Time for a bit of change and tidy up!

MDF Paint racks are great but they so quickly get filled with new paints and take up too much space on my painting table. After watching Luke on his Youtube channel Geek Gaming Scenics making his bespoke paint shelves I was inspired to build my own.

So 3 lengths of stripwood, a sheet of ply from an old bookcase ( never throw old sheets of ply out folks ) and a pot of blackboard paint later.

Voila! Not bad for 90 mins work!

I mainly paint with Vallejo model colours these days but looking closely you can spot Citadel Contrast paints and Army Painter Speedpaints. Both ranges are very good as you'll see from the next completed project. Coming soon.......

 Time to claim more points. 96 to be precise! Running total 640.

48 French Legere figures. Again painted with contrast paints. My one complaint, appart from my failing eyesight painting 15's is a real struggle, is being in all blue uniforms the figures don't stand out as well as the Polish figures I did earlier. However I do hope they provide an effective fighting force.

Below is my French fighting force so far with much more to paint on the way. The eagle eyed observers will note the gun carriages have no guns. They are "in the shop" getting polished!

 Time to start basing. Not a task I enjoy but it has to be done. I also have a shortage of bases, and with the retirement of Tony from ERM, it's off to Warbases.

The British troops from the Sudan campaigns were first up.

 

 

Next 36 Saxon Thengs from Gripping Beast's plastic range. I bought these start of the lockdown, inspired by The Last Kingdom we were rewatching on Netflix. These were sprayed with wraithbone and all the paints used were from the contrast paint range. 28mm figures is where I believe contast paints come into their own. They were then washed with Allys Brown Liquid. The blue and the red shields were done with normal paints to give more depth of colour.  These figures are on 40mm x 40mm and intend to use the Swordpoint rules when they finally get to the table.

Go Strong into the Desert!

After promsing them a paint job, I couldn't let them down. To be honest my zenithal highlight was a bit patchy and grainy. I need to take more time on each model and have decided to use a white ink for the next 28mm paint job. Back to the chaps, their uniforms were painted with contrast paints Aggaros Dunes for the khaki, and Skeleton Horde for the off white kit. White and sand highlights were added to the kit to brighten it and the whole figure given an ivory drybrush to tie the paint job together.

For a first attempt I'm moderately happy and will use all my errors as a learing experience.

Best part is 24 28mm figures painted in 4 hours !!!!

Another 120 points on the board. Running total 544.

 

Dragoons !!!

 

Again they are Old Glory however they sculpts aren't a nice as some Minifigs I bought over 30 years ago! Anyway they were base coated black and then given a light grey zenithal highlight. I then used contrast paints to block in as per usual. The effect wasn't bad but I think the zenithal highlight doesn't really work with 15mm figures but worth a try. After a quick light wash, highlights were added and  satin varnish applied by an airbrush. 

18 figures - 72 points!

There's a lot of noise on Youtube about zenithal highlighting so I thought I'd give it a go.

The victim was a Perry Sudan British infantryman. He was sprayed with a black undercoat and light grey highlight applied from above to create the effect. He was then painted with Contrast paints with normal paints for highlights.I thought I'd put him in khaki and used aggaros dunes. I don't think the colour is too bad as the uniforms would have taken a real battering in the Sudan! So 15mins work and here's the end result. Not as neat or colour saturated as my other figures painted with black undercoat and normal acrylic paints but when there are 24 figures in a unit anything to speed up the process is worth trying.

Here he is telling the rest of his unit " Look chaps at least this way well get painted. He's had us in a box since 2014!"

 

 

 15mm Napoleonics from Old Glory!

First on the table are 50 figures of the Vistula Division to add to my French Penninsular army.

After cleaning they were sprayed light grey and a magic wash applied. This helps to pick out the details.

The figures were then painted with contrast paints apart from the flesh and yellow which were vallejo model colour paints. The end result was a little disappointing as even taking great care when painting they appeared a bit scruffy. I think the contrast paints are more suited to larger figures such as 28mm when you get to paint larger patches of colour. Anyway a number of thin washes were applied and then various highlights added to allow the figures to pass muster.

50 15mm 100 points !
 

 

 Painting Challenge Update

 252 points on the board.

120 15mm infantry and 6 camels and riders painted.

Next up

What's in the bag?

 First up sudanese tribesmen. These are from Forged in Battle and are excellent figures, really easy to paint.

Base coated with light grey. Various contrast paints used to block in the figures.

 

Next the dismounted camel riders. These figures are from Legio Heroica. They are easy to paint but very time consuming to assemble, both spear and shield had to be glued in place. Once again they were undercoated in light grey and the main details blocked in with CPs. Then a coat of magic wash was applied and then off white highlights added to brighten the figures.

 New Year, New Challenge.

 

Not that we're likely to return to the wargame club for real gaming for a while a group of fellow gamers and myself have decided to run our own painting challenge a la Wargames Illustrated, Little Wars Tv and others.

So, starting from today, 15th January it begins.

 

First on the painting table 15mm Sudanese.

Prepping and basing took about 45 minutes. Base coating with my airbrush took much much longer.

Last time I used the airbrush I neglected to clean it properly and it continually blocked during what should have been a 15-minute job.

The morale is keep your airbrush clean.