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

Reconquista 4

More skirmishers for the Almoravids, one stand having already been shown a while back.

Depending on the list these can also double up a foot light stand in Basic Impetus as well as cheekily appearing in the 'Cid's army as well.

Cheers for now

Reconquista 3

Returning to the Almoravids and here is the first skirmisher stand for the now Basic Impetus army as a good few of the figures have been moved over to a SAGA warband for the same.

More from the same to follow shortly as the basing is completed on a few more stands from a personal challenge a few years ago.

Cheers for now

Thirty Spears - A Challenge 6

Here are twenty Berber spearmen; ten completed and ten being painted at the moment. All figures from Gripping Beast:

More updates on a few different things to follow shortly.

Cheers for now.

Thirty Spears - A Challenge 5

A quick update before the semi-final kicks off. The next ten Black Guard will be receiving weapons and shield decorations this evening and tomorrow prior to basing over the weekend.

Below is the start of a third unit of Black Guard that will again have two drummers but no standard. This will be the final unit of Black Guard with the following units of spearmen being standard Berber spears.

The first two units will be shown as two completed stands in the one go hopefully alongside the first of the skirmisher units for this period.

Cheers for now.

Thirty Spears - A Challenge update 4

Well all plans fall apart on contact with the enemy and this personal painting challenge was no different.

Final stages of the decant at work happened over the last two weeks of May and it was all hands - literally - on deck. Most of June has been spent tying up loose ends and sort out the issues arising with work. The end result of this has been that there has been every little time or motivation  Everything is finally now finished and a new role starts officially on Monday - unofficially the has been ongoing for most of this month.

Anyway enough rambling about real life and time to start rambling on about hobby time. Here are two quick pictures to update the challenge so far.

The first stand of Black Guard are now being based and will be finished for final display very soon. The picture below shows both stands together and the second group of figures have already been started with what little flesh present having been already blocked in. These figures are relatively easy to paint due to the very limited pallet and amount of trappings on each figure.

Will be back to more regular hobby time and blogging from here on.

Cheers for now

Thirty Spears - A Challenge Update 3

A few comments have asked what transfers will be used for these figures when completed. Well as the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words. Both images are from Little Big Men Studios. A banner sheet with shields for Gripping Beast sized shields.

The Black Guard will all have a shield image as below. This has been a special order from Little Big Men where Steve has created one sheet of transfers from an existing sheet of Musketeer Miniatures transfers. These will require a bit of hand trimming so hopefully there will be no upsets with the blade.

The end result will hopefully be on show at the weekend.

Cheers for now

Thirty Spears - A Challenge Update 2

A quick update on the progress of the Thirty Spears:

The second stand of ten are further on than pictured above and below. Only the shields and weapons to do now.

Lurking in the back ground are the first group of ten Black Guard whose shield transfers arrived this morning! More pictures to follow and an update from this years Carronade.

Cheers for now.

Thirty Spears - A Challenge update

Ten days into the Thirty Spears Personal Challenge and the first ten are just about finished. Only the spears and shields remain to be painted and the shields will have to wait for the order from Little Big Men to be completed. A quick picture below shows the progress so far:

In white in the background are the next ten spear to be painted and these will be started tonight. That's all for just now.

Cheers!

Thirty Spears - A Challenge

Due to other commitments during the Analogue Painting Challenge - that is life and work - I fell short of the target that I had set myself. Whilst at the time I excepted this I have been reviewing a few things lately and due to there being a lot of chat about SAGA: Crescent and Cross and Gripping Beast's new plastic Arabs have decided to set myself a personal challenge. A quick recce to the Lead Mountain and a draft generic Moor and Arabic army was selected.

The challenge is simply really. Paint, base and complete thirty spearmen for a generic Moor and Arab Impetus army in as many days. That equates to three stands of ten. Simple really and it should be achievable.

Easter weekend saw a great start to this with the first stand of ten Black Guards being well under way. The figures shown are all from Gripping Beast. These will fit into the following armies Andalusians, Almoravids and Almohads as well as any generic Arab or Islamic style army of this period.

The first plan was to dip these figures but after checking them over and starting to paint them I have decided to paint them to my normal standard. Transfers from Little Big Men have been selected, ordered and will hopefully be here later this week. 

Once the thirty spearmen have been completed I will select another element of the army to work on in a similar way.

Cheers for now.