P.J.R. MINIATURE WARS

Zvezda Set 8048 Swedish Infantry

2012-06-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

Like I said last time. I am now basing my miniatures a different way. I think they look a lot better this way. Almost as if they are war game ready. This is one of my best sets painted so far. These are painted to look like the figures painted on the box they came with. This is the uniform from 1687-1721.

Till next time.

DAD'S CAR

2012-05-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

This post is a little off topic. A change once in a while is also good. My dad called me last week and asked me if I could paint a toy car for him. My dad owns a Sunbeam Tiger and had bought a toy replica of it for his show case. The only problem was, it did not look like the one he had in his garage. So I excepted the challenge. I thought at first this was going to be an easy project. Why not? Painting miniatures is easy enough, why not this. WELL let me tell you. This was a pain in the ass. I will explain as I show the pictures in the rest of the blog. First I will start with the pictures that me dad sent of his car.

I think this is a cool car!!! So next is the toy Sunbeam car. This is the toy....

OK now comes the fun part. I had some things I needed to add to it. As you can see there is a lot missing. The first thing that I had to do was switch the steering wheel from the right side to the left side. That was easy. Next I had t make the roll bars. For the roll bars I used a green paper clip that was just the right thickness. I has to cut and glue it. After the roll bars I made the gear shifter. For this I used one of my wife's needles with a plastic ball at the end of it. I melted the plastic ball with a lighter. This way I could get the size I wanted. After the gear shifter I had to make tail pipes. For this I had to drill two holes at the back of the car. I then stuck to sized toothpicks in the holes. After the pipes I had to make the side view mirrors. I hand carved these out of wood and glued them to the car. This is what the car looked like after the modifications. Oh yes I almost forgot. I added the hood scope as well. That was the first thing I did.

So next It was time to paint it. The easy part right? Noooooooooooo!!!! It all started from the priming. I guess the primer and the original paint on the toy car didn't work well together because as soon as I stop the priming the paint started to bubble. This caused me problems the rest of the way. After tyring to fix what I could with the paint by sanding and filling I started to paint the car. Of course with my luck the paint did not want to spread even on the car because of the primer. I did the best I could. I still got good results considering the facts. This is what it looks like now that it is finished.

I hope you like you car dad.

ITALERI Set 6019 Teutonic Knights

2012-04-17T00:14:00.000-07:00

Just like a promised, a different Era. This set was fun to paint. This will be the last post you will see with the miniatures on these types of bases. I have been using 25mm X 25mm for Infantry and 25mm X 50mm for the cavalry. After Basing these cavalry with the 25mm X 50mm base I decided that I did not like the size. They are good for single Dioramas or war hammer figures and 28mm figures. Since I paint 1/72 scale miniatures I think 20x20mm bases suit the figures better. I have also decided that the bases should not have the bevel on the sides. This will be better for war gaming. You will see how I base my miniatures in the next post to come.
This was my first Middle Ages set. I picked the Teutonic Knights because they look a little more evil. The black on white makes them stand out. Italeri did a great job sculpting these figures. This made painting the faces so much better. I was able to get more detail out of them. This is what they look like before I painted them.

This set came with 17 mounted miniatures. I did enjoy painting the horses and can't wait to paint more. This is what the set looks like once I painted them.

As you can see I have tried something different when it comes to taking pictures of my miniatures. I think this way looks better. Well that's it for this post. Any questions feel free to ask. Looking forward to the nest post.

ZVEZDA 8034 Republican Roman Infantry

2012-03-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

The Romans are here!!! The next chapter in my blog. Or should I say the next set in my collection? I guess ether or. This set was fun to paint. Zvezda has great quality molds. This makes it more easy to paint the miniatures. When you come across a set that has been produced with bad molds, you have to use your imagination to make them look proper. I painted this set a while ago. I just finished re basing them yesterday. Some of you might look at the uniforms that the miniatures are waring and disagree with my colouring. In fact it was hard in those days to have all soldiers waring the same thing. Most soldiers had to find cloth them selves to make there own uniform. These units were painted after one of my favorite PC games. "ROME TOTAL WAR" For those of you who know the Total War series, you know that Total war games are the best!!! Anyways. On the front cover of the game it shows the insignia of the Romans with black on red. I have used that for this set. It is not the Yellow/Gold on red shields that we are used to seeing. I'm sure a set of those will come in the future. As for now this is what I have brought to the table of my miniature wars!! Below is what the set looked like before it was painted.

I agree with you. It's a nice looking set!! This set just makes me want to paint more Romans. Take a look at them once I painted them.

Well I hope that you all have enjoyed this post. Remember that you comments are always welcome. Don't be afraid to criticize as well!! Next post I step into a different era. Till then.

Zvezda Set 8005 V-IV Century Greek Infantry

2012-02-26T23:28:00.000-08:00

It's about time. This was the Set that I wanted to post last time. I thought that this post would end up in March. I'm glad that I was wrong. I had a lot of fun painting this set. Although my Infantry colors do not match the Shields of the soldiers, I still think they came out great. This set is made by Zvezda. The only problem that I had with this set is the fact that each Greek City was molded in the same pose. Greece was separated by different cities back in the V and IV Century. Before and after that period as well. Each City had it's own symbol or Picture representing that city on their shield. This left me with options. Do I paint each city in it's own pose? Or do I disregard the Shields and paint four different cities? Well, because I wanted a larger amount of soldiers per city, I decided to paint four cities. After they were all painted I was pleased in the choice that I made. I will explain were I got the inspiration for each city group as the post continues. As for now, this is what the set looks like before it is painted.

As you can see in this picture. I was stuck with one leader and musician. This meant that I had to dedicated them to only one city group. I think I did well when it came down to segregating the units. Let the pictures begin.

This is the first group that I painted. This group was not painted to represent a city. I actually decided to paint this group after Achilles and his mercenary group in the movie Troy. What a great movie it was!!! I like the way these turned out with gold on black. On to the next Group.

This City group is cool as well. I painted these to represent more common Greek cities. As far as I know, (most likely due to the fact that the majority of the figures on the back of box set are painted like this) This is what the majority of the Greek soldiers wore when it came to colors. So there really is not a city for this group but rather a reflection of common military. On to the next one.

I painted this group after another movie. I can not remember the name of the movie. I thought it had Arnold Schwarzenegger in it. I guess not because I just searched IMDb's web site for his movies and it was not there. When I find out , I will post it. I was watching the movie while I was painting another set. I thought it would be cool to paint this set like the soldiers in the movie. They had light blue uniforms like this. If anyone know what movie I'm talking about please let me know.

This is the group that I decided to use the leader and the musician with. These guy's are painted after the Spartans. These guy's were famous for there military strength and brutality. This group was by far my favorite one to paint. Yes I got the inspiration from the movie 300. Looks like all four cities were painted after movies. Probable not the best idea. Here are some single shots to finish the post off.

Well that wraps up this post. Please leave comment if you have them. Next post will be in the same Era!!! Until then.

Lucky Toys King Porus's Army

2012-01-31T23:07:00.000-08:00

Well let's start off by saying that this is not set I had in mind for this months post. I just happened to finish re basing this set before the set I wanted to post this month. That's OK. We will just have to wait another month. I wish I could post a new set every week!!! I have a 19 month old son and a 4 month old daughter. Those with kids can understand that I do not have all the time in the world. I'm lucky if I get a total of 3-4 hours a week when it comes to my miniatures. I'm sure I have more then 4 hours of free time a week but I'm not going to spend it all on miniatures. After all I like to pretend that I have a life still. Let's get on with this set shall we.

This set is made by a company with the name of Lucky Toys. I'm so not happy with the quality of these miniatures. For more then one reason. The plastic used for the casting of these miniatures is soft. This does mot work well for me as I paint with enamel paint. I do not use Primer but I do spray all my miniatures with Flat White testors spray paint. This seems to work well for me as long as the miniatures are hard plastic. When I painted these miniatures only half a sprue(the part the miniatures are on from the box). came out dry and ready to paint. The other half on the sprue it was like the plastic was melting. The paint would not dry on them it would just stay wet and sticky. So I decided to paint what I could out of this set since I paid for them anyways. I was not to happy with the detail on the molds but I had to do the best I could. They are a little smaller then 1/72 scale although they are advertised as 1/72 scale. The reason I bought this set in the first place was because of the elephant. I had spent some time painting soldiers and this set offered an Elephant three horses and a chariot. I thought it would be fun painting something a little different. It was fun but frustrating. Perhaps because of the quality. One thing that will remain is that I will not buy from Lucky Toy's again.

This is what the set looks like before I painted them. You can see what I had to throw away as well.

Basically all the Infantry units had to go. I do think that the Elephant came out pretty good for a first time. I guess I could look at this set as set that I could practice with. These were painted before my Americans but after my British. Well enjoy.

Like I said I'm totally not happy with the paint job and this set in whole. I took the time to paint it so I will take the time to post it. Stay tuned for the next post. Same Era different Army.

Accurate 1776 American Militia

2012-01-03T23:09:00.000-08:00

So here it is. The next set completely finished. After painting the 1776 British infantry I needed to have the American side.This set was cool because it had a wide selection of uniform and out outfits to paint. Half the set (25) units came wearing the normal blue uniform that we all know. The other half (25) came wearing different clothes of the time period. I was able to paint all (25) of these ones different so that not one was alike. In stead of putting all 50 units on one placement tray like I did to the the 1776 British Infantry, I decided to split the trays so that I could segregate the differences. All and all I have 50 units per American and British. I think in the future I will make a chess like game where I can fight off these painted soldiers of 1776. This is what the set looked like before I painted them.

Like I said in the last post. The number of poses are reflected by the number in brackets under each unit. I think that my favorite two units in this set would be the captain and the unit with the two pistols. The unit with the two pistols shows the beginning of the stereotypical American. (Guns blazing). Now that you have seen what they look like before they are painted, I will show you the finished product.

So this is what they look like after they have been painted. I think that they look sweet!!!! Please post your comments and follow the blog at www.pjrminiaturewars.blogspot.com. Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Stay tuned for next time where I step into a different era.

Accurate 1776 British Infantry

2011-12-27T00:40:00.000-08:00

Well after a lot of searching around the Net. I decided that it would be better for me to paint miniatures 1/72 scale. These are about 1 inch in height. Looking through Toy soldier Company web site I decided to buy some Miniatures from 1776 American War of Independents. The first set That I painted was the British. After a lot of confusion on what the uniforms looked like from searching on the net. I decided to paint them to match all the different uniform colors that I seen for the British of 1776. They were all red coats it was just the collars that were different colors. Here is what the set looks like before I painted them.

This set is created by a company that goes by the name Accurate. I thought that this would be a cool set to paint considering there was a flag bearer and a drummer to go with it. This set comes with 50 Miniatures. The number of how many comes in a cretin pose is in brackets under the miniature. This is what the set looks like after I painted them. The bases are made afterwords and I will explain how I make the bases in another future post. If you do have questions please ask!!

I think that these came out well!!! Can any one tell me what is wrong with the Flag? You can see it better on the close up picture in this post. I have not changed the flag to remind me to pay attention going forward in my miniature career. When someone finally comments what is wrong with it I will tell you what happened. Here are some single shots of some of the miniatures in this set. The first one will show the size comparable to my finger.

I hope that you all like my first shot at painting 1/72 scale miniatures. The next post It will be the American 1776 miniatures.

The First Set Of Miniatures Painted

2011-12-20T22:36:00.000-08:00

So I received my first set of miniatures and now it was time to paint them. Where do I start? I pulled out my old box of Testors paints and sorted out the colors. I did not have much to work with so I decided to go out and buy more. I went to a Hobby shop on Dundas Street called North Star Hobbies. They had a huge selection. This is where I noticed the Enamel paints called Model Master. "Hum.... These look good." I picked up the colors that I needed and headed home to start. I started with the Napoleonic French set. This was my first set. I did not do any research on the uniforms or looked at any pictures. I just went by my High school memory and from what I seen on television. Looking back at these pictures made me realize how far I have gone in only two years of painting miniatures. The detail on these suck!!! But hey, this is my first set. You will see how I get better in future posts. I'm a little off on the uniforms.

I forgot to mention that when I was at North Star Hobbies I also picked up some fake grass and glue. I thought that it would be cool to try. It's not bad!!! Now on with the 1776 British soldiers. Same as the Napoleonic, no research except from what I remember from the Mel Gibson movie "The Patriot". These were more fun to paint because there was a little more detail in the plastic. I'm starting to learn how important it is to have a good molded miniature. It matters!!! Here are the red coats!!!! Remember I'm still learning.

As I was working on the British I thought that I would paint a couple to look like the French of 1776. I needed to do something for the French of Quebec. After all it was because of that one trip that I started this fantastic hobby that wives around the world hate. Actually not just wives. I told my friend Damien about this and he called me an old man. I guess it takes a certain type of person to get involved in this type of hobby. I think I'm committed for life!!

Next post: How I changed My miniature decision completely!!!!!

The first set of Miniatures.

2011-12-12T23:30:00.000-08:00

Now the fun begins!!! So I got home safe with my wife from Quebec city and headed straight to the couch. This is where I usually lay down, put my feet up on a couch pillow and think about stuff. I wondered to my self if I should paint these figures and sell them my self. I talked to Sandra about it and the first thing she said was. " Sounds good as long as you make money". I started to laugh and thought about how cool it would be to do it for a living. The first step to take was to research about it over the Internet. So off I went browsing and browsing. I found a lot of sites that had metal and plastic figures at all different sizes. Wow!! where do I start. The questions I asked my self were incredible. What size do I want to paint? Plastic or metal? what company do I want to buy my miniatures from? I then came across a web site called Toy soldier Company. The link is on my blog. This site has it all!!! This site breaks every thing down for you so you can find exactly what you are looking for. By company, by size, pre-painted, non painted and type of material. I started looking at the metal figures and noticed that they were quite a bit more expensive then the plastic. I was just starting out and I didn't want to sink a lot of money in to it just yet. So plastic it was. I know I wanted French and British soldiers. This is most likely because I just came back from Quebec. Now I had to decide what maker I wanted to buy from and what size. I cam across a cool British 1776 set for $15.00 from a maker called Accurate. This set the figures come in 54mm. I thought this was cool considering the soldiers I seen back in Quebec were the same size. I now decided that this was the size I wanted to paint. This is what the British soldiers look like.
Now I had to look for some French soldiers. Accurate unfortunately did not make any so I had to look else were. As I was browsing the toy soldier company I came across a French Napoleonic set from a company called Army's in plastic. This set was also 54mm tall. This is what it looks like.

All that was left to do was sit and wait until the arrived at my house. Wow what a long wait. Next post I will show what they looked like after my first attempt to paint Military miniatures. Till then.

The Hobby Begins

2011-12-09T01:14:00.000-08:00

Let's start off this blog with a little history on how I started out with this fantastic hobby. It all started back in the year 2009. My wife Sandra decided that she wanted to have a winter vacation in old Quebec. We both decided that it would be fun to stay one week while the famous La Carnival was going on. What a great Idea!!! On the way to Quebec by train I decided to pick up a booklet that had some French and British soldiers on it. Hum... What is this? I asked my self. Reading the booklet I leaned about the battle of the plains of Abraham. I told my wife Sandra about it. Sandra just laughed and replied. "What, you didn't know about it?" Supposedly it was taught in school. So I remarked back. "Well the battle must of only lasted 10 minutes since I never heard about it before." When we arrived at the hotel in old Quebec I maid friends with an old French man that ran the desk in the midnight hours. We started talking about the battle and I had to ask him how long it lasted. When he told me that it only lasted 15 minutes I had to stop my self from laughing. I WAS RIGHT!!! I did not want to laugh in front of him because the French lost due to many dubious mistakes.
As my wife Sandra and I browsed the local shops in old Quebec I stumbled upon a shop that had so many painted military figures on glass shelves. I just had to check it out. When I walked up to the shelves I was stunned. I could not believe how cool they looked and how well they were painted. I wanted to buy 100's of them. They were about 54mm in height and they had British and French soldiers. I picked one up and looked at the bottom of it to see how much it was. $85.00 for one!!!!!! Holy shit!!! I slowly put the figure back on the shelf and took a step back. "I can't afford this." That was the end of that dream. On the way home from Old Quebec I pondered on what I can do to fill my needs to play God with little army men.
Stay tuned for the next post to find out what I did next.