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!

Paras version 2.0

Just a quickie post of what I've been up to since my last post. The next ten paras are done, these are all warlord figures which I tend to like but I find they always have a lot of variation in the face casting. Some are awesome and others just look a tad strange. A lot of it you can paint out if you're careful but it's a bit of a pain.

 I'll be covering the base of the .30 cal team with plenty of static grass/bushes when I do them all at the end so it'll look like they're hiding in the grass

60mm mortar team. These guys are great sculpts. Couldn't fault them

The next 4 are the Thompson gunners. Again in reality the uniforms are a little more sandy in colour and a tad less ochre. These guys have heaps more kit on them compared to the Artizan/Offensive figures that I did previously. I think I prefer it as it makes them look more like they're all geared up for action but it sure takes longer to get it all looking right.

It took me ages to figure out what the big yellow patch on the guy's shoulder was. Turns out it is a gas detection brassard that some of them wore. I was reading in the Ospreys that most of them ended up wearing it on their left shoulder in the end as it got in the way of aiming but Warlord seem to have left it on the right hand side

I'm going to take a break from these for the moment and paint up some British Coldstream Guards for something a little different. Plenty to do in the pipeline but I will get straight back into the other 17 airborne figures once I've gotten over my Para painting block!

Thanks for looking as always

First Ten US Paras

I finished these a few days ago but hadn't found the time to take photos of them. The photo's ended up being a quick and nasty job anyway to be honest. I still can't quite seem to get the lighting right to show them off and the photo's don't really do them justice. I think it might be the light cream colour on the highlights that gets washed out in the light

A couple of Artizan figs, I decided to do the pants on these ones a little different just to mix it up

A couple of carbine wielding fellas. They look a bit more yellow in the photos than in reality

Final group shot of the finished ones to date. The next ten are already on the desk

Questions, comments and suggestions are welcome!

US Paras test figure

I'v been working on a bunch of these as much as I can lately, I've got 37 to do and having never painted that many of one type of figure before it's a little daunting. I've decided to do them in batches of ten to try and get them done a little faster as I also have a whole bunch of Napoleonic British Guard infantry to do but given my snails pace painting style it might take longer than I think.

This is an Offensive Miniatures figure and I'm painting a whole mix of those and Artizan/Warlord Games paras. The Offensive ones are more anatomically correct with longer legs and the faces are nowhere near as caricatured as the others. Overall I think they're the best sculpts out of the lot for accuracy, just the guns tend to lack a little of the detail. I prefer the slightly chunkier ones of the Warlord/Artizan figures as they're easier to paint.

The decals are from the Warlord store and are about $4 AUD, well worth it to tie the figure together and I was never going to be bothered trying to hand paint the unit insignia.

I'm pretty happy with how this fellah has turned out, I haven't quite got the hang of the photography yet and it looks a bit more mustard coloured in reality. I'll post up the next 9 I'm working on over the next week or so 

Thanks for looking as always!