Gifts from Sri Lanka

So very excited today. last evening the package arrived from Sri Lanka full of painted miniatures! I sent off 50 28MM Confederates and 100 28MM Yankees and my brother sent off 120 15MM North Vietnamese and 140 15MM United States soldiers to be painted. The quantities were not huge, as this was a trial balloon order - never having sent miniatures off to Sri Lanka before. We used Phil-Greg Painters. So, here is our report:

What We Sent & Ordered

• 50 28MM Confederates, $1.50 painting cost per miniature, "Collector's Standard" grade. Agreed to be painted in various browns and grays.
• 100 28MM Yankees, $1.50 painting cost per miniature, "Collector's Standard" grade. Painted per the sample provided by me and with the two blue colors provided by me.
• 120 15MM North Vietnamese, .85 painting cost per miniature, "Collector's Standard" grade. Painted per the sample provided by me and with the colors provided by me.
• 140 15MM United States, .85 painting cost per miniature, "Collector's Standard" grade. Painted per the sample provided by me and with the colors provided by me.
• Total with shipping: $532.70 + another $50 or so to get the miniatures to Sri Lanka.

The Timeline

• May 21 - Package sent from Henderson, CO to Sri Lanka.
• June 14 - Confirmation from Phi-Greg that our package had arrived. This seemed to take longer than I supposed it would have, and was worried that the package may have been lost. But, it did arrive, I attribute it to slower shipping to Sri Lanka and perhaps even a backlog of work to be done at the painters. No worries, as long as it made it.
• June 16 - Confirmation from Phil-Greg of the miniature count in the package.
• July 23 - Images from Phil-Greg of some of the painted miniatures for our approval. From June 16 to July 23 seems long to me too...but what do I know of the amount of work they have to do for other customers, etc.?
• August 10 - Dispatch from Phil-Greg of the painted miniatures, via Aramex and with a tracking number. I was able to track the box from Sri Lanka, to Dubai, to Los Angeles to Denver!
• August 13 - Arrival in Henderson of the painted miniatures!

The box was apparently opened in Dubai for inspection as it arrived here with tape sealing it that had Arabic and English characters on it" "Opened for Inspection". No doubt that the carrier has some sort of contract with the U.S. Customs office for inspections or it may not have gotten here so quickly.

The box was packaged very well and each of the miniatures was in a small individual baggie. They got here in great shape. My wife and I were both happily surprised with the quality of the work on all of the miniatures. I have to state that "I love them"...they're very well painted and there is no way I could have painted them - my time is just too scarce for that.

The above image shows a miniature packaged in a baggie and also shows a couple of the ACW miniatures.

The above image shows all of the ACW miniatures received. The flash bulb makes the yankees look a little brighter than they really are in this image, as you can see by the first image, the colors are actually darker. For the Confederates, I think all I need to do is paint over several of the bedrolls to add some custom touches.

The above image shows a couple of the NVA and USA troopers for my brother's Vietnam collection. They even painted faces on these guys.

On a scale of 1 to 10, my happiness is about an 8. As mentioned above, there are some odd timeline gaps and I am not wild about the "shading lines" painted on many of the miniatures - my sample miniature that I provided was not painted with any such shading as I intended to "dip" them. I figure that at least they used the colors I provided and that the actual painter was painting as he or she always has, factory-style...and the factory always adds the shading lines. I can easily touch up anything I do not care for. The bottom line is that I did not paint 150 ACW miniatures! Yay! I did not paint 150 ACW miniatures! Yay me! Yay Sri Lanka!

We're definitely sending more miniatures to Sri Lanka, it was an overall good experience and that was the goal - see how it all worked. When you look at the above images, remember that when held in your hand or on the game table, the miniatures look really great. When viewed large-sized on the blog, 100X magnification, they look less great.

Now, I gotta get some men on their bases before my Brother arrives here for the weekend! We're gonna play a 28MM ACW game using "Black Powder". I have a very awesome and very expensive bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle, and we're going to enjoy that fine beverage as we enjoy a fine wargame. It is going to be fun and I cannot wait! I'll post pictures after he leaves on Sunday (and after I have sobered up).