I have continued to paint, though only when I have time, which is rare these days. I have managed to finish my 10 15mm.co.uk Canine Punks and 5 Corpulati. The Punks look pretty good, in my opinion. The Corpulati, well, they are slugs, so were pretty easy to paint. I think they look decent, though the yellow I had didn't really cover them well and there are a few spots where you can still see traces of the black undercoat.
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| The Corpulati are the little slug guys. |
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| I think the yellow looks a lot better for the goggles. |
Besides painting, I have managed to get in some reading. Starting in January, I began reading Harry Turtledoves TL-191 Settling Accounts Books. I have previously read the very first one, the first WW1 one, and parts of the first Interwar one. Settling Accounts was a fun read, though at some points, the parallels got in the way of the plot. The thing that annoyed me the most was the character "Henderson V. FitzBelmont". His name was quite unrealistic, and after looking it up, it appears there is no record of anyone having that surname, and I cannot imagine anyone named Belmont, so the name could not exist.
Also starting in January, I read the Machine Crusade by Brain Herbert. I knew I had begun it, but did not know how far I got, but upon reaching the end, I realized I had previously finished. However, I finished that series, then read "House Atreides". After reading that, I have the same thought I did after reading the original Dune. Why is it that House Atreides is comprised of only a few people. The other houses are similar, with the Harkonnens having only about five, though at least Corrino has a dozen or so, though most of them are daughters of the same guy. I would expect that the houses would have dozens, maybe hundreds of members, spread throughout the Imperium.
Finally, starting on Sunday and finishing today, I read Robert Conroy's "1945", in which General Anamis militarists take Emperor Hirohito in August 1945 and the US invades the Home Islands. It was a pretty good book, though I did think having Hirohito being taken from Japan in a commando raid was sort of unrealistic. However, the actual fighting scenes were pretty good, I thought.
Reading Settling Accounts has made me interested in playing out some miniatures games in a "Weird Civil War", featuring British, French, and Brazilian Interventionists on the southern side, utilizing Highlanders, Indian Troops, Black Confederate Troops, fighting in exchange for their freedom, and "D'Orleans Louisiana Zouaves" a unit of Zouaves under Gaston d'Orléans, Count of Eu and husband of a Brazilian Princess. Opposing them would be Fenians and the Joseph Sturge Brigade, a unit of British Abolitionists. Technology would mostly be real-world, but with gatling guns and possibly some airships to make it "Weird".
