1 Bn. Princess Charlotte of Wales' (Berkshire) Regiment, Suakin Field Force, 1885.

To be honest, these could pass for any of the regiments clothed in grey serge during the Sudan campaigns, but to me they are A Company, 1 Bn. Princess Charlotte of Wales' (Berkshire) Regiment, Suakin Field Force, 1885. Eventually there will be four of these companies completed. All Perry Miniatures straight out of the box.

Empress Miniatures WW1 British 4.5 inch Howitzer

Behold...the Empress Miniatures WW1 British 4.5 inch Howitzer, ammunition wagon and gun crew. The limber and team will follow in due course. The gun and ammunition wagon are from the hands of ace model maker John Hart and the crew from the skilled putty pusher that is Paul Hicks. There are a couple of really lovely touches in this set. Paul Hicks has sculpted each of the gunners wearing a lanyard on the left shoulder and John Hart's eye for detail has included a cracking dial sight for the gun. Other variations will follow including an early WW2 version of this gun and ammunition cart with rubber tyred wheels and crews for the same time period and some gunners in Wolseley foreign service helmets. Top work, chaps!

Empress Miniatures French Paratroopers, Indochina, 1950s.

I will say it again...I am not a natural painter of modern subjects, particularly those uniforms that require camouflage patterns having very limited experience of painting such things. Some time ago I was asked to paint up some of these excellent Paul Hicks sculpts of French Paratroops in Indochina from the Empress Miniatures Vietnam range. Initially reticent because of the subject matter I took on the job. Here they are wearing US "Duck Hunter" camouflage tunics and British brushstroke trousers which, from what I gather, was fairly common for French Paras in Indochina. One figure has some very minor conversion work with the addition of a paratrooper's head wearing a beret (forgive me but I do not know which manufacturer this came from) and a helmet cast from greenstuff in an "Instant Mold" mould formed from a spare helmeted head. I also used these figures to try a new (for me) technique for basing...scrubbing pigment power over a sand and rock base. The pigment powder is held in place with fixative.