A little Roman WIP

Ran out of light to get photos of these yesterday so I've taken a few shots this morning before I head off to work. Fairly early stages of these roman cav, I've really just put down basecoats on most of the figure and then a 1st highlight on the red cloth and saddlecloth. 

The skin has been basecoated with a 50/50 mix of Panzer Aces flesh base and Vallejo Medium fleshtone and then given a wash of GW Reikland Fleshade. I'll layer it up next with a mix of 50/50 Flesh base and Vallejo Dark flesh then add Vallejo Flat flesh into the mix to bring up the last highlights. This is a new mix I'm trying to get a more tanned/sunny skintone rather than my usual white

Tried doing some eyes for the first time, I've not really had the patience in the past nor thought that I could pull it off but these figs have some fairly nice eyes sculpted. I used off white to create a thin almond shape and then a dab of Army painter strong tone for the pupils. I don't reckon it looks too bad

Some average joes up next, I still need to highlight the helmets but I'll probably leave the chainmail in the darker colour. I've got 12 figs to do but I'm doing the 6 in chainmail first and I'll take the 6 in plate mail after.

The guy who's commissioning them is going to base them and add the weapons later which makes my life a little easier

I'll post up a couple more pictures once the guys are all painted and then I'll get to work on the horses, they'll most likely be a mix of browns, chesnuts and the odd black thrown in for good measure.

Happy painting!

Finally something to show

So I've been a little lazy in the blog updating department....what's new. That doesn't mean I haven't been full steam ahead in the painting department though! I finished the 16 Coldstream guard last week but didn't find the motivation to take photos until 20 minutes before the guy came to collect them...

Anyway I tried taking photos in more natural light near a door (the windowsill was too inconvenient) as a bit of a change from my usual daylight bulb style. I think they turned out ok-ish

I've finally decided that I hate Napoleonic drummers, they are such a bitch to paint up with all the lace. These turned out reasonably well but perhaps not quite as nice as the Grenadier guards ones, I thought that the arm lacing was a bit closer together than the other figures and it made it harder to make the lace not look too crowded

I am pretty happy with the rest of the command figures though, after getting over the annoyance of the white pants (so many layers!) the rest of the figures where quite nice to paint. The weapons and chest buckle are done in gold metallics but for all the lacing I ended up doing it in NMM not that you can really see in the photo. There is a fair difference when just looking at them in reality.

Another ensign and his sergeant mate

 A few of the regular Joes. Nothing too much to report on these guys, they're basically just a rehash of the Grenadier guards but with white pants instead

A shot of the flank companies

All in all I'm pretty happy with these figures. I'd recommend the Wargames Foundry figures for sure, although the flashing is a bit nasty at times. I guess you get the same with the Perry Miniatures too though...

Safe to say I've had enough of Napoleonics for a while, I'm already right into some EIR Roman equites from Wargames Foundry as well. I might try and get a WIP photo up tomorrow once I've made a little more progress.

Thanks for looking and comments/critiques are welcome as always! 

US Paras finished

Sorry about the lack of recent posts but I wanted to show you guys the finished products without a billion WIP posts. All up about 37 figures which for me is definately the most in any one project I've done and I can say that I have had enough of khaki for a little while. 

I've only put up a few hasty photos that I took before heading off to work so not all the figures are here but you get the general idea of how they look. Unfortunately the camera lighting tends to wash out of the pale highlights so they're a little less yellow in reality. 

Without further ado..

I finally got to have a go at creating glass crystal with some stuff I bought from Ammo Mig. Its interesting trying to get the right depth of colour and try to make the reflections work like they should but I think it all worked out. Might try and go just a tad less of the crystal blue colour next time.

A good mix of Artizan, Warlord and Offensive Miniatures figures. The Offensive ones are definately more realistically proportioned and detailed than the others but conversely it makes them a tad harder to paint as well

That's all for now, next up some Coldstream Guards for the Spanish Napoleonic campaign

Warlord Games US Pathfinders

Hey guys back again with a couple more US airborne troops. This time its 4 pathfinders from Warlord Games and I have to say I do like them. I painted the uniforms with some slightly different yellow tones to the previous US airborne just to differentiate them a little more. 

The pictures are a little more yellow than the real things as the light highlights dont show up that well. 

    

Just need to figure out what insignias they had and they will be all ready for basing

I think I managed to pull off the faces reasonably well, a bit of glazing and blending gave some nice face tones. I also went for several light glazes to simulate stubble from the shaved heads.

Let me know what you think with any comments tips etc

24 man British 1st Foot Guards

So its been over a month since my last post and I feel a little slack for not having posted something earlier. I've been waiting on finishing the entire unit to show all at once and I finally managed to get through the last of them yesterday. 

24 Foundry figures painted up as the 1st Foot Guards for circa 1815. They're pretty nice figures that take paint well but have a ton of annoying flash and mould lines in annoying places.

They're all on paddlepop sticks at the moment for ease of painting and are awaiting a few coats of varnish once the humidity drops somewhere below 85%...Queensland summer is a bitch.

I tried my hand at NMM for the gold lace on these to distinguish it from the brass colours of the actual metal. I think it turned out reasonably well but a little more practice is probably in order

I only posted photos of the flank company figures and once centre company figure because really they're just all the same...The green tuft of the light company figure doesn't show that well in the photo but is a tad more green

Whole group shot. The massed paddlepop stick colour is a bit trippy in this photo

Back to work on another 20 or so WW2 US Airborne. That should keep me occupied for at least another month I'd say but after painting Nappys it will seem like a breeze.

Questions, comments, problems and hints are all welcome!

Napoleonic British Grenadier Guards

Here are the figures that I promised to show you guys a while ago. I've had them finished for about 2 weeks now but I forgot to put them up. These are the first Foundry figures that I have painted and I have to say that I quite like them, A few annoying mold lines on the faces was the worst of it but apart from that they really just had standard flash. 

I'm painting up a unit of 24 Grenadier Guards and these are the first 9 out of the blocks. I decided to have a crack at painting all the same figures in one go and whilst its effective in getting them done a little faster it is a bit tedious. Nappys just take so damn long.

I've started on the next 9 (all kneeling figures and identical again...) and the command group will come after that. I still have a 16 man unit of Coldstream Guards to do but they're pretty well identical in paint job anyway. 

It's the first time I haven't painted figures already attached to bases and it threw me for a while as  kept getting my fingers in the way. In the end the old paddlepop stick and PVA glue trick seems to have done the job. 

I have now realised that the flank company's tuft colours need to be changed! I got on a bit of a roll painting the red and white so I'll have to go back and change it up.

The colours for the main uniform parts were all Vallejo.

Jacket: VJ Red base coat, Flat Red over that and highlights in Scarlet

Pants: Dark Grey base, London Grey over the top then Light Sea Grey and Light grey highlights

Shako/Grey areas: Dark Grey, black wash and Dark Grey again

Facings: Dark Prussian blue base (a few coats were needed) and then Tamiya Flat Blue

Questions, comments, tips and critiques all welcome!

Holiday Blitz

It's been a little while since my last post and I don't have any new pictures for you...
Not because I've been lazy (well maybe just a little) but because I've been super busy.

I've been on holidays for about 3 weeks already but I really haven't had too much time for hobby related stuff as I've just come back from overseas. I'm about halfway through the first batch of Grenadier Guards and I hope to finish those off before I go back to work mid next week. I also had to strip a whole bunch of other figures that I'd undercoated in a White Knight grey spray primer. It ended up being really thick on the figures (even though I sprayed from a distance) and ruining the detail...needless to say I was pissed at having to strip them. Oh and I forgot I left a plastic horse in the Dettol for 2 weeks and it was just a blob when I took it out. Oops.

While I was away there were a few tasty sales for Black Friday and on ebay so I managed to snatch up a whole bunch of stuff and came home to about 4-5 packages. 6 Fallschirmjager sprues from Warlord for half price (and 6 Grenadier sprues in the mail) were too tempting to resist. I managed to pickup a sealed box of the metal Lord of the Rings Army of the Dead for a pretty reasonable deal and 11 Knights of Minas Tirith in varying states of repair. A bit of superglue, greenstuff and some inventive basing should see them come up nicely eventually. I hope.

Next post should have about ten of the Grenadier Guards up and running so until then happy modelling!