The Sword and the Sketchbook

I spotted a paperback copy of this in Trago Mills yesterday for £5 so snapped it up. It's fully illustrated with contemporary sketches by the likes of Melton Prior and covers most of the colonial campaigns of the Victorian era, from the first Afghan War to the Boer War. 

The sketches are very atmospheric and full of detail, with a splash of stiff upper lipped derring-do, as you'd expect. I've seen many of them before in other books but it's great to have them all here in one comprehensive volume. It also cost a third of the cover price, so well worth it.

It reminds me that I really should finish the last stages of my Dervish army for PITS and paint up an opposing British patrol for them to ambush, somewhere deep in the Sudan. This project has been mothballed for far too long, so it really should be dusted off and finished this year.