Naughty Vikings 28mm Foundry

Almost to the end of the Challenge posts, which is handy as I am in the middle of basing up the last of my Romans. So today we have the naked berserker's from Foundry.

I would have liked more poses, though these all look fairly different I have another eight that will cause some repeats. The main issue is that you can't exactly paint the clothes different colours to mask the similar figures LOL.

You would think these would paint up faster than the clothed guys but actually took longer as I had to add more depth to the skin, not able to get away with a wash and touch up.

Time will tell if I can break my son's shieldwall with these guys or will they be beaten back with more than their ego's bruised.

I will leave you with a image of the last 28mm submission to the challenge, I still have a heap of Vikings and such to do and will be adding some to the queue once I have cleared some space. Tomorrow will see a new building in the works from Leven and tonight for me, it's time for the next Napoleonic buildings.

More Black Tree Vikings

One of my start of year goals was to create a further four points of Vikings for my Viking Warband. These twelve figures supply the last three points though two of the figures have been given to my son for his own Viking army (his second army after the Anglo Danes) so I need to paint up a couple of replacements.

These are a further twelve Black Tree Miniatures figures and overall they are just as good as the previous figures I have added to my collection but the two I am giving away really don't fit for me. One of them is the figure above in red. Nothing wrong with the figure I just don't like him.

Some of the weapon poses though are questionable such as the guy on the right with the axe turned around. The one in red is at ease with a flagon of ale in one hand and his axe at rest in the other. Shame then that I want the figure for a dynamic skirmish game where there is no time for a tea break. In fairness I can use him and others in other games but it's another figure that will be swapped out of my Saga army when I get more painted up. Meanwhile he will do fine.

I am doing a few painting jobs for a mate and part of the payment is a load of Stick on shield transfers from Little Big Man, having recently read a horror story about putting them on I was a bit worried but they turned out reasonably easy to attach and I like the results. As such I will be mixing in the rest of the transfers with hand painted ones.

This batch are a mix of axe and sword and gives me one warrior unit, one hearth guard and one point of Berserkers. I will actually be replacing the berserk figures with some nude fanatics that I was given by Gary. These will be painted up soon as my son also has some and wants to see how Dad does it.

So both me and the boy have amassed a reasonable force and need to give it a go again, timing is not bad either as I have taken this week off work as the kids are on holiday so maybe a game of Saga followed by cowboys will be on the menu in the next couple of days.

Black Tree Viking's for Saga (1 Point)

One of the plans for early 2015 is to build up my Saga Vikings for fighting against my Son and Lee when he gets his troops painted (hint hint). As such I had programmed a fair few into my Analogue Challenge prep work,, indeed I still have another sixteen figures ready to be painted in the coming two months. All figures are the very nice Black Tree Miniatures. 

Leader of this points worth of warriors is this guy. I wanted him to look suitably commanding so wanted to do my best on his shield so painted up this two headed dragon that came out a lot better than I expected as free hand is not exactly my strong suit.

The strange pose of this figure with the arm held close to the body had me stumped for a short while and then I thought why not have him wounded and quickly came up with the idea f a discarded shield, blooded tunic and blood running down his hand. Again it came out much as I had planned which is not the normal run of things here.

I used basic block painting with a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade followed by highlighting with the original colour. It's been suggested on the Challenge post that I should add a further colour to the highlight to lift it further so will try that with the next lot.

I painted a mix of hair colours, most dirty blond but a few with brown hair as well. I again went for the brighter colours and all but the first two have a more basic colour trim to their tunics as I figure lesser warriors would have less money to spend on fashion.

I also wanted to have a mix of more basic shield designs with some more complex. The slingers just had the basic designs befitting there lower warrior status (levies) whilst these would have to earn their crust in the shield wall, well the back rows but still.

The guy in the centre really reminds me of someone I worked with in the past, something I rather like. The poses are a little strange in a few cases whilst others are really good but the overall look of individuals rather than same pose different head is well worth the odd pose.

The yellow came through much better with the adding of the highlights and turned a problematic colour into a nice solid finish, glad I put in the extra effort, not that it was THAT much more effort.

Love the back of the shields that allow the wood grain to show with just a black base and light drybrush. Also the extra detail such as the knife held by two straps really help make the finished figure more interesting.

Lastly a very nice long house that Loki gave my son for Christmas (along with much more), really helped to make my sons day so thanks mate, I only borrowed it for the pics.

Progress With Saga

As often happens, you get a game in and suddenly your all fired up for more painting for a particular period. Well with my son working hard on his Anglo Danes post game it only seemed right that I would try and match his output.

First I needed to finish off the 12 figure levy unit so added these four slingers to go with my 8 bow troops. These are yet more Black Tree Miniatures and I really enjoyed working on them.

Plenty of detail to work with and poses that worked. I have managed to get a brighter finish to these than the bow troops but I have decided I am going to buy more paints in the near future after taking a close look at Kev's work. He uses a richer pallet than I do and whilst I know brighter paint wont bridge the skills gap it will give me some punch for a few planned models of 2015.

This gent is from the Gripping Beast Plastic Viking Hirdmen boxed set. Cleaned up quickly and went together well. I still have a load of figures from that boxed set and I guess more will be made from it in the future I doubt I will use them all. Maybe my son will get them done?

The shield transfer is from Little Big Man and made for the boxed set. This one tore a little but other than that went OK.

Still Gripping Beast but this time a metal warlord and came in three parts. The arm with the sword the spear and the rest allowing a few options on the exact pose. As he is my warlord he has been put on a large base. I also went bright as he is too stand out on the table well he will do that!

As he is the boss I spent extra time on shading rather than using ink and the quality sculpting certainly made it easy to get a result I was happy with.

I have about 24 more Vikings all prepped and ready for painting and these will find their way onto the table in the next couple of months, probably sooner than later. Also expect another game or two in the coming weeks, well I have to keep the boy happy don't I?  :-)