Stuff in my house acts not unlike the beach -- items appear and vanish -- they come and go as if they've been sucked up by the shifting tides. I just did battle to find my reading glasses (which were, of course, in plain sight). This took an hour and I can't blame it on cats nor kids. Oh well. Taking off on another track, I found an article (in late August), a front page report from Historicon in The Wall Street Journal. Well, well -- and look there's a photo of Todd Fisher. Not actually a photo -- but the Journal has one of those fancy graphic programs that can turn a photo into a "drawing" -- in this case a very nice version of a line cut engraving; perfect since Todd was in his French General's uniform. The article was quite nice and literate as well. Gaming has come a long way in ternis of respect. As more and more people get into nontraditional hobbies there seems to be, naturally enough, an increase in public (newspaper, magazine, television, etc.) coverage of them - and, of course, there's also more money to be made off such hobbies as gaming. The discussion about uniforms always brings into action one of my basic operating principles - nothing is as it seems. Considering the time period we are dealing with, your first problem was fabric dye. Contractors cheated and dyes were never that stable anyway, and since the soldier had to pay for replacement outfits out of their own pockets, they hung on their uniforms no matter what color the material turned. What the "government" produced were full size or scale copies of what they wanted to give to the contractors as a guide. I recently saw in a auction catalog a board with miniature shakos (about 54mm) of the 1813 army that was made for this purpose (about 20+ with many Guards). The upshot of this is just to say that a field army wore anything they could get their hands on until it was reduced to rags. Here's an interesting thought that deserves some attention. Many units of the German allies - the Westphalians for one, had battalion guns at least through 1812. Now, with the trend toward mega games with tiny figures (the style of gaming with the 747 viewpoint), there's been a tendency to ignore any small action unit. At first, everyone dismissed skirmishers - but eventually most rule- writers found they had to be included because they did play a role. The same should be said of battalion guns. Though they did not have as widespread an impact as skirmishers, they at least could affect morale in favor of the troops who had them. I know of no Grand-Tac rules outside of Empire to reflect them. It's something to think about. Here's a bit of information for the more well-heeled readers. All the originals for the color plates done by me for EEL are for sale. Anyone with interest should contact me for details. WARGAME REVIEWS Not so much anything new to talk about here, but rather a continuation of Houserules Napoleonics 11, the rule system by Brian Stokes. Brian put out a newsletter with the first edition and it is back again. This newsletter usually goes to only those who buy the rules and "register" with Brian. However, I suspect that $2 could pry an issue out of him. The reason I recommend this newsletter is that it is chock-full of rule discussions and battle reports. The rules are a lot in the same vein as ours (I hope you got our rules which Todd has finally published. (I lied: we are up to version 22.5, and counting. Remember, you can't get our rules yet). If you don't have HRN rules I suggest that you pick it upnot only for the research and updates on rules but to put you on the "cutting edge" of historical rule development. Of course you can get both the cutting edge and in-depth information and research your hunger for right here in EE&L. But if I've whetted your appetite, the man to write is: Brian Stokes, 6045 West Chandler Blvd. #6-140, Chandler, Az 85226. PAINTING HINTS I just got back (July) from the East Coast Historicon. I could only spend about half a day there so I didn't get to do all I wished, but-Hey, I was the new man of the Figure Painting Contest judging. That's a three-man system headed by Jay Hadley and his furry confederate of long standing. Now here we have three professional painters of Real long standing, each with different tastes and approaches to painting. This experience gave me an interesting perspective on the whole concept of figurepainting, and I'd like to share that with now in the hope of giving you an idea of what really makes up a great a great figure job. I hope this helps you in some manner, or, at least really confuses you. Hey, so try and stop me. At times I brush into and hang out with Art folk, some of whom happen to be in the miniature figure biz. So this recent Historicon event spurred me to some of the background of painting and whys and wherefores of what makes a "neato" figure. There are three main schools of figure painting. The basic one is the style which derived from the classic 54mm painters where the figures look as if they were dramatic personae standing on the theater stage and being hit by spotlights. The next well-known version is the "Britons" style-yes, people still want glossy clowns in uniform. The last is the oldest style, which is derived from the painting of "Flats". Flats are like squashed regular figures, maybe 1/16 of an inch thick and are often made in the likeness of famous historical paintings. They've been around for hundreds of years, they're usually painted in the style of paintings. This is a key point were the two styles of painting I'm willing to consider valid ones diverge between Drama and Realism. A real nice paint job tries to fall some where in the middle. At least, to make me happy. Shadows are vital to the dramatic style. This leads into the idea of drybrushing, in which half-dry paint is used on figures over a dark primer (and lots of sculptured relief) to bring out details. This is a real help to the coarsest of painters and can be easily overdone. Remember that everything is a minimum of three colors--the base, the dark (shadow) version, and the highlights. Jay Hadley mentioned offhandedly that it's easy to use five flesh tones at one time. A good example of this was we were all admiring a bunch of 25mm Greeks. The painter had done a great job of terraining the bases, painting the uniforms, animating the figures, and doing an incredible job on the shields that stopped us in our tracks and brought us back again and again. But the job on the flesh was like a "Barbie". After much arguing and moaning, we decided we couldn't give it an award because we all agreed we'd be giving an award just for "Best Painted Shields". On another front, we awarded a prize to an ACW unit (CS) but not to it's counterpart (US)brigade-both done by the same painter. This was a case were the figures were painted for High Drama-the Confederates worked and the Unionists just didn't. That was a hard one. The Eyes Have It For those of you who may not be familiar with my feelings, I hate Painted Eyes. In our judging, it bothered me the most, Jay was in the middle, and the third member of our triumvirate didn't care. Now, the reason I hate eyes is that they make a statement: "Hello, I am staring here." And 95% of the time they are done so terribly that the figure looks like a cross between a zombie, a wall-eyed geek, and Garfield. This is because people paint eyes huge and don't know what eyes really look like. So here come the traditional painting approach: if you ever get the chance, look at an historical painting "in the flesh." They are almost always big suckers and a lot of the little guys running around are 15 and 25mm size-and do you know what, you rarely see Eyes. What you do see is dark shadows and "indications" which seem to show that a figure "might" be looking in one direction or another. This is really more accurate. Think about it, if you look at someone in the bright light you don't see their eyes at a distance of 50 feet. What you do see is all the shadows and a squint. So I beg of you, don't make your guys look like they came out of a tenth-rate Pharaoh's tomb with mascara-laden wall yes- you might even win a prize, if I have something to say about it. Here's a final point. I'd refuse to allow a category for painted buildings if I had my way. Dealers were selling a ton of really nice buildings at great prices--really nice and really cheap. I was tempted, and I can paint. In the Illustration Business, the professional organizations tell you to think of your time at $40+ an hour--all these guys were gems at the rate, so check out the building folks. Buildings tend to run at double the cost of the casting. And another aside for your consideration, you know those great buildings that they sell in "collectors" store for $100s, the ones that are all painted by little old captive ladies? And badly at that? Well, these gamers' buildings are a lot better painted and a lot cheaper. Need I say more? Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 2 No. 4 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Emperor's Headquarters This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com