Army Painter - Fireforge Mounted Sergeants

So as my last entry for Curt's contest on Tuesday, I thought I'd see just how good a job i could do going all out on the Army Painter way. You may have already seen this on Curt's blog - if not, enjoy!

Takeways from this:

• the fact that AP now do paints that are 100% matches for their sprays makes the 'spray on the sprue' trick a major win
• being able to use two different shades of ink (rather than dip) made this look much better
• I still can't paint for toffee, but Army Painter lets me bluff well :D

4:30pm: start assembling the horses from a box of Fireforge mounted Sergeants (I already used three as command in my El Cid army, so there were 9 left)
5.05pm: Horse done. Blutak to painting stick, spray undercoat in AP Matt Black, leave to dry.
5.10pm: assemble first four riders
5.30 pm: pause to consider cloaks, realise I've put the heads on too soon. Swear, remove heads before glue sets. Stop assembling riders. Remove rest of bits of riders *except* cloaks from sprue. Spray cloaks AP Dragon Red *on the sprue*.
5.40 pm: Dad's Taxi Service to take son to tennis
6.10 pm: return from dropping James at tennis, assemble rest of riders sans heads
6.30 pm: blutac to painting stick, spray undercoat AP Daemonic Yellow - two coats about 2 mins apart.
6.40 pm: find spare kite shields without arms from left over Conquest Games Normans, satisfy myself I have nine between these and the non-heater shields in the Fireforge box. Spray backs AP Leather Brown, leave to dry while finding wife's pin box, spray fronts of shield AP Daemonic Yellow, again on the sprue.
6.50 pm: Paint shield designs with AP Dragon Red
7.05 pm: try sticking pins in heads. Discover they won't go in. Heat pin on gas ring, NOW they do. Arrange line of heads on pins on painting stick. Feel like a very angry Sheriff of Nottingham making an example of some miscreants. Wish I'd photographed it.
7.15 pm: Discover I'm out of AP Plate Mail spray. Swear. Spray heads with AP Human Flesh instead (and the can ONLY just lasts).
7.20 pm: brief moment of panic as I can't find glasses to drive to fetch James. Find them upstairs by dressmaking box. Pass wife (on way back from work) on garden path on way out to be Dad's Taxi again, whistle innocently (what me? steal pins?)
7.50pm: Return with son. Greet wife properly. Hide evidence. Supper.
8.20pm: Start painting horses. Three black, four bays of various shades (mixes of AP Oak Brown and GW Dark Flesh), one chestnut (GW Dark Flesh/AP Monster Brown mix, Vallejo Khaki mane and tail), one grey (AP Ash Grey using an AP stippling brush). A couple get white markings with AP Matt White and a touch of Vallejo Khaki on white-socked hooves)
8.50 pm: Start on horse blankets (AP Dragon Red, saddles/tack (Vallejo Red Leather - I pick this because I *never* use it as a horse colour, so my tack always stands out).
9.10 pm: brief pause to say goodnight to son.
9.30 pm: finish horse tack. Glue riders in saddles, start painting mail, axe head, swords, spearpoints on riders, mail coifs/helmets (AP Plate Mail). Re-glue the riders that don't stick first time.
9:55pm: start on spear hafts, axe handle, standard (Vallejo US Field Drab)
10.15pm: Start assembling cloaks/heads/shields. Retouch cloaks where needed with AP Dragon Red
10.30pm: Start basing: Tamiya Desert Sand textured paint and straight into a tub of Javis Desert Sand mix, knock excess off on sides of tub.
10.45pm: realise I forgot to do stirrup leathers and sword scabbards: Out with the Vallejo Red Leather again, being careful how I handle the bases!
10.55pm: Deep breath. Ink washes. AP Strong Tone first, on the mail, claks, standards and shields (just to back off the brightness of the yellow a bit). Then AP Soft Tone on the yellow surcoat.
11.15pm: mix 50/50 AP Matt White/AP Barbarian Flesh, try and retouch highlights on faces a bit.
11:20pm: AP Dark Tone ink wash on horses (except for the grey which gets AP Strong Tone.
11:27pm: poke head outside back door, realise it's close to zero outside. Decide varnishing is probably a bad idea :D
11:30pm: photograph, upload, start typing ... :D

So, that's nine figures to passable wargaming standard in 5 1/2 hours (ignoring two trips to the tennis club and a break for food). Setting aside the time for assembling (about 90 mins) that's four hours of painting, actually made easier by the fact they were plastic figures.

Those Parthians

I should, I think, share the end results of my painting marathon with those of you who don't subscribe to Curt's blog. Once I'd got these assembled, they basically took me a Sunday plus a week of evenings, and I was quite pleased not to be varnishing at 6 am on the day of the tournament.

As I'm sure I've said before, I am not the world's best painter: if it wasn't for Army Painter, I'd be too embarrassed to show my handiwork. :D


First up, we have 23 cataphracts, being a mix of Old Glory Parthians and Palmyrans, with some A&A Miniatures Palmyran command figures. (Old Glory UK didn't have enough of the Parthians, and they basically said 'will the Palmyrans do, they're very similar'. Since they're going to double as Palmyrans before I'm done, I didn't have a problem!). Horses were undercoated in Army Painter Matt Black, and dry-brushed with Army Painter Plate Mail (or, for the unit leaders, Weapon Bronze). Riders, to provide a slight contrast, were undercoated in Plate Mail spray, faces, hands (AP Tanned Flesh), metal kontos (Vallejo US Field Drab), leather work (Vallejo Red Leather) etc painted, and then washed with AP Strong Tone ink and the faces retouched with AP Human Flesh (a lighter shade).

For an encore, 72 (yes, really) horse archers, being 6 complete boxes of Wargames Factory Persian cavalry, which turn out to fit almost perfectly in a Really Useful 7L box.

Horses were undercoated in AP Matt Black, then given assorted shades of brown (AP Oak, Monster, Fur Browns, Vallejo Flat Earth). I went with the 'mostly bay or black' approach for what's probably a set of fairly inbred mounts, though there are half a dozen pale enough to be duns or roans. Saddle blankets in Vallejo Khaki, and one of AP Red, Ultramarine Blue or Angel Green detailing, and then harness in Vallejo Red Leather. To be honest, I rushed these, and there'd have been more coat variation if I'd had more time.

The riders were undercoated in batches of twelve in AP Daemonic Yellow, Desert Yellow, Bleached Bone, Uniform Green, Ultramarine Blue and Necrotic Flesh. After that, I snapped them on the mounts (they're a tight enough fit not to need glue, actually!), did faces/hands (AP Tanned Flesh), headgear (AP White, which covers *superbly* well), leggings (AP Leather Brown) and leatherwork (Vallejo Red Leather), and bows (Vallejo US Field Drab). Final stage was a wash of AP Soft Tone ink which dragged back and evened out the overall 'look' of the different colours, which was remarkably effective, if you contrast these pictures with the shot of the un-inked and basically just undercoated ones from the previous Monday.

Basing was Tamiya textured 'Desert Sand' and then dipped straight into Javis Desert Sand mix: left to dry, a few dabs of PVA and a sprinkle of AP Winter static grass. Varnished with AP Anti-Shine.

And there you go.

Painting Challenge - more US Infantry

I thought I was done with these for the previous post, but it appears that I'd missed some essentials for Blenneville or Bust that needed painting up from the various boxes... namely:

• 3 mortar teams (still need another 3 from somewhere)
• 4 M1919 .30 cal MMG teams
• 4 M1917A1 .30 cal MMG teams
• 2 FOOs
• 3 snipers
• several command bases

I probably still have some recon troops to do, as well, and that's certainly enough to run the second scenario from the IABSM rulebook.

Painting Challenge - US Infantry

Here's my next entry for Curt's painting challenge - a platoon (plus some extras) of 15mm US Infantry. The figures are actually Battlefront, but using my IABSM basing scheme, which boils down to 4 men to a base (or 2 to a half base for the BAR guy + assistant) for sections, 1p or 2p pieces for Big Men (the theory, at least, is that the number of figures indicate the level) and snipers (on 1p pieces, just 'cause single figures look naff on square bases).

A dab of white paint, a
paintliner pen and a steady
hand :D

I'm also labelling the back of each base with an ID number - for squads its 'platoon/section', for anything else it's just a sequence number.

Painting's my usual - Army Painter black, Vallejo/Army Painter acrylics + ink wash (I'm not dipping these!), and the usual Tamiya+Javis basing routine

That's the company plus four
bazooka teams, and 7 Big Men

That's the main body of the company finished - usefully FoW bases fit two at a time into Really Useful Box 4L hobby tray sections!

Still to go (and I just finished assembling them), 4 .30 cal teams, 3 mortars, a couple of FOOs (also on 1p pieces), three snipers and two more Level 3 Big Men.

Painting Challenge - Saxons

I finished up a bunch of Musketeer Miniatures Saxon archers, plus a stray Duguth I somehow managed to miss earlier in the year and an extra figure, just before Christmas for the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge.

These are to replace my missile troops in Dux Britanniarum (the current ones being Wargames Factory plastics). The extra figure is, as far as I can recall, a 1980's Citadel female ranger, which I unearthed in a massive tin of assorted painted and unpainted Citadel and Ral Partha figures - and there are no prizes for guessing who she's meant to be. The original paint job wasn't wonderful, even by my standards (if you look closely in last week's Dux Brit AAR, you can see she's wearing blue gloves!), so I re-undercoated her and started again.

The science bit? Army Painter matt black undercoat, Army Painter Warpaints and a couple of Vallejo colours, then a light wash of Army Painter strong tone ink, and some light highlights on the faces and hair after the wash. Varnish is the usual Army Painter, bases are Tamiya dark earth diorama paint and Javis static grass.

The 42nd Ronin

That'll be me, having slipped in at the last minute to Curt's 3rd Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Due to my insane last couple of weeks at work, I'd not had time to catch up on my blog reading, and signed up too late, but by a fortunate twist of fate, someone had dropped out,

So... here we are! (And thanks, Curt!)

I've, perhaps rashly, bid for 1000 pts, which is a LOT of 15mm figures: my main two projects this year are going to be lots of WW2 stuff for IABSM/Blenneville or Bust, and two Napoleon at War armies (French and British). On top of that, if I get time, I'm aiming to tidy up some of my Dux Britanniarum forces in 28mm, and maybe paint some 28mm Greeks.

Oh, and a Samurai :D

Work in progress...

...and hopefully going to be done in time for the WAB GT tomorrow.

110 Brigantes Warband - oh, and a couple of chariots! At the point of the photo they were dipped and had been drying for 18 hours. As I type they\re almost done basing. Finished pictures to follow.

28mm German Panzergrenadiers

Finally!

Finished these a while back for the Analogue Hobbies painting contest, but there was a minor domestic over the whereabouts of my camera charger ("You said you'd looked there!" "I had." "So what's THIS?" "Erm, that's not where you asked if I'd looked." "Yes it is." "Isn't."...) which meant these took a while to get photographed.

But, anyway - herewith a squad of 11 Warlord 28mm plastic Wehrmacht Panzergrenadiers, based for Operation: Squad (well, based for pretty much anything, actually, since Op: Squad isn't that fussy - most of them are Renedra round 25mm bases, one is a UK 2p coin, which is almost dead on the right size and cheaper!). Army Painter Uniform Grey spray primer, Tamiya Field Grey uniforms, Army Painter Strong Tone dip - which latter seems to have worked very well on the uniforms. Basing is my usual (Tamiya Dark Earth Diorama paint, Javis moorland scatter and spring static grass, some GF9 medium basing grit), and then an overall coat of Army Painter Anti-Shine (JUST before it rained!).

Taken with a Canon EOS 300D and a Tamron 25-70 f2.8 zoom on a tripod, adjusted in iPhoto.