Friday, May 06, 2011

Once a Knight...

I'm taking a little break at the moment from painting hordes of ACW soldiers and putting a little extra time into painting up a few figures for my "Great Siege" collection. what you see below is my basic cavalry figure, a mounted Knight of St John. Visual references are few and far between, so I've gone with what feels like a reasonable representation based on an Osprey plate from (I think) "The Warriors of the Cross" or the "Knights of Christ" or some similar title and the cover of the issue of Practical Wargamer featuring the Siege of Fort St Elmo.

Note that the lance may well be just a little too long, but I think it looks better that way.


Willie Spanish Mounted Arquebusier from the Spanish Conquest range with added 10cm steel lance and a Castaway Arts shield.

Same guy, different view.


I am discovering a renewed interest in painting and will probably spend the next few weeks painting a few comrades for him. And some opponents.


In other "news" - Is it just me, or is the blogosphere irrevocably doomed with no hope of recovery?


Now I have your attention, I just wanted to ask what's the deal with these "Stylish Blogger Awards" people are nominating each other for? Do we realise that these are structured pretty much like chain letters - everyone nominated is invited to nominate a further four blogs for the award. Therefore, to get one's own award, one has to finger another four folks.


Let it go on for long enough and everyone will have one which rather detracts from the cachet, does it not?


Really, how can getting an award under these circumstances be anything other than meaningless.


Post Script, I do have other issues with the blogosphere that I may explore at a later date.

9 comments:

Bluebear Jeff said...

If I might offer a slight disagreement, sir.

While it is true that this "Stylish Blogger Award" is in fact a sort of chain mail gimmick, it DOES provide a few benefits.

First, it allows us to learn some things about our fellow bloggers which we otherwise might never have learned. I know that I feel that I've come to know some of them better because of this.

Second, by following the links some of them offer, I have discovered some wonderful blogs that I never knew existed.

So, while your comments are essentially correct, the "Award" does offer some real benefits to those of us reading the responses to those receiving said award.


-- Jeff

Bloggerator said...

Oh Jeff,

Yes, granted.

It's just that sometimes the blog-o-sphere seems to me to be posed to vanish up it's own fundament. It's so inward-looking, and so many people seem to write so much more about wargaming, planning their armies, the Court intrigues happening at court &c, &c, &c without ever painting a toy soldier or playing a wargame. That's what gets me. Then this comes along and all of a sudden everyone is awarding everyone else medals. I feel like I'm in a banana republic.

Fitz-Badger said...

I had/have similar doubts about the "award". Also, I wonder if it was a sort of gateway for spammers as I received a spam comment from some calling themself "Kristen", if I remeber correctly. Something about contacting the blog owner for marketing or some such. That comment came right on the heels of my "nomination". Call me paranoid if you like. Maybe there was no connection. I don't even know anything about the origin of the "award".

Bloggerator said...

Hey Fitz, both my blogs that got nominations also got emails/comments from "Kristen", too. My antennae were twitching.

DC said...

I suspect that someone has written a spider that is following all of the 'award' links and dumping that spam comment from 'Kristen' at each blog it finds - whether that same organisation is responsible for dreaming up the award in the first place we may never know, but it wouldn't surprise me. In general internet marketing has a 'throw enough shit and something is bound to stick' approach - hence the spam.

Whilst it's nice to know that your blog is appreciated by others i've declined to participate other than thanking the committee....

Oh yeah....nice Willie. Have you checked out the Connoisseur range for reinforcements? The two ranges work well together.

cheers.

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

J had the same unease about the award intitially but after poking about for an hour or so, including out side the wargaming world and decided that it had positive as well as negative aspects.

As a viewer, I've benefited the same ways as Jeff but as a blogger, I have benefited by a wider exposure and increased readership. And that, I think was the main intent, its a marketing tool.

Now one can argue that it doesn't matter how many people are listening or at least tuned in and never bothered to drop out but the more people who respond with more than atta boy, the better as far as I'm concerned.

Mind you no argument with anyone who declines.

Nice lancer. I can see him challenging Turkish foraging parties, raiding their camps and so forth.

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

You guys are getting paranoid... :o))

I'm with BlueBear Jeff, who put it far better than I can - it's a harmless bit of fun - the best thing I like about it is the "seven things you didn't know about me" which I find fascinating - Giles entry for this (over at Tarleton's Quarter) was fascinating...

Of course we're all going to get an award - don't we deserve it?????? :o)

DC said...

Steve - i work for various online businesses, so my paranoia is well informed...8-)

tidders2 said...

I also found the stylish blogger award a bit suspect - but Jeff is right there are some benefits.

I also decided it deserved a little parody (see my post http://tidders-kingdomofwittenberg.blogspot.com/2011/05/pamphleteers.html)

-- Allan