"A Plastic Painting Tip" and "Book Reviews, Anyone?"

I managed to spend a little time painting yesterday between baking pies and preparing a salad for dinner. First, I painted the white trim around the edges of the tricornes worn by my 13 artillery crew, who are starting to look pretty darn good. Second, I painted the underside of the figure bases with more of the GW “Goblin Green”. I also did the same for the recently finished Jäger zu Fuß. And a bunch of photos really are coming just as soon as I resolve my ongoing camera problems :-(

Today, I’ll add the usual Future treatment, so the figures will be completely sealed in paint and acrylic varnish, which hopefully will preserve my paintwork for a long time to come. Painting and finishing the underside of each figure’s base also seems to make them look just a bit more completed too! I’m going to do the same for the 2^nd (Von Laurenz) Musketeers today after adding some more detail to Stollen’s battery of artillery.

On a slightly different note, I’ve had an interesting idea. The other day, after the C.S. Grant book arrived, I posted a question over at OSW, asking members about their most recent “new” old school book purchase. I also asked them to say a few words about why they liked their purchase, how it was useful, etc. Member response was quite good, and it got me thinking about “serious” book reviews. So today, I proposed that OSW members could, if interested, write up carefully considered and detailed 3-4 page reviews of various “old school” titles.

The reviews would have to go further than “Uh, I really liked this book because. . . “ Instead, the kind of reviews I envision would need to discuss not only the merits of a particular work, but also its more obvious, and perhaps less apparent, shortcomings, where an author succeeds, where he could have developed his thoughts more, and so on. Kind of like the reviews one reads in the New York Times Book Review section, the Chicago Tribune, or various and sundry academic journals. I suggested that we could post these reviews in the Files section at OSW.

So, what’s the point? First of all, it would be an interesting exercise in thought for the reviewer, who would be forced to examine “what” specifically is good about a particular title besides the presence of illustrations. Second, carefully written reviews would also be interesting and potentially helpful for other enthusiasts to read. So, we’ll see if any OSW members think this is a neat idea or too much like work. In any case, I volunteered to start the ball rolling with a review of Featherstone’s Complete Wargaming (1988), which will eventually appear here, whatever develops over at OSW. Stay tuned!