Artizan Cowgirl: Eliza Stone

Something a bit different for this week is this new Artizan Thrilling Tales figure which they call Eliza Stone but is obviously Sharon Stone playing Ellen from the 1995 Sam Raimi film, The Quick and the Dead. Sadly, Guildford has a big Wild West game next Monday but I'm going to be in Brussels. Grr! Sharon will have to fight another day.

I've always enjoyed this film and picked it up on DVD recently, just before the figure came out! I had been hoping someone would make a figure of this character and I think Mike Owen has done a great job.

He has combined several outfits she wore in the film but I managed to track down pictures of most of them in order to get an "authentic" look.

Hat and scarf: Sharon Stone, of course, has a scar on her neck caused by an accident as a child so often wears something around her neck in her films. She starts the film wearing a battered brown hat before acquiring this natty black one with a silver band.

Blouse and waistcoat: Both her blouse and her waistcoat are an off-white colour (although in the picture of my model it looks pure white, because of the flash. Annoying, after studying this picture so carefully.)

Peek-a-boo!

Trousers: These are dark reddish brown leather, worn over boots not with boots over the top as in the model. I couldn't find any pictures of Sharon in her leather trousers on the net. Probably just as well.





Gunbelt and pistol: Reddish leather with ivory handled single action 1873 Colt Army Peacemaker with 4.75 inch barrel. The film's replicas were made by EMF Hartford.



Coat: She wears two coats in the film. This brown one is her raincoat for the frequent rainy scenes (although, amazingly, the street is always bone dry immediately afterwards).






In my previous job we had one of these ridiculous management courses where we had to make things from Lego and such like. I got in trouble for answering the question, "who would you like to play you in a film about your life?" with "Sharon Stone". I still think she would be a good choice, despite Basic Instinct 2.

Peow! Peow!

Painted Figures for November

This month's Darkest Africa character: makes a change from near-naked Beja.

I needed to paint 34 figures this month and just made it!

The yearly total is 288 in 48 weeks which is exactly six figures per week!

Sudan British 15

Sudan Beja 6

Sudan Egyptian 1

Darkest Africa 1

Great Northern War Swedes 3

Spartan Hoplites 3

WW1 German Askari 5

I missed the whole of this week as I was in Los Angeles (and Phoenix and Atlanta and Tallahassee and Miami!) but may still get a few finished tomorrow to start off December. This month's target is 24 to reach my six figures a week goal. I have a few days in Brussels the week after next and hope to get to the Military Museum there as they have some good Napoleonic and Belgian Colonial stuff.

Off to America and no TMP at the airport!

I'm in the British Airways lounge about to fly off to Los Angeles and I tried to log on to The Miniatures Page but, no, British Airways has made it a prohibited site! Good grief. For what reason, I wonder?

It's the first of December so I should be putting my November painting totals up but all the details are back home so I will have to do it when I get home on Friday. I have two weeks off at Christmas so am hoping to finish the year with a big burst to beat my target!

Great Northern War: More Swedes

I finished three more Swedish Musketeers this week. John, at Guildford, has been muttering about painting some and adapting the 1644 rules for them. This has given me an incentive to get on with some more. This means I am really going to have to wade through the book I have on their uniforms and decide which period/regiment they are. It's starting to look like another blog!

More from East Africa in WW1

Here are my Brigade Games German Schutztruppe figures for East Africa. All the coloured cords on the helmets were a fiddle to paint but they look OK, considering I did them a few years ago. I saw an episode of Ray Mears' Survival where he went and lived out with the tribes who inhabited the area of the conflict. There was quite a bit about the war in the programme but the interesting thing was the terrain. Just grass (quite green), scrub and small trees. Pretty easy to model I would have thought, even for me. I have used a slightly redder base shade than usual to reflect the colour of the local earth.

These are German African Schutztruppen. These are not Brigade Games but Copplestone Castings. I chose these as Brigade Games themselves admitted that on the early figures they failed to sculpt them as Negros: a rather fundamental mistake I would have thought! They are a little taller than the Brigade Games figures but even I don't mind as the look and bulk is so similar. The Brigade Games Schutztruppen they did later (from the later period with the floppy hats) are much better.

These are quick figures to paint and I based up the rest I had the other night, including some Sikhs. I may get some more done to up my painting totals. Of course if I do a lot I'll have to start another blog!

Ankara Visit

I've been in Ankara all week and, yet again, I didn't get a chance to visit the Museum of Anatolian History with it's great Hittite collection. Oh well, it looks like I will be back in three weeks so maybe then!

I did get forty minutes between meetings and my driver took me to Antikabir, the mausoleum of Kemal Atatürk. I didn't have time to get round the museum but at a later meeting someone gave me a print of a picture in the museum.

This shows Atatürk commanding the defence at Gallipoli, or Canakkale, as they call the Dardanelles campaign.

This has got me all keen on doing Palestine WW1 again. The Gallipoli Campaign isn't much fun as a wargaming period as it was not only trench warfare but trench warfare on a very steep hill (very difficult to model scenery for). Palestine has a bit more sweep to it.

Brigade Games British by Mike Owen

I have already painted some British in hot climate uniform for East Africa so I am quite tempted to get a few Turks. The trouble is that although both Copplestone and Brigade Games do Turks they only do infantry and a machine gun. No artillery or cavalry. The Turks used Krupp guns which the Perries now make for the Sudan and you could probably convert a crew from the machine gunners but cavalry would be trickier.

Adding to this pressure is the fact that they have just released the first two box sets of Young Indiana Jones in the US. I always liked this series and could never understand why the BBC buried it in the middle of Sunday afternoons. There were quite a few World War 1 episodes set in Palestine, the Western Front, East Africa and even the Italian Alps. I have just got my East Africa troops out to have a look at and may try to get some more done between now and Christmas.

Blog List: Hit Parade

It's a month since I did a blog hit count so I thought I'd do another one to see if the hits are consistent subject to subject. Total views first and then the total (in brackets) for the month.

1 19th Century Sudan Armies 2340 (1208)
2 Legatus' Wargames Armies 1203 (669)
3 Spartan WAB 884 (497)
4 Dark Ages WAB 546 (445)
5 Byzantine WAB 469 (187)
6 Punic War WAB 443 (342)
7 Cavegirls in Fur Bikinis 428 (283)
8 Return to Darkest Africa 136 (55)
9 Pulp Warriors 54 (16)
10 3rd Century Roman WAB 37 (37)

11 Swashbucklers has had 27 (17)

The top three remain the same but Dark Ages WAB has moved from number 7 up to number 4, the highest climber this month! I have managed to update everything except the Byzantine blog in the last month.