The Best of Purk Radio

I have a number of play lists on my Spotify music app and one of them, Purk Radio, has approximately 100 tunes. I decided that I needed to whittle the list down to a Top Thirty, which I call "The Best of Purk Radio". This is my go to music list. Why the name "Purk Radio" you might ask? It is the nickname that I had when I was in high school and college. Some of my closest and oldest friends still use it.

Note that these tunes are not necessarily ranked in the order of my "best songs". I have tried to group them in songs that lead into the next song in a similar manner.

The lead of tune is a great song from Cheap Trick, Live At Budacon. It has a lead in drum and guitar solo that runs about two minutes before the lyrics kick in and it is a great song for leading off any list of hit tunes. The beat of the tune leads nicely into the similar tempo of LaGrange by ZZ Top and then picks it up a little bit faster going into Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith.

Then I switch it up and tone it down a bit with Pink House, Lawyers Guns and Money (one of my faves), Take It Easy and Listen to The Music. Steve Gill turned me on to You Better You Bet by The Who and it has become one of my real top ten favorite songs. I had to include The Cowbell Song, better known as Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. Money For Nothing has some derogatory name calling in one of the lyrics, so in this day and age, I might remove it from the list and add another Rolling Stones song.

The First Ten

1. Ain't That A Shame (Live at Budacon)  - Cheap Trick

2. LaGrange - ZZ Top

3. Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith

4. Pink Houses - John Mellencamp

5. Lawyers Guns and Money - Warren Zevon

6. Take It Easy - The Eagles

7. Listen to the Music - Doobie Brothers

8. You Better You Bet - The Who (thanks to Steve Gill for this one)

9. Don't Fear the Reaper (the Cowbell Song on SNL) - Blue Oyser Cult

10. Money for Nothing - Dire Straits

The next ten songs are kind of "I'm pissed off at you" or "rebellion" songs. Who doesn't want to take care of business from time to time by doing nothing all day; who isn't looking towards the weekend when you have days off from work and you can do whatever you darn please.

The Second Ten

11.  Surrender - Cheap Trick

12.  Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival

13.  Workin' For the Weekend - Loverboy

14.  Takin' Care of Business - Bachman, Turner Overdrive

15.  We're Not Going To Take It - Twisted Sister

16.  Hold On Loosely - 38 Special

17.  Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones

18.  Rocky Mountain Way - Joe Walsh

19.  Who Are You - The Who

20.  American Women - The Guess Who

The final ten songs don't have any particular connection to one another, other than the fact that I like the songs and I had to put them somewhere. I do think that ending with The Who's "We Won't Get Fooled Again". Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" should have probably followed Takin' Care of Business. I like Joe Walsh a lot. I saw him live at a recent Eagles concert and I had no idea of what a great guitar player he is.

The Third Ten 

21. Lido Shuffle - Box Scaggs

22. Rock And Roll All Night - KISS

23. Baba O'Reilly - The Who

24. Life's Been Good - Joe Walsh

25. Authority Song - John Mellencamp

26. Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple
27. Honky Tonk Woman - Rolling Stones

28. Running on Empty - Jackson Browne

29. Already Gone - The Eagles

30. We Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who

Well that's my list. There are a lot of other songs that should have been on the list, but there just wasn't any room and I wanted to keep the list short. I had started with a Top Twenty list and needed to expand it, thus the number thirty.

Battle of Cowpens Anniversary

Don Troiani illustration of the cavalry clash between the British 17th Dragoons and William Washington's 3rd Dragoon Continentals.

Today, on January 17, 1781, Daniel Morgan's "flying column" defeated Banastre Tarleton's army of Crown Forces at a place known as Hannah's Cow Pens.

Wanted: Skirmish Rules Play Testers

Austrian Grenadiers on the attack.

Prussian Jagers in the woods.

I have a good draft version of my Kleine Krieg skirmish rules ready for play testing.  I'm seeking some people who can help me by play testing the rules. Units are only 12 figures plus one personality figure.

I would like to get some feedback by early March 2020. This will give me time to make modifications prior to their use at this year's SYW Assn convention April 2-4.

If you are interested then let me know via the comments section of this post.

Jim

Return of the Painting Mojo & A Painting Tutorial

Prussian Guard IR15/II battalion.
Minden Miniatures.

Yesterday I finished 22 figures - Minden Miniatures SYW Prussian Guards in tricorn hats (hence the 2nd battalion of the IR15 Guard Regiment). There was a point during the afternoon painting session where I could really feel the painting mojo coming back. The paint was flying off of my brushes.

Close up view of the figures painted so far.

The figures are being painted as part of a painting challenge, set up by Major General Pettygree, for the month of January. I have to finish the total 32-figure unit by the end of this month. Participating in a painting challenge is a good way to get back into the painting groove.

I had a spare Prussian Zimmerman on hand, already primed, so I painted him as one of the Guards and will place him on the command stand when I get around to basing all of the figures.

The Color Palette Used

Here is a list of the paint colors that I have used on my Prussian Guards. The first color shown is the shade color and the second color is usually my highlight color. Sometimes I will use a third color in a triad, so where three colors are listed, the first color is the shade, the second color is the base, and the third color is the highlight.

Flesh tones:  

Red Brown   IWM   77-713

Rosy Shade  Reaper  09067

Rosy Skin    Reaper  09068

Yellow Breeches and Waistcoat:

Rucksack Tan  P3 Paint   93062

Moldy Ochre   P3            93063

Blue Coat:

Breonne Blue    Reaper    09055

True Blue          IWM      77-720

Red Facings:

Blood Red        Reaper      09003

Fire Red           Reaper      09004

Phoenix Red     Reaper     09005

Black

I use various craft paints for the black and brown bits. Any item of equipment (gaitors, musket, hair, rucksack, etc) gets an undercoat of black paint. Then I paint the brown color over the black. I sometimes highlight brown colors, but recently I have decided that the musket barrel and fur pack look better without the highlights.  I generally do not do highlights for black paint.

And it goes without saying that EVERY METALLIC COLOR should have a black undercoat or else the metal doesn't pop visually. For example, when you paint a button, paint it black first, and then dot the gold or silver or brass color on top of the black button.

Whites and Greys

I use craft paints for most of my grey tones and any pure white will look good. I use one of the P3 white colors. For cross belts, use a light grey undercoat and then apply the white paint over the grey. White on top of a darker grey doesn't look very good because the color contrast is too great.

If I want a dirty white color, such as for haversacks and waistcoats/breeches, I use a mid tone of grey as the base and then use the light grey as the highlight color.

Shading and Highlighting

I use a two-color shade & Highlight system for most of my colors (uniforms and brown equipment). Sometimes I will go with the now-traditional shade/base color/highlight triad system, but in my experience, add the third color doesn't give you much of a payback in the look of the finished figure.

Mixing Your Own Highlight Colors

Sometimes you just can't find a suitable second color or highlight for one of your colors. In this case, you will have to mix up your own paint forumula. Start with your base color, not the shade, and add in a lighter color for the highlight. I don't use white for everything though. I have found that a light tan is a good color to use for the highlight mixer. Regular white will turn your red into a pink and you don't want that to happen. Brown and orange make for a good looking brown highlight, as does the light tan. The red leather apron on the Prussian zimmerman figure was my own mix of the base red brown color with a small drop of light tan.

Annual Inventory Counting Time

It's my least favorite activity in the Fife and Drum Miniatures: the annual inventory or stock counting. This is required by The TaxMan every year. The inventory count usually takes about a week to complete so I'm giving everyone a heads up that my response to emails might not be immediate. This might affect my ability to post blogs over the next week too.

All orders will continue to be shipped during inventory so it won't result in any order shipment delays.

I'll see you all next week.

Well, Did some Painting Finally

Sample Prussian Guards that I painted before Christmas. These are finished figures.

I was feeling a little better yesterday.  The sun was out, I walked the dog, and had a good workout with my trainer so I was feeling better. I visited the painting table and turned on Henry Hyde's Battlechat with Jay Arnold as background noise for painting. It was a three hour podcast and I painted for three hours. Note the coincidence.


I resumed painting the new Minden Prussian Guards in tricorn hats. I have 19 figures on the painting table and had done some of the color blocking in a previous session. The paint and the brushes seemed to flow like magic.

My messy painting table. The Prussian Guards are in the center.

I always paint a sample figure from start to finish before I tuck into the rest of the unit. This way I have the satisfaction of seeing what the figures will look like when the unit is finally completed. It gives me some incentive to power through the boring parts of the painting of the figure (blocking in the base colors, particularly the black- I paint all equipment and gaters black before applying the final colors. This is tedious. The uniform colors are as bad.)

Happy New Year?

British Grenadiers based for skirmish gaming.
Fife and Drum Miniatures

This morning I was scrolling through all of the twitter updates and it seems like everyone is starting the new year in a painting frenzy because the output of freshly painted figues is amazing. I tip my tricorn to all of you painters.

On the otherhand, I seem to be descending into the depths of a painting funk and I couldn't be bothered to pick up any paint brushes and start thinning down the queue of projects. 

I normally get my greatest painting production done in the early Winter. Painting usually keeps the winter blues at bay because I plan things on a month by month basis. For example, I might plan on painting two 32-figure battalions of Minden Miniatures SYW figures and so by the time that these figures are finished, so to is the month of January and we are that much closer to the arrival of the SYW Association Convention (in April this year) and Spring. Then I do the same thing in February; and the month of March keeps me busy getting ready for the convention.

Fife and Drum Miniatures AWI Highlander light company based for skirmish gaming.

I find that one good way to power through the painting funk is to listen to one of Henry Hyde's podcasts on Patreon

These run for two to three hours which matches perfectly with the amount of painting time that I spend on a regular painting session. I usually paint this amount of time and then give it a break for the rest of the day, sometimes adding a second session in the evening.

By the way, I would encourage my readers to click on the link (above) and visit Henry's Patreon site. For a meer $2.50 per month, you can sign up and become one of Henry's patrons. Think about it, many of you probably spend $2.50 per day on a cup of Starbuck's coffee. So one could simply divert the amount of one cup of coffee per month into a Patreon sponsorship. In exchange, you will have access to lots of good audio and visual content about the hobby. In a way, it is sort of like having Battlegames magazine back in an e-version, rather than in print.

This stream of consciousness posting might have the key to my exit from Painting Funkdom in it. Now if I can just get myself to my painting table something could happen.

All isn't just funk and blues in my world though. 

The past several days found me sitting at the computer keyboard working on a set of rules for SYW-era skirmish wargaming. I have been using my own "Croat Terror" skirmish rules for many years and now I think that it is time to get them published. I will change the name of the rules though, as anything with the word "terror" in it does not seem appropriate in this day and age.

I have done countless games with the rules so they are well-play tested. However, I am changing the melee system from a card-based system to a dice-based system, thus the new melee system needs some play testing before the rules can go to the printer. I am feeling quite positive about getting the rules manuscript completed soon and getting the rules published.

Sigh.

Things will eventually get better.