Hannibal antes Portas 4

This is an entirely new scale for me;  2mm something that at one stage I wouldn't have even entertained painting. Well painting isn't entirely the correct phrase, its more like dabbing with colour.

The miniatures are from Irregular Miniatures and were an idea my friend and fellow gamer. His idea was that I paint a Carthaginian and Republican Roman army and pick one, he would supply the figures. 

There are six stands of figures here, four skirmishers and two cavalry, with the furthest away cavalry being started the week before the Challenge so they are not included. All are based on 60mm front and the depths will vary as below: 

Skirmishers: 60 x 15mm

Medium and Heavy Infantry: 60 x 30mm

Cavalry: 60 x 30mm

Elephants: 60 x 40mm

Above the cavalry from the rear and then below from the front. 

These were entered into the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge as a Front Desk and New Acquisitions entry (902.2)

Looking forward to posting more work in progress pics and finished entries soon. 

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 181

Day 19 and moved back to Ancients for a brief change of interest.

The Foundry slinger below is from the first range of Greeks cast by Foundry. Different in both scale and sculpting style than the later World of Greeks range.

Back to the dark ages for the next few posts.

Day 19

Figures completed 42

Back to the Brushes 176

Slow progress over the last two days in the #30days30miniatures painting challenge.

Day 10 was spent basing the figures completed in the previous days of the challenge. These will appear in the near future.

Day 11 and the first of two Greek slingers from Foundry's original range of Greeks was completed.

The second will follow shortly along with an old Citadel figure from the AD&D range.

Day 11

Figures completed 24

Back to the Brushes 174

Into week two now of the #30days30miniatures challenge and the last peltast is completed and ready to be based.

Will be continuing the Greek theme in both 6mm and 28mm over the next few posts.

Day 8

Figures completed 17

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 173

Continued progress with the #30days30miniatures painting challenge.

The second peltast is now complete and ready for basing. The figure is from Foundry's World of Greeks range and will see use in Basic Impetus and another systems in the future.

This evening will see the third figure completed and the stand ready to be textured and flocked.

Day 7

Figures completed 17

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 172

Update on the #30days30miniatures challenge.

Day 4 
Completed another stand of 6mm Greek light cavalry.

Day 5
The first of two casualty markers for the 15mm Confederate cavalry.

Day 6
Returned to a larger scale for day 6 and completed the first of three peltasts for the second stand of these.

Day 6

Figures completed 16

Cheers for now.

Back to the Brushes 171

Day three of the #30days30miniatures painting challenge and another completed figure. This time another out of ammo marker.

Some more progress on 6mm light Greek cavalry and Arab horses.

More to follow shortly.

Day 3

Figures completed 9

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 168

So near yet so far.

This stand of peltasts stalled the other afternoon due to a rare occurrence - it was too hot to paint comfortably. Yes, it's hard to believe but it would seem that there is a summer in Scotland after all.

Not to be put off by some sunny weather; managed to clean, then glue to painting stands the following horses for the Arab cavalry for the 15mm ADG army that has restarted.

Not sure if this has been mentioned before but not a fan of painting horses, hence the varied colours of undercoat being used. The horses with yellow saddles etc were already painted prior to basing.

A few other figures were under coated at the same time but more of that later.

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 167

Once again a stalled project restarts, this time to begin rebasing from 80mm fronts to 40mm fronts. 

The reasoning behind this is fewer and fewer people in the local area are playing Impetus or Basic Impetus. On the upside more people are playing ADG in 15mm which uses the basing standards of DBA.

Rebasing is a process that many painters and gamers dread; its time consuming, there is the risk of damage and there is no guarantee that you won't have to do it again in the future.

The process used involves steeping the old bases in cold water for 24 hours or more. If the figures have been glued to their base with PVA then this time will be reduced. 

After the water bath carefully shuck the figures off their now soaked base - if card or MDF the base will be pliable - set aside to dry, then clean the underside of the base allowing you to rebase.

Here you have it five bases rebased on to twelve bases with 40mm fronts allowing a wider range of systems to be played if required. 

Whilst on the subject of basing will be changing the frontage of bases for 28mm figures to 60mm unless the figure itself is too large. 

The bases as always are from Warbases.

Cheers for now.

Back to the Brushes 166

Peltasts are nearing completion and the slingers are just taking shape.

The helmets have been painted in 2 different ways. On the left base tone of Vallejo Old Gold and washed the strong tone. On the right Foundry Barrel Bronze shade then lightened with Vallejo Old Gold.

The casualty figure is from Warlord Games, previously Immortal Games and will end up on the base for these Peltasts.

Both the peltasts and slingers are from Foundry with the slingers being from the earlier range and the peltasts from the newer range. Very different styles of sculpting and the newer figures are larger. Under the rule three foot no one will really be able to tell. 

Cheers for now.

Back to the Brushes 160

After a brief chat with Dave Imrie from Saxon Dog at Carronade the other weekend have finally decided to put some effort into painting this unit of peltasts that have been lingering on the fringes of the painting table since December last year.

In the back ground their smaller brothers in arms can be seen with just the first colour on their tunics. Its the same blue by the way

Some close ups to show the layering on the tunic.

Hopefully this will continue on to stands of slingers, prodromoi and companions in 28mm for the Macedonian army that was first planned about twelve years back.

Next up will be something from a certain book that has a lot to answer for, for many not just me by the way.

Cheers for now

Dance of Bronze 17

Slowly another 6mm Macedonian Phalanx moves forward; painted in less time than it took to trim, glue and base them in ranks of seven.

When viewed next to their colleagues the effect of massed 6mm figures does really work on the table. There will be more from this period in both 6mm and 28mm across the rest of this year as moving towards Basic Impetus again as rules of choice for Ancients.

Next up will be some work in progress pictures of these guys bigger brothers that have been cluttering the painting table since December '17.

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 150

A few work in progress pictures for the Challenge so far

The Eternal Guard from Alternative Armies move on unholy step closer to completion.

The orc is a straggler from before the challenge that will be finished soon

Two retro Chaos Warriors from Citadel  in differing stages of readiness. The left hand as viewed waiting on basing the right hand as viewed with base colours blocked in for a black and gold colour scheme on armour and cloth.

Background to them all are the peltasts that have received another layer of flesh tone since last seen, not that you'd be able to tell in these pictures. 

More to follow shortly. 

Cheers for now

Dance of Bronze 16

So, something that has been completed and to be honest has been for sometime now with this being the first skirmisher stand for a Basic Impetus Macedonian army to suit both Philip and Wee 'Eck and the Macks.

The figures are from Foundry's original range of Ancient Greeks and are clear sculpts that do exactly what it says on the tin - Greek archers. A limited colour scheme and no variance on the figures at the time of painting - last year's Analogue Painting Challenge - was a move towards how the full army will be painted, limited colours within stands to reflect an organised force. More that can be said of here.

Anyway enough babbling, the pictures.

The basing mirrors the style used on the Spartans earlier in the logs of this blog. Go on have a look if you want to here allowing the figures to be used for just about any army from that period. All good there. 

Cheers for now 

Back to the Brushes 137

Some work in progress on the 15mm Arab spearmen shown below front and rear. The first set are before the base wash for tone and the second set are after the wash has been applied and dried.

The figures are from Essex and there will be a second stand to follow. The other stand will be much darker in colour than this stand as they will be for the expanded army that will allow the Moors to be gamed.

Overall the wash has achieved look that was required and given some degree of shading without being overpowering. There will be some more work in progress pictures shortly from the same period however in a larger scale. Cheers for now.

Back to the Brushes 136

Working on Arabs and Moors in different scales and for different games at present.

First up are 15mm figures from Essex Miniatures for Basic Impetus. The plan with these figures is to allow the wash to do nearly all of the work, so white robes are the way forward here. 

There are another eight to be painted for this stand and these have just been undercoated.

Below shows the start of a Moorish Warband for SAGA: Cross and Crescent with the Warlord and his Hearth guard in the top picture and two warriors and a banner man below. All figures are from Gripping Beast. 

More from this and others to follow

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 135

Another session on the Sassanid archers for Basic Impetus shown below. Trousers and shoes so not a huge amount of progress.

At this point toying with the idea of introducing a new format to basing; instead of dedicated 120 x 60 mm bases looking at using 60 x 60 mm bases to offer more opportunity to use the figures with other systems than Impetus.

On the subject of basing; some progress on sabot bases for Vikings in Basic Impetus shown below. The matches are glued down with wood glue and then the raised edge will be contoured with modelling clay or similar before the usual texturing for basing

Its only an idea at present however, this would allow dabbling with Hail Caesar and Swordpoint, suppose the final decision will be made at the time of basing.

Cheers for now

Back to the Brushes 133

The last ten days or so have offered very little opportunity to get some painting on any of the current projects done. Its been slow all round to be honest with very slow progress on the Moors for SAGA and Basic Impetus.

To be honest Game of Thrones has gotten in the way this last week as watched the first five episodes pretty much back to back. To say it has been enjoyable is an understatement.

The problem with enjoying something like Game of Thrones is it starts you thinking about another project which often means the current project stalls and falters for a bit or stops altogether. Thankfully the thoughts are small in number and might never happen.

The next four Hirdmen for SAGA and Basic Impetus have moved on a bit since they have been started, but not that much

More to follow soon

Cheers for now

Reconquista 5

The last from the Almoravids for a while as there are no more to base. Here there are the bulk of the army, the spearmen, with three stands out of the four required.

There is a mixture of hand painted and transfer covered shields in these stands. Felt this was the best approach as didn't want a uniform look to the units other than the head dresses which will be carried over the entire army.

The last stand is still to be painted and will be slightly different in appearance than these, but more of that later.

Once the spearmen are completed it only leaves five stands of archers to paint or thirty figures to be precise. That is a lot of spindlers.

Back to work in progress pictures for a while.

Cheers for now