Thursday 13 August 2020

A representation of the book cover of One Hour Wargames

Just a bit of fun and a respectful nod to a book that has brought so much pleasure. The front cover of One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas, must be one of the most familiar images on our collective bookshelves. It is an interesting choice by the author / publisher, when one considers that with the included rules spanning from Ancients through to WWII, many choices of iconic material to ‘dress’ the book must have been considered. 

The original book artwork to the cover

Anyway, in the original east front scene (above), we have a KV-1 tank with elements of a Soviet rifle section on and around the tank and a wooden dwelling and a pine forest in the background.


For our first little photo recreation, I have taken a 1/72 KV-1s model from Pegasus, a selection of 1/72 Soviet infantry in summer dress from Plastic Soldier Company, a resin ‘L’ shaped cottage from Lancer Miniatures and some fir trees picked up from a model rail store.

The scene on my table in 1/72


The KV-1s come as a fast build kit with two models in the box. With a lot of fast build, the entire wheel / track assembly is done in one piece, but here there are a set of inner wheels that have to be individually added and the direction of their associated wheel suspension arms had me a bit confused. When the penny eventually dropped - it was dead simple! adding some nice depth to the running gear. Overall, a
nice model.


I do have a couple of wooden cottages (plastic kit) from Pegasus, but wanted to do something slightly different and highlight Lancer Miniatures, who do some lovely resin buildings for the east front.


The hard plastic 1/72 figures were one of the first sets produced by PSC, amazingly started all the way back in 2008. The grenade thrower is in an inexplicably awkward pose.


Next up, I repeated the scene in 15mm. The KV-1s is a plastic kit from Battlefront and the figures from Peter Pig. The wood effect building is a resin from Iron Clad Miniatures, who do some really nice stuff in 15mm.

The scene on my table in 15mm


Zvezda also do a nice fast build 1/100 (15mm) KV-1c, this being the earlier model that has a more angular turret. The Peter Pig figures are nicely animated. I have based them with 4 figures on 40mm x 30mm plastic bases


Finally, just a bit of messing around with a 15mm image using the PicsArt app for the iPad. I thought I might run a few of these sort of images to either insert into a scenario sheet or a rule set.

'Arty' style, a KV-1 moves through the village 


Resource Section.


My sister webspace COMMANDERS is a bit more snippet based than here. Link.

https://commanders.simdif.com


25 comments:

  1. This is a neat little artistic study, Norm. While very similar, I think my preference leans toward the composition in 15mm. Excellent work!

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  2. Hi Jonathan, I would agree and I think this is due to the infantry having a little more animation.

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  3. A lovely recreation and the 15mm one works much better, due to greater figure animation. When these figures first came out, I think the companies were still trying to get to grips with simple injection mould tooling, hence the slightly stilted poses and blurred detail. Now the market has grown, they can invest in better tooling and design, hence much improved figure dynamism and detail.

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    1. Thanks Steve, yes, the PSC Soviets were something of a pioneering venture In hard plastic and so some of the detail is soft. From memory, these were designed by CAD and then just scaled out to do 15’s, 1/72 and 28’s and as a result, the 28’s were even softer featured.

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  4. An interesting exercise and a good comparison of the differences in the figures, I think that multi part plastic gives a lot more scope for animation than single piece because of the process. Reminded me of when I used to copy the the covers of old Marvel comics.

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    1. Hi Phil, when you think of the technology that we now have at hand, which we have probably started to take for granted, but you can shoot, edit and share in a 20 minute slot - amazing. Your Marvel shots probably used much more skill and attention than would be needed now.

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    2. Certainly did, I hand drew them :~)

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  5. Norm I often find myself staring at each of the figures and the KV1 on the OHW book cover, even though I've seen them a hundred times. I'll look at each individual figure and the details on the tank or the wooden cottage. I dont know why that is, maybe the same reason people stare at paintings in museums??

    I like your representation of the cover in both scales. Really neat post and thank you for sharing.

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  6. Thanks Steve, I know it is difficult to put your finger on it, perhaps it is the simplicity of the shot or the fact that so many of us have warmed to the book, but that cover does have a certain fascinating quality.

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  7. A fascinating diversion combining a whole range of skills with your ability to pick up items whether of scenery or buildings or figures from so many different sources. Got to say it's your sketch that fascinates me most as it is so far from anything that I could even think of attempting.

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  8. Thanks Mike, I am hoping to do a series of the sketches to embed into rules / scenarios, the scene just needs the right balance for tones to be evenly spread.

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  9. Pretty cool, a nice tribute to the cover. And it shows off some of your photography skills to recreate the lovely scene in two scales. 😀

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  10. Thanks Stew, I went for ‘snapshots’ rather than taking any great care over the pictures, but even so, they have turned out okay.

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  11. That was a really cool idea Norm and your renditions look great! I have the PSC Russians in 20mm too and always thought a few of them were in odd poses - I was always hoping Valiant would do Russians, as their 20mm Brits and Germans are very nice indeed, but they seem to have ground to a halt after a few sets and nothing new has appeared for years - pity!

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  12. Thanks Keith, I agree about Valiant. Some years ago I pressed them about doing Russians, but apparently one of the two partners was not keen so they didn't get done. Since they are slightly overscale and I would have had British, U.S., German and Soviet armies, so that they could all be used together and look right, then the lack of Soviets stopped mt buying past my first box. As you say, a pity, as they are lovely figures.

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  13. Excellent.
    I really like the look of those 1/72 PSC Russians.
    They look lovely painted up.

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  14. Thanks Darren, I was thinking about running them through ‘the dip’ as my normal ink shading has been a little weak!

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  15. Excellent recreation, Norm. I do like your version better.

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  16. Thanks Dean, I am fascinated as to why this scene was chosen for the book. By the way, your Boudica Command stand is beautiful, now that really could grace a book cover!

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  17. Hi Norm, I do like the weathering on the 1/72nd scale running gear, just right. I had a flirtation with the PSC figures, the awkward grenade thrower seems to be in the US and German sets too! So many people 3D printing their own tanks now and some are very good indeed but I do like the traditional plastic kit. Excellent representation of an iconic book cover.

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  18. Thanks Lee, an enjoyable bit of fun. I have the PSC for German / British / US and Soviet, but a couple of months ago picked up some 20mm AB German infantry and I think that is probably the way to go, or at least supplement a force.

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    1. Oh Lord, I just went over to Eureka for a peep at the AB 20mm Germans Norm, they are outstanding. I probably should not have done that! For some reason I have never seen them before.

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    2. Lee ...... too late, akin to Pandora’s Box ... you have opened your eyes and seen! :-)

      There is one figure though that looks a bit odd to me, it is a squating German throwing a stick grenade and his arm looks to be in a most awkward position. I have had the pliers on it, but I have my own problems of trying to perceive how an arm should look or work when throwing a grenade ...... even when I try to imitate the posture! Perhaps I have made it worse :-)

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  19. Nice idea, well executed! I've got the awkward grenade thrower in 28mm, they're so cheap you can accept some weird poses, they also mix well with spare bits of warlord plastic kits,avoiding mono pose!
    Best Iain

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  20. Thanks Iain, this was PSC first effort (all those years ago) and something of a landmark piece of work, so in that context, the box is pretty good overall. Some of their ideas were quite novel, like the inclusion of a nurse.

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Thanks for taking the time to comment