Back to the Land for #FEMbruary 2019

Almost finished my FEMbruary female figure painting challenges for 2019.

Bad Squiddo 28mm figures of Land Girls at Work (left) and last year’s figures Land Girls at Rest – still  working out how to group and display them. 

The new figures for my 2019 FEMbruary painting challenge are Annie Norman’s excellent WW2 Land Girls series – this year I chose the  Land Girls at Work set, sculpted by Alan Marsh.
https://badsquiddogames.com/shop#!/WW2
A tractor is newly available in 28mm for this Land Girl range.

To match last year’s effort, I kept with my usual  shiny  toy soldier style of painting, right down to the pink cheek dots and glossy acrylic paint. This extends to shiny green bases rather than flock. A restricted gloss palette but a cheerful one!

I like the cartoonish element that comes out with this paint style, it is not quite Jane, slightly more Peter Firmin Noggin the Nog / Ivor the Engine for some reason.

Each figure looks like she has a real character. You can name them with suitable 1940s names in your own time.

Grouped together, I wonder what they are chatting about or thinking?

Land Girls at Work on a possible display base from a fence post cap.

I am thinking possibly of putting these figures in for my local Spring Flower Show in a couple of weeks time under the rarely competed for adult craft section (with very few male entries). There is a local connection – many  Land Girls were trained and worked in my Southwest UK area on the hundreds of small market gardens that were once around.

To get an idea how this might work, I bought a couple of wooden fence post caps as simple bases and painted them sap green (the dark green colour of land girl jumpers). A few more coats may be required to deepen the colour.

The Land Army lapel reproduction badges come from CJ Medals online http://www.cjmedals.co.uk

Beautifully animated castings, a joy to paint. Lovely detail like the spud sack.

The centre figure looking up – for aeroplanes? – is my favourite of the new figures, although the one carrying a load of straw is well animated too.

Last Year’s 2018 FEMbruary challenge rebased and relaxing in the shade under a tree. The tree is a plastic one from the recently featured 54mm Fantasy Figures set, painted toy soldier gloss to match the figures.

The addition of a hay stook (once the Mexican woman’s broom from Steve Weston’s   Mexican Peasants) and a plastic tree from a recent fantasy figures True Legends set add something to the scene.

The finer details of eyes, lips  and eyebrows were inked in with paint on finely sharpened cocktail sticks.

I have moved the figures round on the bases several times to get the right arrangement. Still not sure, especially as some of the Land Girl figures could easily intermix between the two rest and work sets.

I have a couple of  54mm Britain’s type Land Girls for repair that gave me ideas for the shiny gloss colour palette.

These three 54mm hollowcast lead Women’s Land Army tractor drivers are in need of careful repair.

FEMbruary finishing touches?

When Alex at Leadballoony set this year’s challenge,

https://leadballoony.com/2019/01/31/more-scumbos-and-the-fembruary-challenge/
he said he would round it all up by March 8th International Women’s History Day https://www.internationalwomensday.com

Unfinished Russian WW2 women’s command pack still in the painting table. 

I still have the Bad Squiddo 28mm Russian Women of WW2 Command set to put the finishing touches to. I found these less interesting to paint, well sculpted as they are, as shades of khaki green just aren’t my thing really at the moment. I shall feature them again when finished in the next week or two.

Posted by Mark, Man of TIN on March 2nd 2019.

FEMbruary 2019 and new Bad Squiddo female 28mm figures

FEMbruary 2019 – some new Land Girls at work from Bad Squiddo – and a free guinea pig.

I bought my first Bad Squiddo figures from Annie Norman last year, some fine 28mm Land Girls at Rest, as part of the FEMbruary challenge 2018.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/fembruary-3-annie-normans-bad-squiddo-land-girl-picnic-and-a-cuppa/

FEMbruary 2018 Bad Squiddo Land Girls at rest – work in progress  on the glossy acrylic painting table last year.

This FEMbruary challenge 2019 I have chosen two packs of Bad Squiddo female figures:

Women of WW2 – Russian Soviet  infantry command figures

Women of WW2 – Land Army Girls at work.

The quirky packing by Annie and team at Bad Squiddo: postcards, teabag and free guinea pig! Annie Norman has this whole thing about “peegs”.

Unusual and charming figures, these Land Girls will get the gloss acrylic Toy Soldier paintwork style https://badsquiddogames.com/shop#!/Womens-Land-Army-at-work/p/93150439/category=21735085

Close up of the Bad Squiddo WW2 Russian Women Command Group in 28mm.

https://badsquiddogames.com/shop#!/Female-Soviet-Command-Officer-Medic-Radio-3/p/77396868/category=21735085

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.

FEMbruary 2019?

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.

https://leadballoony.com/2019/01/31/more-scumbos-and-the-fembruary-challenge/

This year, matching book bloggers like Cupcakes and Machetes, https://cupcakesandmachetes.wordpress.com I have chosen a book for FEMbruary as well, to match the Bad Squiddo female Russian figures.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/23/unwomanly-face-of-war-svetlana-alexievich-monument-to-courage-soviet-women-war

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/02/unwomanly-face-of-war-svetlana-alexievich-review

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/295/295606/the-unwomanly-face-of-war/9780141983530.html

The Unwomanly Face of War looks to be a fascinating and suitably challenging read for FEMbruary 2019.

FEMbruary 2018 recap

Last year I featured several of the female figures in my toy soldier collection

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/fembruary-challenge-1-two-queens-and-one-vc/

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/fembruary-post-2-a-few-more-female-figures-and-a-florence/

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/fembruary-hobby-challenge-conversions/

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/21/fembruary-post-no-4-a-womans-right-to-vote-and-serve-march/

FEMbruary 2018 even extended to my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/colonial-amazons-women-soldiers-of-dahomey-and-siam

And I marched on (with Marvin at the Suburban Militarism blog pitching in) and on into March and International Women’s Day March 8th …

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/mary-seacole-and-the-crimean-war/

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/marching-for-votes-for-women

54mm Suffragette Conversions underway,  including Airfix footballer FEMbruary / March 2018

Happy FEMbruary 2019 – It should be fun.
What might you do as your FEMbruary challenge?

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN on 31 January / 1st FEMbruary 2019.

FEMbruary 3 Annie Norman’s Bad Squiddo Land Girl Picnic and a Cuppa

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 

This sounds pure all-year round FEMbruary. You can hear more from Annie on her guest slots on the Meeples and Miniatures podcasts episodes 168, 197 and 238 https://meeples.wordpress.com/podcast/https://meeples.wordpress.com/podcast/https://meeples.wordpress.com/podcast/

My FEMBruary posts so far:

Thanks to Marvin at Suburban Militarism, Imperial Rebel Ork and Leadballoony for variously introducing me to the #FEMbruary challenge

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/fembruary-hobby-challenge-conversions/

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/fembruary-challenge-1-two-queens-and-one-vc/

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/fembruary-post-2-a-few-more-female-figures-and-a-florence/

.

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.

To explore her other Home Front figures, http://badsquiddogames.com//shop#!/~/product/id=93150717

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.