Back to the Brushes 227

Steady progress on the first batch of Caesarian Romans from Gripping Beast.

Pilums at the ready, the first troopers have only their shields to finish before varnishing. 

As previously mentioned these have been painted by blocking base colours and then washing with Army Painter Strong Tone wash. The bronze, flesh and tunic have then been highlighted with the base colour to lift key areas of the figures. 

Below, the first command figures prior to the final colours being blocked and the washed. 

The paints used for the are:

Flesh: Foundry Flesh B

Tunic: Foundry Scarlet A

Armour/metal: Citadel Chainmail

Bronze: Vallejo Old Gold

Leather: Foundry Dark Flesh A or Foundry Buff Leather A

Lion head dresses: Foundry Rawhide B

Weapon shafts: Foundry Spearshaft Brown B

Another eight are well on their way to being fully base coated in this style giving the project sone momentum. 

More work in progress to follow shortly. 

Cheers for now.

Back to the Brushes 226

In amongst painting the flesh tones on approximately 60 ancient Greek Hoplites and skirmishers found a spare twenty minutes to block and wash this Caesarian Roman from Gripping Beast.

This is a test figure to see how it goes using this approach to paint a small force for ADLG. Small as there are only so many figures available in the lead pile and thankfully this will remain so as Gripping Beast have no immediate plans to re-release this range in the near future.

A few things need changed and perhaps the use of dark tone on the armour to lift it more but other than that happy with the result.

Once based with his fellow legionnairies, shielded and Little Big Man transfers who will notice the speed painting.

Back to painting flesh tones this evening.

Cheers for now.

Back to the Brushes 225

A quick snapshot of the painting desk as a few items have moved over to finishing line.

More on the finished items shortly.

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 224

Its been a bit slow on the painting front this month with little of anything seeing any paints. There have been a few sessions on the next stands of hoplites for most systems. The figures are from Foundry and are painting well.

We were happier in black. 

Those on the left screen as viewed have been blocked with Tallarn flesh from Games Workshop. On the right of the Tallarn Fleshed figures have been painted with Mediterrean flesh shade and midtones. The highight will follow shortly.

The figures are the start of a generic hoplite army based on 60mm fronts and there are a lot of them to come

Cheers for now.

Alea iacta est

Every now and then you win a game, lose a game and even get a draw. All this good and to be expected with any game board, table or otherwise.

What is not so good is when its all the fault of those bloody dice! So its out with the old and in with the new!

Will getting new dice make a difference: probably not however they look good and you never know what will happen when you roll the dice.

Alea iacta est as Caesar is reputed to have said as he crossed the Rubicon.

Cheers for now.

Back to the Brushes 223

The notion that a clean desk means a productive worker is an artifact of the mid-20th century. ... Mark Twain, for example, chose to leave his desk cluttered whenever he was photographed: Albert Einstein famously pointed out that "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe? 

Which way I willI go?

Perhaps only the fates will know?

Or is all of this just for show?

Drawn in too many directions on the painting table; time for a more focussed approach.

Cheers for now.

Back to the Brushes 222

The great thing about painting figures for a Arab or Moor army is the adaptability of the main troop types. Spearmen, archers, skirmishers and light cavalry are easily inter changeable between different armies.

This is less so with more specialist troop types and looking at the lists for the Granadine armies circa 1450 hand-gunners jumped out of the page as just that one.

After trawling the net to see if suitable figures could be found, as only four will be required. No such luck.

So what to do? Well Gripping Beast produce plastic Arabs and the Perry Twins produce plastic Late Medieval Mercenaries which include hand-gunners. Like many things the answer is simple once found: kit bash.

The results are below and with a bit of milliput here and there these will do the job nicely.

Overall, very pleased with these and and think that they  will fit in well once finished. 

Cheers for now