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Rosemary's series 33 Pure Kolinsky Sable Brushes
Series 33. Pure Kolinsky Sable. Size: 3/0 £2.95
Series 33. Pure Kolinsky Sable. Size: 2/0 £3.00
Series 33. Pure Kolinsky Sable. Size: 0 £3.05
Series 33. Pure Kolinsky Sable. Size: 1 £3.10
Back in September, after a recommendation from several painters on the Lead Adventure Forum, I decided to try out some of Rosemary's series 33 Pure Kolinsky Sable Brushes. For the last twenty years I've been using synthetic brushes and been happy doing so.
I tried, from time to time, to use sable brushes but could not find any that would keep a point, or in some cases, even had a point to begin with so I soldiered on with what I was used to accepting that they would curl after I'd used them for a dozen or so miniatures and would need to be replaced. I consoled myself that each size 0 synthetic brush only cost around £2.00 as opposed to a Winsor and Newton Series 7 brush (the ones most often mentioned as being the best) which could cost over £15.00 (although nowadays, thanks to the internet and online discounts, you can find them for around £6.00).
I used to spend between £60 and £90 a year on brushes.
Well, I switched five months ago to the set of brushes listed above that cost me a total of £13.10 including postage.
I also bought some brush soap that cost £5.00 making a total investment of under £20.00.
So far I've painted around two hundred figures with my Rosemary brushes and they are still as good as new. They keep their points and hold a decent amount of paint, I really can't emphasise enough how much better they are than synthetic brushes and I urge you to buy at least one to have a go yourself.
The brush soap is a necessary purchase so you can clean your brushes at the end of a painting session properly and ensure they stay in good condition. I got mine from Antenociti's Workshop.
Rosemary's series 33 Pure Kolinsky Sable Brushes
Top Marks!!New Painting Lamps
I've just upgraded my painting area with the addition of some new lights.I used to use a couple of fluorescent tube lights from Argos which cost about £15.00 each and gave a wide but not particularly strong spread of light. I augmented these with a standard angle poise lamp holding a 100w daylight bulb.
Usually I'd have less than all the lights working. The first to go would be the 100w daylight lamp because it was only supposed to hold a 60w bulb and the extra heat perished the plastic bulb holder and rendered the lamp useless in a very short time.
The Argos lamps would droop because the size of their bulb holders put too much strain on the cheap joints and eventually I wouldn't be able to get the light to shine where I wanted it.
For ages I've had just a single Argos lamp working. Well, enough was enough, and a recommendation from Redzed on Frothers led me to UKR Design and their range of lamps and bulbs.
Following the advice I was given I ordered a pair of 01B desk lamps and a pair of 32w Low Energy Saving Compact Fluorescents to go with them. Total price including delivery: £45.33.
I received an email from UKR Design saying I'd ordered the wrong bulb fittings for the lamps and that they'd changed them before sending my order which was extremely nice of them. A day later the parcel arrived.
Fitting the lamps to my work area was very quick and simple. They are sturdy lamps with good springs that hold the arms in the positions you put them which already makes them better than the Argos lamps. The bulbs give me the equivalent amount of light to 320w of normal bulbs but don't add the intense heat and won't damage the holders.
As a final improvement each lamp has a switch on the cable not on the top so there's no fiddling about trying to find a top switch to extinguish the red hot light at the end of a painting session which usually led to the light being pushed out of position too.
My new set up cost less than my old set up, takes less power, adds more light and generates much less heat. I'm happy.
Next time you're buying a new bulb or lamp, consider going the whole hog and take a look at what UKR Design have to offer.
UKR Design lamps and bulbs
Top Marks!!Israel’s Lightning Strike, The raid on Entebbe 1976
Author: Simon Dunstan
Illustrators: Ian Palmer, Peter Dennis and Mariusz kozik
64 pages, softback
ISBN 978-1-84603-397-1
£11.99/ $18.95
This is the second title in Osprey Publishing’s Raid series.
Having just done some cursory research into the Entebbe raid, or Operation Yonatan as it is now known, I was thrilled to be sent this book from Osprey. I could have really used it when I was building my Entebbe airport as it contains information and photos of the buildings that I didn’t have. There is also a nice looking cutaway drawing of the old terminal and control tower buildings that would have helped me.
The text is concisely written and packs quite a bit of subject matter into a low page count. This book follows the standard Osprey remit of being an introduction to a subject with the option given to read up further if you’re interested. As is usual with osprey publications there are many photographs of the people and places involved throughout. From a wargamer’s point of view there is enough meat for this to be a one-stop reference. The bibliography lists eight more publications if you want to read up further.
The book opens with an overview of the history of aerial hijacking at the end of which is a two page spread that does a good job of explaining Palestinian paramilitary groups. Although this is a subject with serious ramifications this section reads like the gladiator scene from Life of Brian reeling off a list of the PLO splinter groups, each with ever more ludicrous names and mutually exclusive aims and ideals.
Once the background has been established we get to the meat of the book. In the first chapter the hijacking of Air France flight 139 is recounted in detail with a section devoted to each of the first five days. Some of the margins contain hourly timelines for each day showing exactly when significant events happened.
Chapter two switches the focus and the details of the next two days at Entebbe are interspersed with a description of the Israeli rescue plans that were being formulated at that time. This chapter contains a single colour plate showing an Israeli paratrooper uniform and a second paratrooper disguised in a Ugandan uniform (luckily the Israelis had lots of these as they’d made them originally). This painting isn’t great but it’s functional, a back view would have been nice but it’s adequate as a painting guide.
Chapter three recounts the rescue operation itself. As well as the written description of events there is a good map of the airport, two isometric 3D maps of the operation with added close ups of important parts, the cutaway drawing I mentioned earlier and a map of the area showing the flight to and from that the Hercules transports took.
There is also a two page painting showing the assault going in with Lt Col Netanyahu, the Israeli commander, being shot. This isn’t much good from a figure painting point of view as it’s a night scene so the colours are distorted and actually isn’t a very good painting either, It lacks impact and has no focus as it tries to show the whole scene encompassing several groups of attackers doing different things and takes liberties with the timing of events so it can show them all in the same picture.
Two separate pictures would have been a better use of the space I feel, one showing the first raiders encountering the terrorists and another showing the fatal wounding of Lt Col Netanyahu.
However, this doesn’t detract from the usefulness of the book but nor does it add to it which is a shame.
The book ends with an aftermath section that recounts what happened after the raid and updates us on some of the participants followed by a bibliography and an index.
Generally it’s a good read and probably worth the money. There are some problems however that prevent this being among Osprey’s best. There are several references to Ma’alot massacre with no explanation as to what it was. It isn’t until several pages after it’s first mentioned that a brief explanation appears in a picture caption, if you’re just reading the text and miss this it becomes very annoying a this mysterious Ma’alot is referred to quite a bit.
This niggling annoyance pales into insignificance when compared to the 3D isometric maps. These are the focal point of the book; they each cover a double page spread and show the raid’s progress in detail with arrows and notations etc, a familiar sight to anyone who owns an Osprey campaign title.
Well, that is, they should show the raid’s progress in detail with arrows and notations but some bright spark decided that because the raid happened at night they should be painted in night colours. The brightest colour on them is dark blue! This, coupled with the reflections from the glossy paper and the page join running through some of the notations, makes them all but illegible. One map is mislabelled too which adds insult to injury.
If these had been done clearly Israel’s Lightning Strike would have been an excellent book that I would happily recommend to anybody even remotely interested in the events at Entebbe. As it is the book loses a lot of its impact and falls short of expectations, a real shame.
Israel’s Lightning Strike, The raid on Entebbe 1976
Illustrators: Ian Palmer, Peter Dennis and Mariusz kozik
64 pages, softback
ISBN 978-1-84603-397-1
£11.99/ $18.95
This is the second title in Osprey Publishing’s Raid series.Having just done some cursory research into the Entebbe raid, or Operation Yonatan as it is now known, I was thrilled to be sent this book from Osprey. I could have really used it when I was building my Entebbe airport as it contains information and photos of the buildings that I didn’t have. There is also a nice looking cutaway drawing of the old terminal and control tower buildings that would have helped me.
The text is concisely written and packs quite a bit of subject matter into a low page count. This book follows the standard Osprey remit of being an introduction to a subject with the option given to read up further if you’re interested. As is usual with osprey publications there are many photographs of the people and places involved throughout. From a wargamer’s point of view there is enough meat for this to be a one-stop reference. The bibliography lists eight more publications if you want to read up further.
The book opens with an overview of the history of aerial hijacking at the end of which is a two page spread that does a good job of explaining Palestinian paramilitary groups. Although this is a subject with serious ramifications this section reads like the gladiator scene from Life of Brian reeling off a list of the PLO splinter groups, each with ever more ludicrous names and mutually exclusive aims and ideals.
Once the background has been established we get to the meat of the book. In the first chapter the hijacking of Air France flight 139 is recounted in detail with a section devoted to each of the first five days. Some of the margins contain hourly timelines for each day showing exactly when significant events happened.
Chapter two switches the focus and the details of the next two days at Entebbe are interspersed with a description of the Israeli rescue plans that were being formulated at that time. This chapter contains a single colour plate showing an Israeli paratrooper uniform and a second paratrooper disguised in a Ugandan uniform (luckily the Israelis had lots of these as they’d made them originally). This painting isn’t great but it’s functional, a back view would have been nice but it’s adequate as a painting guide.
Chapter three recounts the rescue operation itself. As well as the written description of events there is a good map of the airport, two isometric 3D maps of the operation with added close ups of important parts, the cutaway drawing I mentioned earlier and a map of the area showing the flight to and from that the Hercules transports took.
There is also a two page painting showing the assault going in with Lt Col Netanyahu, the Israeli commander, being shot. This isn’t much good from a figure painting point of view as it’s a night scene so the colours are distorted and actually isn’t a very good painting either, It lacks impact and has no focus as it tries to show the whole scene encompassing several groups of attackers doing different things and takes liberties with the timing of events so it can show them all in the same picture.
Two separate pictures would have been a better use of the space I feel, one showing the first raiders encountering the terrorists and another showing the fatal wounding of Lt Col Netanyahu.
However, this doesn’t detract from the usefulness of the book but nor does it add to it which is a shame.
The book ends with an aftermath section that recounts what happened after the raid and updates us on some of the participants followed by a bibliography and an index.
Generally it’s a good read and probably worth the money. There are some problems however that prevent this being among Osprey’s best. There are several references to Ma’alot massacre with no explanation as to what it was. It isn’t until several pages after it’s first mentioned that a brief explanation appears in a picture caption, if you’re just reading the text and miss this it becomes very annoying a this mysterious Ma’alot is referred to quite a bit.
This niggling annoyance pales into insignificance when compared to the 3D isometric maps. These are the focal point of the book; they each cover a double page spread and show the raid’s progress in detail with arrows and notations etc, a familiar sight to anyone who owns an Osprey campaign title.
Well, that is, they should show the raid’s progress in detail with arrows and notations but some bright spark decided that because the raid happened at night they should be painted in night colours. The brightest colour on them is dark blue! This, coupled with the reflections from the glossy paper and the page join running through some of the notations, makes them all but illegible. One map is mislabelled too which adds insult to injury.
If these had been done clearly Israel’s Lightning Strike would have been an excellent book that I would happily recommend to anybody even remotely interested in the events at Entebbe. As it is the book loses a lot of its impact and falls short of expectations, a real shame.
Israel’s Lightning Strike, The raid on Entebbe 1976
