My battling little Bronte Wolves have arrived, and are already slugging it out in the role playing games of their “Tropical Yarkshire” ImagiNations of Glass Town, Angria, Gondal and Gaaldine.
I haven’t even painted them yet and they are already hard at it … Charlotte, Emily, Ann and Branwell – knock it off!
Any parcel from Annie Norman at Bad Squiddo is always a joy … and a mystery. What strange little quirky extras will it contain?
Previously I’ve had tiny metal guinea pig figures, a herbal fruit tea bag …
and today, a cool Sk8ter Pig Angel sticker.
As I’m a little too old and too easily breakable for falling off a skateboard now, I shall bestow it on my Spla-Fiti Skater Graffiti gangs game as a huge piece of street art on the side of a building.
Great fast return of post and excellent quirky customer service from Bad Squiddo, as good as that of Peter Laing in the 1980s? I’m reminded of this, as I catalogue and blog my collection of these my first 15mm metal figures ahead of their Fiftieth anniversary in October 1972 / 2022
The other great news today …
Just days ago it wasn’t looking good with over £12K to raise …
A few days ago it was struggling past half way with under a week to go to raise the £25K from the public by the end of October.
Thanks to those blog readers who passed on the Just Giving link or donated from your war chests!
A fitting tribute to these first female Role Playing Gamers, historical or fantasy ImagiNations gamers!
Missed giving? You can still donate. More money is always welcome at the Bronte Parsonage Museum / Friends of the National Libraries to secure, conserve and display such Bronte manuscripts …
Now off to paint those Little Bronte Wolves, if they can stop squabbling and scrapping long enough … I know just how their father Patrick Bronte felt. “Martha, control these children!”
More on this blog page of my Bronte inspired ImagiNations gaming here:
As I don’t have any 28mm WW2 figures to game with, I will base these Bad Squiddo figures up individually but they will, for the time being, work as great little diorama vignettes.
FEMbruary2019?
Once more, like 2018, fantasy gaming blogger Leadballoony has set the FEMbruary 2019 challenge to paint some more believable female miniatures than the usual unbelievable chainmail bikini female fantasy (or male fantasy?) figures.
This year, matching book bloggers like CupcakesandMachetes, https://cupcakesandmachetes.wordpress.com I have chosen a book for FEMbruary as well, to match the Bad Squiddo female Russian figures.
Today’s offering, left over from the FEMbruary figure challenge, is Mary Seacole the Jamaican nurse or sutleress who supported British troops during the disastrous Crimean War.
Mary Seacole as sculpted in 28mm by Martin Baker, special figure at the Other Partizan 2016A quick wipeover with brown Acrylic and wipeoff with cloth before it dries brings out the details of the figure (a technique known as “pewtering”)Rear view of this figure with fine clothing details.
Conversion possibilities for other Mary Seacole figures
Whilst Florence Nightingale figures are fairly scarce, Mrs. Seacole figures are even more so.
Before I found this smaller 28mm figure I was a bit stumped about where to find a suitable larger figure to convert. I was considering a conversion of a 54mm Queen Victoria figure.
Until I found the 28mm figure, I was considering converting this rather stern looking Queen Victoria 54mm casting from Dorset Soldiers into a suitable Mary Seacole figure.
The other alternative I have found in 54mm is an old bashed Britain’s aged civilian lady sitting down, set 5028, who arrived oddly repainted in a job lot of scrap figures. She could easily paint up as Mother Seacole.
A possible conversion figure for Mother Seacole, this seated 54mm lead civilian woman from Britain’s Ltd. Already repainted from a job lot, she arrived appropriately with a roughly repainted nurse figure. Military nurse figures would make a good future FEMbruary blogpost.
The other figure that looks fit for conversion is a OO HO twenty mm Airfix female figure from their superb Wild West pioneer Waggon Train set, sadly now out of production but available secind hand online. One of the figures has a potential look of a tiny Mary Seacole.
The central female civilian from the Airfix Waggon Train set has a Mary Seacole look about her. To her left is a another female figure from this OO HO 20mm set, a useful gaming figure who crops up in gaming scenarios as the Governor General’s Daughter, Daughter of the Regiment etc (and usually armed with a handy pistol). Not quite painted yet.
I had no plans to complete this 28mm Mary Seacole figure in this FEMbruary 2018 challenge as I had enough targets already. She will be painted at some point during the year or next FEMbruary! When I get around to painting this 28mm miniature figure, there are many useful illustrations of her and an interesting story behind her National Portrait Gallery portrait.
Useful colour and details from her portrait that have been used on the small metal figure.
Mary Seacole’s gravestone in London has recently been restored. Her autobiography is still in print, a Penguin Classic. There are lots of Mary Seacole book and web resources, many of them aimed at children, thanks to her inclusion and retention with Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell in the Primary school History curriculum in Britain.
Punch Magazine at the time dubbed her “Our Own Vivandiere“. Daughter of a Scottish soldier and a Caribbean mother, Mary was born in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. Mary Seacole topped the Top 100 Black Britons in a recent 2004 poll.
She might not have many tiny metal figures, however Mary Seacole now has a fine new 10 foot high statue by sculptor Martin Jennings in London, complete with a cast of the ground of the Crimean battlefield where she had her base. It is believed to be the first statue in the UK to honour a named black woman.
It is inscribed with words written in 1857 by The Times’ Crimean War correspondent, Sir William Howard Russell: “I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead.”
Mary Seacole is also celebrated at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London. She features on their website with some interesting contemporay Crimean prints shown.
and the ‘Celebrate the Ladies Month’ March challenge on the Cupcakes and Machetes blog, featuring a range of blog links from reading female authors to others painting more female fantasy miniatures projects.
Reading more of Emily, Charlotte, Ann (and Branwell) Bronte’s juvenile fictional worlds of GlassTown, Gondal and Angria to look for further gaming scenarios probably counts as my literary contribution to reading female authors.
B.P.S. Blog Post Script
I was quite amused searching through for Seacole figures to find this accidental head and shoulders portrait. 🙂
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN 8 March 2018 on International Women’s Day 2018.
Beautifully packed and presented, my Bad Squiddo Games order was like receiving an artisan taster box of chocolates through the post.
As part of my FEMbruary challenge of exploring the female figures in my collection, I have been listening to the amazing Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games on the Meeples and Miniatures Podcast talk about her believable female gaming miniatures and her recent WW2 range.
“The number one aim for Bad Squiddo Games is to create and supply the miniatures that would have made the hobby far far better for my 10 year old self. To welcome more young girls and women into wargaming and miniature painting, as well as providing diverse options to the entire gaming community. And yeah – cool toys!” Bad Squiddo website
I currently don’t game in 28mm scale, so this beautiful little vignette or diorama of a Land Girl or Land Army Picnic caught my eye. It has now been added to my expanding FEMbruary challenge of photographing my collection and painting and converting more female figures.
Despite running a one woman business creating new figures and involved in Kickstarter projects, this order was speedily returned. I haven’t ordered direct from many metal figure manufacturers since Peter Laing’s friendly and personal mail order and speedy return of 15mm figures back in the 1980s but Annie at Bad Squiddo Games matches this well.
Annie Norman’s presentation of her figures and range is colourful and eye catching, her range of figures widely incorporates from Vikings to WW2 and on to fantasy and even fighting fluffy beasties (coming soon).
Up close the Land Girl figures commissioned by Annie Norman from sculptor Alan Marsh are crisply sculpted and “believable” women in 28mm scale.
I am not sure yet how I am going to paint these – Matt or Gloss? Enamel or Acrylic? Toy Soldier style or more realistic, like Andrew Taylor’s painted examples of these figures.
Nicely animated, these Land Girls certainly looked like they needed a rest and a cuppa, lying back against a handy hay bale from my old farm collection.
They really do look like they are chatting and soaking up the sun, over tea out of enamel or NAAFI pint mugs and sandwiches out of wax paper wrapping.
To help you relax with a cuppa yourself during the painting process, Annie has included a handy tea bag. I received Blackcurrant and Blueberry. Marvin at Suburban Militarism received Darjeeling. A colourful and flavoursome marketing touch.
I have for other past projects read several Land Girl memoirs and histories. I have also been fortunate to meet some Land Girl re-enactors along with a few sparkly and sprightly elderly “Land Girls”. So I look forward to painting these figures which are Annie Norman’s way of celebrating her Land Army Nan and the other elderly Land Army ladies she knew growing up in Wales.
As she pointed out in her podcast interviews, the more figures you buy, the wider the range of interesting female figures she can make. Certainly a figure range and manufacturer to watch.
Blogposted for FEMbruary by Mark, Man of TIN February 2018.
Man of Tin blog 