Mikasa

A few days ago I got a chance to go and see the battleship Mikasa. A fantastic must for anyone in the Tokyo area (even though it took about and hour in the car to get there, it's easily reached via public transport).

It's in the top three memorial ships in the world with the other two being in Boston (USS Constitution) and Portsmouth (HMS Victory) and is in rather good condition, even though it is buried to the waterline in concrete...

Unfortunately, the shop and guide book (English version) aren't that good considering but there are a English information points around the vessel where you press a button and a chap tells you parts of the history of the ship.

There are also plenty of display boards below deck that have both English and Japanese explanations and you can spend a good hour or so just going through them.

Needless to say, I took plenty of photos (about 350 odd) but the vast majority are for reference and the ones here are the best of the rest. It was surprising to see that they have built a 200 seater cinema in the bows but unfortunately there wasn't anything showing when we were there. There was also plenty of height below decks but with the modern addition of air conditioning and moving through hatch ways I still managed to bang my head four times...

One of the more pleasing things about the Mikasa, apart from the fact that it is an excellent bit of kit, is that is was built in my home town of Barrow-in-Furness and there also might be a possibility that my great grandfather worked on her. Unfortunately there wasn't anyone around to tell :-) There is also a street of the same name and it was only until a couple of years ago that I made the connection between the two :-/

Above is one of the 3" battery guns of which parts are still working and therefore were getting a lot of use by the kids :-) Fortunately it wasn't that busy (being a week day) and there wwe're no tour groups so I was able to get several pictures without anyone in them.

It's had several coats of paint over the years and there are modern additions (air conditioning etc) but you can still almost get a feel of what it might have been like... Almost.

A very enjoyable day out if a bit hot. Needless to say that I will be looking into making a scale version for naval games with the possibility of doing an entire range but a little bit more research into the period and other ships is needed along with popular gaming scales, rules etc.

I'll leave you with a few more pictures of this most excellent battleship :-)

ttfn

A long time coming

Well, once again life has gotten in the way of gaming :-(

Too much work and a back injury has put me out for longer than I hoped but with any luck that is going to change. My back is well on the way to recovery and our holiday in Japan is filling me with inspiration for new Oshiro releases and projects.

To keep you going I've got a few photos from Goryokaku which is the star fort on Hokkaido, Japan's northern most main island.

It's not the only star fort in Japan but it is certainly the best preserved...

This is the main bridge into the compound. It's difficult to imagine what it would look like without all the foliage but there is a model in the small exhibition centre that helps to realise it that way.

This is a view from the observatory showing the whole layout (official photos must use a wide angle lense as the window mullions are rather close together).

The first photo was taken from the open area to the bottom left.

This is the model in the observatory, I took plenty of close ups for reference but this is probably the best one to the show the fort as a whole.

The only unfortunate thing is the lack of mounted guns and garrison.

This is the magistrates building in the centre of the fort. It has only been complete for three years but it has been built from the original plans, the original having been burnt down. According to the chap we spoke to all the materials used in the construction were the same as the original with the wood for example coming all the way from the Osaka area. The tower on the top is the drum tower.

I'll post another history post in the next few days about the type of buildings found in 

Hakodate (Hakodate is the town where Goryokaku was built and was a principle harbour town for Japan towards the latter half of the 19th century) but I'll leave you with a view from the top Hakodate-yama which is reputed to be one of the best in the world.

ttfn

I've finally got a layout!

After much poncing and suggestive moving of buildings by my wife we've finally got the layout sorted for Saturday. Just two or three more things and we're in great shape :-)

And of course the figures, it wouldn't be a game without the figures but they are not coming out till the day (the are too bloody many).

I'll leave some piccies for now but will have a more concise post after the big day.

ttfn

Even more Salute progress

Of a sort...

I've slightly changed the arrangement of the building bases to better fit the ever so slightly differing sizes of them.

Just one wall top to paint and put on along with the wooden supports at the rear and the water to paint and thats the boards complete. I've still got a few things to finish that will go on top. A simple base for the shrine to sit on and some more walls for the poncy houses.

I'll hopefully get a chance to take some decent photos on the day before the madding hordes decend but I'm sure (hoping) there will be plenty of photos on the net afterwards.

Salute progress

Just a quick post to say that the layout for the samurai game is pretty much sorted and the pictures are below.

The third main wall needs completing along with the land across from them. The three white patches are imprints of three building bases that I'm borrowing back from a good friend.

I'm hoping that there's enough time left to make it look finished ;-)

Salute releases

I've got a new range of Victorian character buildings due out at Salute and the first is a pump house.

Quite a large one but it has a removable roof and the chimney is unattached, there will also be a large door option so it can be used as a train shed or some such.

The kit comes unpainted but primed, flat packed with enough tile sheeting for the roof and separate windows. The price is £65 and it comes in at 225mm long, 120mm wide, 130mm high and the chimney is 270mm high.

ttfn

Work on the Salute board

Progress is slow but this isn't a huge issue as I'm fairly comfortable with the amount of work left to do.

I've completed the first castle wall section and I'm quite pleased with the result. There are approximately 480-500 separate tile elements on the wall top so I'm going to be casting it as I don't fancy doing that again no matter how much I enjoyed it the first time round.

The stone wall is laser etched MDF painted in a suitable Japanese castle wall colour (with some help from my wife).

Once another one is complete (after the bank holiday) I'll take some more comprehensive photos to better illustrate the scale and size of the wall.

ttfn

Better late than never...

Although sometimes that's not as good as it sounds :-)

Unfortunately work commitments have prevented me from doing what I like, which is making things (even though I make things at work :-/ ) but the time has come to start getting ready for Salute. Fortunately most of the work is done so its just a few finishing details, a set of castle walls, a few more building bases and we're good to go.

I've been working on and off on three new bases to go with the ones I already have. I'll also be borrowing some commission ones that I made a while ago from a very nice chap to fill the spaces.

These three bases are more high end merchants house/shops and this is evident from the high proportion of tiled roofs. About half of the buildings are from my catalogue and the rest are scratch built using the same technique and style as the masters from the catalogue ones.

There are still a few details to go at the front, like stalls and benches but they are pretty much there. I didn't really take any wip pictures and until mobile blogger allows you to put pictures in the post content rather than at the end we'll just have to have them at the end.

More to follow on a regular basis as the big day draws closer.

ttfn

From the Back of Beyond

I've already posted this on the LAF but I'm putting it here for completeness.

It's a small Chinese walled compound or farm utilising the two Chinese buildings that are currently available from my catalogue (there will be more at some point soon). It could be used in any Chinese action and I'll probably do one for myself for the Boxer Rebellion.

The walls were scratch built but they are along the same lines as some wall masters that I have on the workbench. The buildings were painted in an off tan colour (Foundry American Tan I think) for the walls and a grey for the roof and then given a wash with a wash I've made up from matte medium, flow improver, some water and a couple of dashes of Vallejo inks (green, brown and a bit of black). Drybrushing was with Foundry Canvas light.

Typical groundwork and growies all round with part of a lager model tree stuck in the back to help give it it more of a setting. The figures are from my Boxer Rebellion Japanese range.

ttfn

Some Japanese commissions

Not much to say on these as the vast majority of the techniques used have been mentioned before in previous posts so I'll just post some pictures and leave you to it :-)

ttfn