Pack Mules with Handlers in 28mm

My loaded-down mules and their equally loaded-down handlers moving along a path in the forest

So, one of my frequent readers upbraided me for not posting more often during this "social distancing" time. Although I have been spending time regularly on working on hobby stuff, nothing has been finished since my last post -- other than 7 more concrete medians. I didn't want to do another post about that because they look exactly like the first batch of eight. However, Dave and other readers may be happy that I finally did finish something off today!

You can see how many sacks, bags, and other burdens are piled up on these poor pack animals

I honestly have no idea where I obtained these 4 pack mules (donkeys?) from, nor who their manufacturer would be. I did an extensive Google search, but came up blank. I hope one of my readers will recognize them, and I can label them as such. I dug them out of my unpainted lead pile (actually, it's in a very organized wheeled cart, if you're curious...) about three weeks ago, and primed them. However, what with working on the medians, barrels, dumpster, trash bags, etc., I hadn't progressed on them much. Once all of that was finished, though, I began to work on them more wholeheartedly.

The handlers look like French-Canadian voyageurs and Native Americans, to my eye

There are two poses of donkeys (mules?) along with two poses of the handlers. Both are heavily loaded down, which makes me think they are meant to be from the American frontier period -- possibly French & Indian War era voyageurs. One of the handlers looks like a Native American rather than a Frenchman, while the other is your stereotyped, heavily-bearded Frenchie with his cap. So, I painted them up that way, with an eye for them being "generic," and being able to use them for pack animals for just about any period. Luckily, they have no firearms or equipment that would pigeonhole them into a specific period.

The whole line of muleteers make their way through the Eastern Woodlands

One thing they do have is LOTS of bags and loads festooned on them. The handlers are veritable human pack mules (donkeys?), themselves! I certainly wouldn't want to walk around all day carrying what they are carrying. Although this looks very colorful, it does present a challenge to paint. If you paint all of the sacks and such the same color, they will fade together as a blob, and not stick out. If you paint them in distinct and bright colors, they will be overwhelming to they eye, I thought, and look equally bad. So, what I did was to set out all of the faded colors that I have that sacks and bags and such might be colored. The more than a dozen paint bottles were lined up across my desk. I would select one, and then go through the eight miniatures, men and animals, and paint maybe one sack in that color. The effect turned out good, I think. The loads look realistic but not an amorphous blob of the same color.

I used faded colors to show these poor souls have been on the trail for months on end

The handlers I painted in faded colors, figuring they've been on the trail for months and would likely wear the same sweat-faded garb day in and day out. I wanted them to have a very dirty look to them. In fact, when I finished with them, I just had to play a song from Mark Knopfler's latest solo release called, "Trapper Man." It paints a picture of these gentlemen exactly how I imagined them, "...Trapper Man's in from the hinterlands, filth and grease on his clothes and hands..." I decided not to attach a lead from the handlers to the donkeys (mules?) because I wanted the miniatures to be usable without each other, as well. I really like how they came out, and hope they make it to the tabletop one day soon.

What else have I been working on? Well, I have been spending a LOT of time laying out my gang warfare rules, Mean Streets: War in Gang-infested Cities. Sadly, my publishing program, Adobe InDesign finally died. The software no longer works with the latest Mac OS. I got my money's worth out of it, though. I used it while I was editor of the HMGS Great Lakes magazine, The Herald, for years. And I haven't been editor for more than a decade! It somehow made the migration from my first MacBook to the MacBook Pro that I still use for hobby stuff now (my latest MacBook Air is used pretty much just for schoolwork). However, when I went to fire it up, it wouldn't work. So, the long and short of it is I bought a new desktop publishing program -- Affinity Publisher. It has been a slow learning curve using it. Figuring how to do this function or that function isn't as intuitive as I'd hoped, but I am progressing with it. I try to use lots of graphics in my rule book layouts for First Command Wargames, so that makes it slower going.

My proposed cover for my gang warfare rule book for First Command Wargames

Anyway, here's a shot of my proposed cover artwork. I would honestly like feedback on it. Don't be afraid to comment and say you don't like it. Usually, my I fall in love with what I do as cover art, but on this one, I'm still not sure.