Friday 30 October 2009

Numidian Horse III


I thought people might be interested to read how I paint horses.

Essentially, I paint them with acrylics as described in the previous post, then lighly varnish them to protect the paint.  Over the varnish I paint a mixture of oil paints (brown and Paynes's grey) and Linseed oil.  I then selectively rub this off with the little foam sqaures that come as packing with miniatures; I have plenty of them!  This is similar to the method described in the Foundry Painting and Modelling Guide, except I do more painting of detail up front, and use acrylics rather than enamels.

The oil paint settles into the lower areas of the horses.  It takes a week or so for the linseed to evaporate.



When thoroughly dry, I'll return to the horses to add white socks, on some, and paint in the metal bits.

The observant will note that quite a few of my Numidian horses have bridles; this is because I have rather more riders than horses, and had to steal a bunch of Native American horses.  Bridles and feathers aside, they look great!

Above are the riders, primed red.  The figures are a mix of Foundry, Crusader, A&A, Gripping Beast, a Renegade mahout and a couple of Foundry Greeks.  It is safe to say that I am scraping the bottom of the barrel of suitable miniatures in my lead pile.  The pins on which they are currently impaled, will eventually be cut done to 2mm length, and located in the holes on the backs of the horses; the shields will be added at the very end.

9 comments:

Andrew said...

I saw all those red riders and thought for a second that you had joined me in the world of 1/72 plastic!

BigRedBat said...

Hi Andrew,

I have a friend who has a 1/72nd RCW army; they look very nice, and I can see the appeal.

I don't have any plastics, yet, because my passion is 28mm lead ancients (Saleh, Copplestone and recently Adam from Aventine). I'm sure I will, one day... perhaps I'll try a new period and a new scale next year.

The Lord of Excess said...

Ok ... a couple of newbie questions about historicals. A) What is a good system to break into with say 25 to 28 MM romans? Second question is how do I find some local historicals players? I'm out in Utah and have scoured the internet looking and really haven't found a store which caters to historical players ... are there any really popular historicals boards out there? Anyone from Utah or know some historicals players in Utah??

BigRedBat said...

Mi LoE,

Many choose the Wargames Factory plastics, but I personally don't like the style.

In the US, I gather Crusader minis are made by Old Glory and they do a very good price deal. Crusader are generally rather nice minis, too... they do a nice Republican roman range.

Hank Edley said...

Not sure what BRB will recommend as seems he plays mostly a miniature verison of Command and Colors system. I would recommend WAB. Unfortunately in the US to play consistent ancients you either have to have a strong local group or do a bit of traveling to conventions. I know several gamers in Utah. If your familar with Adepticon we have been holding some events that have been growing over the years..

Hank

BigRedBat said...

Hi Hank! C&C would be one option. It is a boardgame, which means that you can play it out of the box, with the blocks provided; you could train your own group. It is, however, likely to be less common than WAB (although it seems to be growing). Impetus would be a third option.

What you need to do is find some people playing ancients, and use their rules!

Hank Edley said...

What you need to do is find some people playing ancients, and use their rules!

That's the truth..

Thorlongus said...

Hi Simon, unrelated question
which variety of silflor tufts do you use--autumn spring etc. I assume 6mm
steve

BigRedBat said...

Hi, I use a mix of the 4mm and 6mm two-colour Summer/autumn tufts.

It's hard to find them in stock!