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"And here they are. . . The Battles!"

Forgive the rather silly play on Ed Sullivan and The Beatles, but I'm a little giddy since I have so many neat photos to share with you here. These first photos are of the almost complete artillery crew that I've been nattering on about for several posts here. It's funny, but do your figures always seem to look better when you see them in photos? The medium seems to do terrific justice to military miniatures, and I am interested to see what I will be able to do once I have a digital camera readily at hand. Anyway, the cannon have yet to be finished, but you get a good idea from this shot of how the artillery crew is shaping up.

Comments

Poruchik said…
Stokes,

Don't apologize about feeling giddy; I get the same way with new troops, I can't wait to take pix of them and publish them for viewing, it makes me feel like a little boy at Christmas showing my best friends my new toy soldiers.

Good Job!
Donald~

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