Young Miniatures WWII Commando SOLD

The first stage is a basic acrylic covering, the colours do not need to be super accurate and this is especially the case with the flesh. In this case I have used Iraqi Sand as per a painting tutorial. Over the grey undercoat and surrounded with so much green he looks a bit Kermit. 

Next up will be adding the oils and blending between the different shades. I have painted up a test on a spare head so have a good understanding of how it will progress.

I was quite happy with how the leather strap on the helmet worked out. Far less with the balaclava though this would look better once varnished.

In the end I switched back to acrylic after painting the skin, helmet and uniform as I was not happy with the colours I used for the webbing and backpack.

Bust is by Young Miniatures, these tend to be very well sculptured and great detail. This in fact is probably one of the lesser detailed models but still has bags of detail.

The plinth is from Model Display Products here in the UK. Quite a simple design so sits in the background. For my WWII larger busts I will keep with these if they look right.

It was the backpack that really broke me. Just could not get the colours I wanted from the oils but in the end happy with the mix of mediums.

Quite happy how the oils worked out on the tunic, it's given some nice texture making the fabric a bit more realistic. Took an age to dry though.

As usual the last bit was the worry. Adding a bit of camo grease to be more like the box art! Still got a long way to go before I get to an acceptable level but I am enjoying the ride.

Old Glory 15mm 19/25th Converged Grenadiers

The last of the Old Glory are painted up as the 19/25th Converged Grenadiers. A few differences in the uniform add a little more fun to painting these guys up.

The figures are sold in a mixed pack of command and marching figures. I would like the option to buy extra command figures for all the infantry packs as their mix leaves me short of musket carrying cannon fodder. As may have been noticed before a handy way round this is to add a mounted figure. In this case making up for the two missing troops. 

Just like the previous post these are great looking figures with good poses and bags of character. The detail on the drummers for instance tick the boxes. 

I have already painted up the 19th Regiment but could paint the 25th which would give me the option of having the grenadiers with their parent battalions though that will probably be unhistorical for these regiments. 

I still have three bases worth of command figures and I suspect these are going to be close to the front of the queue. I have enough to play most games but if I get a larger game in I will need a couple more for sure.

Old Glory Prussian SYW 18th Regiment Prinz von Preuben

I have had these figures since I first started my SYW Prussian army. These (along with some grenadiers) were based up to allow us to play whilst building up a painted force. I just never got round to taking them off their bases and painting them despite their failure to get used after a few months at the start. It always seems weird buying Old Glory from Timecast and Blue Moon from er well Old Glory. I am sure their is an explanation and hopefully it will be added below in the comments section. The flag is from Cadogan Hobbies on Ebay. They do all nations but sometimes they are not listed and you need to get in touch.

The army is based on the Prussian invasion of Saxony something of a walk over given the size of the Saxon army. However it gave me something to build an army round. It fights against Lee's Russian's and Austrian's and Joseph's growing French. 

Old Glory are very nice figures, do tend to need a bit of a clean up but the mixed poses and quality of detail make them both a joy and a task to paint but once finished you can be really happy with how they look. These are one of the two last units I managed to paint before going back to work. I still have five battalions of Lancashire Games figures to paint up as well as a Dragoon regiment and a few more guns. Then the question is get more to build it up further or go after another nation? Of course I can just stick with adding to Joseph's French and not bother going further until I might actually need them?

Rather pleased with how the drummer came out with these. The three colour pompom's were fun too!! At least this was the last army I actually played with. I just need to get all my units out and check what forces I actually have!

Last of the Dungeon Saga Ghouls

I missed the last two ghouls and have managed to delete the images so they will be shown with the rest once I have painted them all up. So here is the dwarf ghouls. Probably the most detailed of them so a little more interest in painting them.

I went with muted colours as lets face it they have probably been dead awhile. They certainly have been sitting in the box a few years without much thought of getting round to painting them that's for sure.

This will just leave me a pair of ghost like chaps to do. Indeed they are up and ready to be started as I have just about finished the two SYW battalions on my desk. This is also where a slower production kicks in as I went back to work today. Shorter days (hurrah) but six days instead of five a week (boo) and worst still lone working for the next couple of weeks. 

Still I will still get more time to paint than I have in recent years and I actually have more fire to do so. All this said, unless things settle down soon we will be back to the start and the second wave will smash us all the way back to the start.

FeR Miniatures Red Army Junior Lieutenant Barbarossa, 1941 SOLD

I had a couple of these beautiful mini busts from FeR Miniatures for my birthday. This one is much the easier one of the two to paint so I went for this one first. As you can see it's not complex with not a great many things to paint. Both my 1/16 mini busts are single piece castings and looking at the others available I suspect all of them are. All paints used are Vallejo Model Color .

Started with the eyes then flesh from there. The look on the face is despair, most Junior offices would be staring death in the face in the first months of the German invasion. Either from the wasteful attacks or for their failing to attain impossible missions. As such I went with a pale skin tone, this also seems to be backed up by accounts I have read. 

I was going to leave it at that as I had no confidence and little idea on how to do the hair effect. It would end up being almost the last stage I finished so was really worried I would mess it up.

The uniform and hat base colour was Vallejo 70879 Green Brown but I added different yellows to the base colour to give slightly different start colours and then added more of each yellow for each new layer. The tunic received about eight stages whilst the hat received about half as many.

The base normally gets added at the end but in this case it was added pre priming so no risk of damaging the finished piece! Yes I own that T-Shirt.

Lesson for the future will be to sand down the resin base as it's a bit bumpy. Too late for the British Para as he is already attached to his base. Piano wire instead of the usual thicker wood or brass rod that I use for the bigger Busts.

Really happy with how the buzz cut hair came off. I mixed 70.841 Andrea Blue and 70.815 Basic Skintone very very thin so more a glaze. Probably a lot thinner than someone with more confidence as I had to add several washes of this over before I was happy with the look. Then sealed with further washes of watered down Skintone. This was suggested to me by someone on the Facebook Bust@ group. Anyone wanting to get into bust painting should join here as it's a great group and in the six months or so I have been a member it's all been very positive. Some of the work is jaw dropping, so much better than I can hope to get.

Another view of the hair. One thing I think I am learning from this one is to actually work with a far thinner consistency paint and layer it up rather than go for more colour changes. This should give a smoother finish. That being said the images you see are blown up way above actual size.

The other big jump for me was working on leather. Having watched a few tutorials I had a bash. I was surprised in just how many other colours you use away from the final colour planned. I started with 70.871 Leather Brown but then dabs of various red browns along the edges and folds straight out of the bottle. Then a watered down 70.877 Goldbrown for around the belt holes and more on the edges and places it would rub. A thin wash of 70.836 London Grey followed by a few washes of other darker browns and finally a mix of very thin wash of Goldbrown and touched up thicker wash of the Goldbrown. The Lieutenant pips, backing of the star both 70.801 Brass and buttons and belt buckle the brass mixed with a bit of black to dull off the shine and make look different to the polished brass.

The only question is do I keep him or sell him on to pay for more hobby stuff. As you can see he is not at all large. In fact when I got him I was a fair bit disappointed as for the price of two of these you can get a larger bust. However they have grown on me but for now I will be working on a couple of the larger ones I have in hand.

Project FINISHED, well for now

I now have everything painted I needed for our display game we was going to be running at Joy of Six a couple of years ago. Given we had to cancel our game the final painting had been set aside but I finally just got on with it. I am not sure if Lee is in the same position, if he is then maybe we could be running it at next years Joy of Six if Pete has space.

I needed four more units of Greek type Peltasts and a fairly basic paint job as it's the mass effect I have been going for with these armies. These can also be used with my Persian army that is FAR from finished.

I also needed the correct elephant units so here is my Seleucid models. These are more imposing than the ones that would be in a normal Macedonian army, it's all in the towers you know.

 I also needed two more Scythed Chariots for this army. This gives me six so maybe one will get something done? All models are Baccus as all my Ancients are. Not much clean up required and easy to paint. Always a plus when you have had as many as I have had to paint.

I would like to say this is the whole army but I have another about twenty units on top of those set out there. If I was to use this as the basis of my Persian army then I probably need to spend another £500 plus in castings to do it justice. I don't have plans to do so at this point but if we do the display game we have planned and Lee gets to spend the day "chatting" about it I can't promise I would not be going home with a few army packs worth to get it started.

Dungeon Saga More Ghouls

I have been keeping to the idea of slipping in a couple of Dungeon Saga figures in between sets of other figures. OK it's only been going for a few posts but it's still counts right?

As has been mentioned before the detail is a bit soft and as they are playing pieces for a board game I am not too fussed about the results though I am not unhappy with the finish I just did not put a lot of effort in.

This gives me four of the eight standard sized ghouls the last four are more detailed being a pair each of knights and dwarfs but again I doubt they will be long on the table. I did these in a short afternoon.

In the background you can see the next lot awaiting primer having been cleaned up and in some cases built. Next post should see my army for Lee and my display game complete. Not bad given we should have ran it a couple of years ago.

Gripping Beast Levy Archer unit for Saga

Had a few days of reasonable paint time this week so managed another unit. This time 1 point of SAGA levies. That's twelve figures though in fact two guys don't have bows.

Fairly basic paint job, base colour, ink wash and picking out of the main colour to look a bit more polished than a block and wash job.

I already have one point of levy archers so these are going to head over to Ebay. I originally got the castings off a friend who I was painting up other figures for. That means I have had these guys for about seven years! 

Under prep at the moment I have a bunch of 6mm and once those and the next lot of 15mm are done I should finally breach the 3000 unpainted figure mark. 

Ghoul Friends for Dungeon Saga

I started painting through the monsters of Dungeon Saga about a year or so ago but got distracted. I now have cleaned up and ready to paint all the ghoul figures and will do them in batches of two matching figures.

Typical of this set the detail is a bit soft but not too bad. Given they are just for this game I did not want to spend too long on them. After all they tend not to stick around on the table for too long before they get killed and removed. That said I did not want them to look sloppy either. The flesh had a basic flesh coating and then highlighted to add a pale tone then washed in Nulin Oil. I also washed them in skin tone ink going over heavily where damage showed to look that bit more gruesome. 

Two others are fairly basic but the last four will be a bit more tricky. Then it's two ghost types and then onto the larger models that are MUCH bigger. In the background is the next group. A point of Saga bowmen levy so plenty to get stuck into.

Prussian SYW Artillery Old Glory

I add to my Prussian 15mm SYW army with these Old Glory guns that are supplied by Timecast and not the Blue Moon which are supplied by er Old Glory. Whilst I am not really up against it for artillery with my current infantry levels I do have enough figures for another division.

 Lee and myself show number of figures on a base to determine what type of gun is being used. Battalion guns have just two figures so as you can see here two of these are battalion guns. This will give me more flexibility with the current force I already have in play.

One gun has three crew showing it as a standard gun whilst four would depict a medium gun. As you would expect from Old Glory the castings are high on detail but do need a reasonable clean up. Not too bad with small numbers but the idea of cleaning up a few battalions is a bit off putting. Maybe that's why the infantry are still waiting.

I've not had a game against Lee in a few years and despite painting up a reasonable force of French for Joseph we have not got a game in in ages either. His force is coming along and will be the next up for painting in the SYW as I still have three battalions of infantry already prepped and ready to go.

The three figure gun in fact is a Howitzer though I don't think Black Powder makes different use of them it's more to have something a little different on the table.

I am getting through a reasonable amount of painting now I am getting back into the swing. Some of the things in the queue though are a bit more time consuming but I also have a number of quick paints to allow something to be coming off the desk every few days or so.

Cowboys - First in a Long Time

I think I got these guys with others from Dave D so many years ago. I still have a few foundry mounted and dismounted ones to do yet. Possibly get these done further through the lockdown.

I went for neutral colours for the most part. These will just be add in's to any of the sides that I have painted up but the one in pink is more of a general type whilst the other seems to me to be more lawman.

These were a nice quick paint, I had been suffering a bad headache and at such times I can't read and don't tend to watch TV anyway so painting is one of the few activities that does not seem to aggravate it, as long as I stick to the larger scales.

Three Baccus British Heavy Cavalry Regiments

I managed to paint these three in a day and base them the following day. Seem to have some of my old speed back. These are for my son's Peninsular army. Whilst they were there they actually did not really get involved in much fighting and when they did it was hard for them to actually get anyone to stand against them as the French cavalry by this point were in a poor state through lack of suitable remounts etc.

Front left we have 1st Life Guards and alongside the 3rd Dragoon Guards and at the back Royal Horse Guards, or The Blues as they were known.

Typical set up, nine figures in a unperfect line to suggest the start of a charge. 60x30mm bases with the sand and masonry paint mix dry brushed to give more colours and static grass and tufts applied. I really spoil that boy ;-)

Rear views, I really like Baccus as you can paint or ignore detail dependent on your style and it does not take that much effort to put together a fairly reasonable looking unit.

I still have plenty of figures left of Joseph's to add to his force. More infantry, light dragoons but need to get some horse artillery at some point.

These were prepped for the Analogue Painting Challenge I dropped out of not last year but the previous one so were well over due. I have manged to prep a bunch so I may have a reasonable run and quite a mix of projects.

Baccus French Napoleonic Infantry

It's been quite awhile since I last painted any French infantry so it was nice to sit down and do them. I thought I had quite a few standard battalions left to do but turned out I only had four left to do so added the last two in bicorn as well.

I bought one small blister pack of French Bicorn when Baccus released the new codes. One battalion was painted up straight away and I did a second one as Paris Guard in red uniform. These will most likely be the last bicorn wearing French infantry I will do as my army is all shako wearing.

I painted up three of the battalions as line as you can never have enough. Lee also has a large number but if we ever get round to doing one of the bigger battles battalion for battalion I am confident we will still need to paint up a bunch more.

The other battalion of course is light infantry, I don't even know how many of each I own anymore, never mind the cavalry so I will have to get them all out and have a count up.

Whilst I am now out of standard French infantry from Baccus I still have a fair few battalions in greatcoats and Grenadiers both with and without greatcoats. I also have extra skirmisher figures that will be added to smaller bases for games where skirmishers had a bigger role than we allow in our rules.

On top of the Baccus I still have most of a Adler army pack I bought via Dave D all those years ago. Still my unpainted figure count still is over 3,000 though breaching this number is within site. This of course does not include the figures Joseph has that I have yet to paint for him as well. I am purposely not adding them up!!

Talking of "The Boy" we have managed three games of Command & Colors Napoleonic during the lockdown and will be getting another one in soon. This will be the last one from the base module so looking forward to playing more from the other add on's.