

I made a little diorama of Anita and all of our ten dogs. The miniatures are Copplestone, with some wood glue and white flock, some random ebay  trees, A picture found online and glued  to a background. I tried to paint the dogs as the look, with their markings.  Some of our dogs are quite similar, painting it so that Denali, Beriniga and Fjellbris  look different is quite hard, Beringia at least got white spot on her neck. Some of the models got a slightly curly tail,  So I  gave those tails to our dogs I know got a little curl on them. Orca while black has that curly tail and his shoulder is very  white, so it's easy differentiate him from the other black dogs, luckily our dogs are color coded. So I simply gave  their harness  their color. From bak to front. Orca and Stjerne, Gaia and Såga, Huldra and Naisha,  Freke and  Denali and finaly  up  front Fjellbris and  Berninga.


So that's what I've done 2016, now looking forward.


I  do plan on continuing my WSS/GNW project, as well  as my  SYW.
While I'm  tempted  to do more Napoleoincs  I think   I'll only have the attention span to do  a few figures at a  time. I also want to   try yet again to do ACW,  but we'll  see.

I'm also concidering doing more Ancients and Italian wars.

But first up is a new project(new year new project)

This will be early 100 years war. This is something I've wanted to do  for some time. Mostly because of  the figures from Claymore. The style is just so  cool, a mix of leather, gambison, mail and plate. I do find the full plate kinda boring...

Now there are sevral complications. First Claymore so  far only have only have a  few packs.
They have french foot knights, crowbowmen and pavisers. Naturaly not enough  to do a proper force. So  I much go hunting. I have orderd some Front  Rank mounted MAA,  they seem  to  be about the same period. I also orderd some  Kingmaker knights. Now the kingmakers are probably a little to late for the first 20  years of the war. so my  early 100 year war project will be slightly generic stretching  from 1337  to about  1390. So some units will be post 1360(like kingmaker)  While FR and Claymore will be more very  early part. But I'm mostly staying away  from  the later Perry ranges ect.

Another problem is the style. Claymore is very animated  and very detailed. Not that many  other figures mix well.  Black tree desgins make figures that look quite good and they are for the right period of the war, but they look stiffer, less  natural  in poses. And from  the picutres they look slighter in style.

My first unit  will  be a big unit  of knights and infantry. I'll  have 2 ranks of knights in front so 24 knights and to ranks of infantry. So a big unit of 48 figures. So I'll repurpose the pavisers, by giving  them none paviser shields and giving them a few other weapons then spears, they'll become infantry.

So  that is the plan.

I hope to  have something more intresting to show soon.

Belated Marry Christmas and a  Happy New Year.