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.