Showing posts with label Painting table. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Painting table. Show all posts

Monday, 25 April 2011

'Orrible Huns

I've crudely painted the 6 Huns I mentioned in my last post, to match the crudely painted ones I bought on eBay and based a few years ago.  When I flock the new miniatures, I'll taken the opportunity to "tart up" the older bases to my current standard, with additional Silflor and some drybrushing.

The figures are a mix of Chiltern (ex Whitecross) with some Gripping Beast nomads and a single temporally-displaced Curteys Mongol (rear right, a very nice mini).


I already own another dozen painted Hun heavy cavalry, so am starting to accumulate a useful force; at least enough for a wing.  If the Society of Ancients pick Chalons for their game next year, I shall paint a whole lot more.

Friday, 8 April 2011

Very Late Romans

I bought 32 of these boys 4-5 years ago on eBay, and they have finally made it to the front of the queue.  The shields, in particular, are beautifully hand painted (have a click!).  I've painted 16 figures to match (at the back), and later will add spare shields that I had the presence of mind to buy, at the time, from the seller, to round out my first two 24-man Auxilia.  I'm also planning to rebase the 16 minis of the right, which look a little bit too regular (and my basing has improved).


They are all Foundry minis, sculpted by the Perrys.  A lovely range, just a tad on the small side for my tastes.  Some day I might replace them with bigger GB or perhaps the new Muskateer minis.

Thursday, 24 March 2011

Can a man have too many Romans?

This is the first of a number of Middle Imperial Romans units that I intend to paint.  I bought 23 of these, nicely painted, on eBay, and painted one more to match.  I've taken them off their WAB bases , retouched and removed their shields (they had oval shields, which feels wrong with Segmentata).  I've given them Black Tree Scuta, becuase I feel the A&A are a little irregular in size.  I hope to start basing, tonight...
I will be doing a Late Roman army too, lots to do...

Saturday, 26 February 2011

More Ballistic Still

Latest WIP shot; bases are mostly painted, and should be finished tonight.  You can just make out the troublesome slings (still green) on the onagers.

I dreamed again, last night, of an even larger ballista; of which, more anon...

Thursday, 24 February 2011

Even More Ballistic

A quick WIP shot of my siege train.  All the catapults are now strung and primed.  The 15 or so crewmen (not shown) have had their based trimmed off and have been primed (once painted, they will be pinned into the planking on the bases).  I've built up the soil around the bases of the onagers at the back with greenstuff, and will be overcoating with BigRedBatGunk later tonight. 

This all took a surprising amount of time!  The slings on the onagers (can't be seen from this angle) took an hour or so, alone.

The Zvezda ballistae are superb models, my favourites at the moment.  I also love the anachronistic gabions.

Saturday, 19 February 2011

Going Ballistic

So there I was, getting ready to paint the command figures for my legion that I assembled last week, but instead, I've spent a week assembling 6 large ballistae, that I will probably never use in anger.

Front left are 2 beautifully detailed plastic models from Zvezda; to the right two heavy scorpions from BTD, and at the rear 2 whopping great onagers, also from BTD.   Some of the metal models had missing parts which I've replaced with matchsticks and greenstuff.  I've also mounted them all on coffee-stirrer planks, which should work for the field, or in towers.

The onagers are quite possibly later than my EIRs, but what the hell; I've added to the anachronism by placing them behind c17th gabions.  I mean, the Romans could have built gabions, couldn't they?  I'd imagine gabions would provide useful cover agaisnt counter-battery fire.  And they are lovely little resin castings which I have been itching to use.

Looking though my bits boxes, I have at least 12 more small scorpions and 6 small onagers.  I also have an old plastic 54mm Britains catapult that I intend to rebuild into a whopping great 28mm stonethrower.  Clearly I will need to work up some siege rules!

Saturday, 12 February 2011

Conscripted Aventines

I was casting the lead-mountain around for some personality figures for my legion, and I came across some lovely figures from Aventine's Republican range.  Luckily, Roman centurion and the standard-bearer gear didn't change much into the early Imperial era.   I've lightly converted these for what I need, by giving them Foundry standards and green-stuff lion skins, and replaced the centurion's leaf-shaped sword with a pilum.

These are very classy figures which I'm looking forward to painting!

Saturday, 5 February 2011

WIP shot

The last 18 minis are almost finished.  Above, I'm in the process of painting the black-primed shields white, ready to take the LBMS transfers.  I'll put a coat of varnish over the white, tonight, which will help the transfers to adhere.

I've been surprised how much more quickly I can paint the legionaries, relative to the command figures.  It's easy to get a production-line going with them.  They are lovely figures to paint.

I don't suppose anyone has a spare Foundry Praetorian standard bearer I could swap for,  please (for another project)?

Saturday, 29 January 2011

Tirones

The final 18 new recruits (or Tirones) have arrived for the last 2 cohorts of my legion, and are spray primed and ready to go.  I've almost finished the 8 command figures at the front; I estimate it'll take 2-3 weeks to finish the unit.  

I have just remembered why I like to get others to paint my minis for me.  ;-)


Sunday, 23 January 2011

Legionary Cohorts IX & X, WIP

These are roughly half of the legionaries for the final 2 cohorts of my first EIR legion; they are a substantial repaint of an eBay purchase.  Tonight I start on the second, harder half of the job, the 25 legionaries that I need to paint from scratch.  Roughly 3 weeks work, I reckon.  

I just love that LBMS shield design....     

Monday, 17 January 2011

Romans are Red

A quick in-progress shot of the figures that I bought on eBay, and which I amcurrently retouching.  It takes a fair bit of time to tart up two dozen even quite respectably painted figures!  It'll take a lot longer to paint up the other 2 dozen figures from scratch.  Happlily, the original painter, like 90% of all others that paint Romans, went for red tunics. 

In the backgroung are the 3 figures for the command stand of the Praetorian Equites.  Steve Marshall from the WAB forum has kindly sent me some nice Wargames Factory standards (perhaps of dubious archaeological provenance, but very pretty).  If I can find a suitable imago I may stick this on top of the same pole.  Allen Curtis is sending me one, but I want to use that with the next cavalry unit I'm planning...

Sunday, 9 January 2011

Champagne Charlies

These chaps are the rank and file of the cavalry for my Praetorian guard cavalry elements; champagne corks seem an appropriate temporary base for these.  I'll eventually have 2 units of 6, as the cavalry detachments of the two 24-man cohorts I have planned.  I may eventually end up with 3.

I've just taken advantage of a clear and sunny London day to gloss lacquer them.  It'll be a while before the unit gets finished, because the command figures I ordered from Black Tree Designs (in September, grrr) still haven't arrived.  I've chased and ordered some more.

I know, somewhere, I have another 3-4 dozen Black Tree cavalry, but can I find the blighters?  I've been scouring the lead mountain, but so far to no avail...

Tuesday, 28 December 2010

On the Painting Table for Q1 2011

I’ve been planning what to do in the first quarter of the year, up to Salute.   After Salute, I hope to collaborate on a very big project for Salute 2012, which will take up much of my time.

Mini Marian Legion: I bought 30-odd painted minis on eBay, and Nick is going to paint up another 40-50, which will give me the 80 minis I need for another 80-man mini legion of 10 x 8 man cohorts.  This is the representative scale we used for the game with Simon MacDowell, and if I can get 7 or 8 such legions finished (and hopefully get friends like Nick and Dr Simon to muster  a couple more), then I could run a tidy little campaign using Simon’s rules to fight the battles.

Wagon Laager: This was a project that I started in January 2009, and which has been “resting” since then.  I need to finish prepping the 50-odd figures that will “man” the laager and send them off to Nick, who is superb at painting Celts and Germans.   I’ll then paint the wagons and base the minis into them.  I’ve not seen a big wagon laager in 28mm so this will hopefully be fairly unique. 

Indo China: I’m very keen to finish the above weapons company, which will give me a complete Viet Minh battalion, together with another company or two of French, and the rules I’m trying to write.  After this I’ve loads of tanks, trucks, guns and half tracks to do...  I like the 20mm stuff as one can fit a little bit of modelling into the odd spare half-hour.

Odds and Ends: I need to varnish and base the Germans on my painting table, and the EIR cavalry. Frustratingly, I realised last night that I’ve only painted 9 EIR cavalry, and need to paint 3 more command figures.  Still the 9 are coming on nicely.  They are actually really nice minis... some of the BTD stuff is really OK.

So that's me sorted for Q1 2011!  Plenty to do... I wonder whether I’ll be able to stick with my plan? 

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

Snow Stops Play!

I know that living in Britain we are supposed to have a variety of interesting weather types, but recently it has been getting a bit daft; between the short days, cold, snow and rain I've not been able to spray varnish or prime  anything!  Unfinished projects are piling up all around me.  Here are just a few of the things I'm currently not finishing...


Above are my first 2 dozen Ancient Germans (mix of Foundry and Black Tree), beautifully painted for me by Nick Speller.  I am making a few tiny tweaks to them; for example, I've painted nipples on them.  You wouldn't think you'd miss nipps on a 28mm mini, but they really set them off.  I also paint the bases and put a highlight along the sword edges.  Once I get them lacquered, I can think about matt varnishing and basing.


Above are my third company of Viet Minh, awaiting a couple of coats matt spray varnish.  Just off camera behind them are the support company, awaiting spray primer.


Here are the cavalry figures to go with the horses I finished... back in September! 

I've also been assembling 1/72 plastic kits for the Indo China project.  Some of there are terribly time consuming, once you start to slap on stowage and suchlike.   I've not finished any yet, but have at least half-a-dozen on the go.

Finally, yesterday, whilst getting out the Xmas decorations, I stumbled across another long-forgotten box of unpainted Viet Minh and a whole lot of resin terrain, including bunkers; an early Xmas present!. And on that topic, if I don't get to post again before Xmas, I hope you all have a great one!  

Saturday, 4 December 2010

Broken Biscuit Battalion

I mentioned in a previous post how dropped and broke a fair sized army of Viet Minh back in the 1980's.  I've always felt sad about these poor crippled soldiers, and the time has finally come to restore them!  In the below photo, the figures broken off at the ankles have been planted in clumps of greenstuff "grass".   This gives each of them a pretty strong base.  I've mixed in a few new Miniatures brought from the ever efficient Tony at ERM.  When they are all painted, I'll disguise the clumps with Silflor.


Below are the "hard" cases; these broke off at the waist, and some lost their rifles.  I've dug them into slit trenches, and replaced missing weapons with wire.


These will be really convenient when I need to depict dug-in Viet Minh troops, and I'll paint them over the next week.  

Sunday, 28 November 2010

French Indo China WIP

These are the first of my French forces for Indo China; not quite finished, yet.  They represent around half of an understrength battalion; 2 companies each with 2 4-squad platoons, and some heavy weapons.  I'll take a proper photo when they are finished, later this week.


They are more survivors of the miniatures I dropped from a great height around 20 years ago.  By the time they are finished they'll have been larely repainted and rebased; they should look a lot better than they did originally!  Most of the miniatures are Platoon 20, and the armoured car is a 1/76 Matchbox Humber which will be proxying as a Coventry armoured car (as used in Indo China).

Tuesday, 12 October 2010

'Arfur Legion

I mentioned last week that I'd worked out that, with a bit of judicious juggling and outsourced painting, I could knock a legion of 240 recruits together.  My rationale is that the cohorts have been recently raised in a time of crisis.  The armouries have run out of mail, and are issuing shields in whatever colour and condition they have available, and many of the soldiers are in unmilitary whites and other colours.  I rather suspect that a lot of Civil War legions may have looked like this, especially when Pompey "stamped his foot".

I'm making good progress.  Below are the first 5 cohorts, less c 24 figures that are painted (by Nick) and almost ready to add into the gaps on the bases.  I'm freely mixing armoured and unarmoured Foundry minis, with a whole spread of helmet types, and even some Aventines.

Below are the first batch of 48 minis that Nick painted, together with some shields that I've painted them to match shields on some of the recruits I finished last year. 

My plan is to polish off these 5 cohorts over the next 2 weeks, and then complete the second batch of 5 cohorts in a similar manner.

Saturday, 2 October 2010

Cunning Plan I

A few weeks ago Nick Speller sent me back 48 Caesarian Romans I'd posted to him back in the summer; he's done a lovely job on them.  I mix unarmoured and armoured minis, mount them irregularly on 60x30 bases, and use them as poorer quality legionaries, such as the Pompeians raised.   Here are some I prepared earlier.  

I've temporarily mounted these so that I can paint the bases, varnish and add shields.


I was planning to mix these with some figures Nick has painted before, to build 6 24-man cohorts.  However, I found myself going through my other units, and have worked out that if I cannibalise four smaller existing units and ask Nick to paint another 32 figures, I could put together an entire 240-man legion.  So this will need to be done... a package is winging its way to Essex and I've started retouching 16 figures in the background.

Sunday, 30 May 2010

On the painting table

These chaps are another eBay purchase that I've been restoring for a while, they'll form part of my first Egyptian phalanx.  I'm about to order a bunch of Polemarchs to join them.   I've painted their linothorax in a pale grey, and intend to Army-Painter it, then overpaint in white.  The shields and helmets will get a coat of Army Painter, too. 

Yet another eBay purchase that I've substantially repainted, and added LBMS transfers to.  When the chaps at the back are painted, and a command stand added, they will become the VIIIth Cohort of my EIR legion.  At the moment I'm alternating painting EIRs and phalangites.

Saturday, 15 May 2010

Dipping my toe... Part Deux.

I dipped my first unit last week, some Spanish Caetrati, and I've only just managed to varnish them, as below.

I used strongtone dip.  This worked very well, except on the whites which became rather too dingy.  However, I overpainted the whites and was pleased with how they came out, especially as this means I will be able to up my painting rate.  I'll take a better photo when they are all based up.

My painting table is overflowing with minis as I'm currently working on 4 units in parallel; an EIR cohort in the front, 2 units of 10 Spanish, rear left, and 9 successor pikemen, rear right.  This is part of my plan to finish off most of the half painted units I have lying around.