Unfinished Business

While having a little tidy up the other day I took stock of the number of figures lying in boxes/drawers, started but never finished. I do not meant those that have been opened, looked at and sorted for attention later. I mean cleaned up, undercoated and started-only to be left on the backburner when some other sparkly idea grabs my attention. These five figures have needed bases for years!

So, while the school holidays last at least, I have decided to use the limited painting opportunities I have to attack the great primed pile.

To qualify the figures/units need to have at least one figure undercoated with one other colour added. This gives me an amazingly generous selection, from Danes and Schleswig Holsteiners through the Franco-Austrian War, ACW, Maximillian Adventure and Austro-Prussian War up to the Plains Indian Wars. And that is without having to look too hard!

Conveniently the school holidays finish just about the same time the latest Helion figures are released-so you can see it is a bit of a "fix"! So for a little taster-5 Foundry Apaches, started years ago-finished last weekend.

Simple Knicks

After much trial and error I have finally settled on a quite simple knick which I can mass produce and which still, hopefully, retains the main features. I could not find a way to convincingly reproduce the trenches either side of the knick and have settled for the following technique.

Stage 1. (Top Left). I cut sections of 3mm hardboard (MDF would have probably been better but that is what was available in my local builders merchants) into strips 3/4 by 6 inches. I then built up a layer of "stones" using cork. Bigger lumps at the botom with a second layer at the top to obtain the triangular cross section. I used a hot glue gun rather than PVA to help stop the warping I had experienced previously.

Stage 2. (Top Right). I then filled in the "dirt". In this case I used Vallejo "Grey Pumice" using an old paintbrush. Any pre-mixed (flexible) filler should do. Use pre-mix as you can come back to it in stages without waste. The flexibilility is essential as even with short strips there can be warping.

Stage 3. (Bottom Left). When completely dry I gave the whole thing a coat of chocolate brown emulsion. Again allow to dry thoroughly. You can see with all this water based stuff being slapped on why I had problems with warpage! I then used my normal Foundry Base Sand colours, leaving the stones drybrushed and the dirt more heavily coated.

Stage 4. (Bottom Left). Finally I cut up an old K&M hedge (I tried other methods but they were time consuming, sticky and annoying!), and glued them using my hot glue gun to produce one of the "new" knicks based on the Dybbol Hill painting at the top of last weeks post.

There was a little "lift" at each end which I could remedy with the application of (restrained!) force. And there you have it-"Matts Quick Knicks"!

I have another half dozen at various stages of completion. I will add some with gates or openings. For the mature pollarded trees I plan to use dowel rods and Milliput with a single layer of cork stones, but for now I am half way through two further Danish Battalions. Also "Skool's Owt 4 Summa" and wargaming has to take a back seat while I run myself stupid after the little-er-darlings!

The Jaegers are still delayed from the moulder, so I apologise for those waiting. However the Danish Light Infantry are coming along and I hope to post some pictures soon. I also got a very early glimpse of the Helion Prussian Guard figures-even without heads I am sold!

What Is A "Knick"?

I have made mention of the term "knick" a lot recently and thought it an idea to explain what I am on about. As I stated on my first building, what I am really after is some theatre specific scenery to go with my collection of figures for the Schleswig Holstein War. After all you would recognise an ACW game when you saw the first railfence placed on the table! Once again I am indebted to Jorgen for a lot of the information and some of the images on this post.

Knicks is a term used to describe the low stone walling/pollarding mix used to seperate an individuals field which they were allowed to buy under agricultural reforms brought in by Frederick VI of Denmark. A sort of allotment with walls. They were present in Denmark and Schleswig Holstein. Originally this seperation was simply done by collecting all the rocks and stones which would stop your plough from your field and using them. However the practice later became more formalised. Two parallel ditches were required to be dug with the earth mound being built up over the larger rocks/stones already collected. An average earth/stone wall was a metre high and coupled with a half metre ditch either side a pretty impressive obstacle was built.

Once done thorn bushes or trees were planted to keep animals in or out, produce fire wood etc. These would, over time be "pollarded", and the term "knick" originated from the sound the wood makes as it is hacked back.

http://www.nabu-schenefeld.de/knick/knicken.htm A German site which explains far better the processes involved!

So what are we looking at? The top picture shows what I call a "new knick". It depicts the capture of the Saxon guns at Dybbol Hill. The Danish infantry can be seen defending the knicks.

First line of the botom row of pictures shows a cross section of a typical knick and next to it is a scene from the Battle of Schleswig showing Schleswig Holsteiners firing at Danish cavalry from behind a "mature knick".

Second line of the botom row shows how a bushier knick looks today and next to it an old knick consisting mainly of mature trees. The road is now a lot higher that the original ground level.

So there you have it. It's not a stone wall, not a line of bushes, not a mound of earth nor a line of stumpy trees. Its all of them-and its called a knick!

My first attempts have been rejected due to warping so I am off in a little while to buy some MDF and see how I get on with that!

Injuns!

A quick post (and awful picture) to let y'all know that normal postings have resumed again. I will be picking up were I left off with more Schleswig Holstein scenery. In the meantime a shot of some figures I painted about 5 years ago. Yee-haw!

It's Been A Bit Quiet Because...

....I have "re-branded" my other blog, http://inthegrandmanner.blogspot.com/ . It originally started as a tribute to Peter Gilder's work but it soon became apparent that I did not have the time to produce enough figures and that a whole load of people were managing a better tribute to his work than I ever could! Soooo, I made the decision to change it to a 20mm wargames blog because that is the scale I started in and I know I can produce sufficient numbers of figures to make it worthwhile.

It is intended to be mainly Napoleonicky-but as you will see from the first post I could post just about anything! It will take a little while to get it up and running, so please bear with me for a couple more weeks (by which time my Jaegers and Helion's Hussars should be sitting in my "to-do-next" pile!). By the way, these are 20mm Newline Designs 1815 British Guards. They now reside in the USA.