From StuartL - Ogres

Just a small post from me today. 

Back in the winter challenge I painted up a batch of GW Ogres (I refuse to call them by the stupid copyright proof name GW uses). As I still have more of these jolly, fat blokes in the pile I decided to grab a handful and get them tabletop ready. All of the skin was painted with GW contrast paint, which I still cannot seem to get the hang of. The rest of the figures were done with my usual base coat, wash, highlight style.

The Ogre minis are all based on only two bodies on the sprue, so they all have the same pose. However there are a large selection of arms, heads and assorted bits to add to the figures for decoration. My favourite is the slab of ribs hanging on a meat hook.

And here are the AHPC-X and AHQC minis all together.

I believe Ogres are usually scored as 40mm minis, so that should be 42 points for my non-official tally, bringing me up to 494.5

From ClarenceH: Painting All These F-ing Tartans

Captain George H. Rippington III

Here's the full list of paints I used for the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and bit of advice on the process. It's for my own benefit as well as everyone else's, so when I inevitably leave off for something else - hopefully not any time soon, but remember the AWI project - and return years later to add to the collection, I'll have some clue as to what I did!

All of the paints are from Games Workshop's Citadel range. A brief note on my shorthand. 'Base Coat' is exactly what it sounds like... a solid layer of color painted as neatly as I can. When this is the same as the 'Primer' color (Zhadri Dust in this case), the area was simply left as is which greatly speeds up the painting process. 'Shade' always utilizes the Citadel range of washes or 'shades' which is painted completely over the base coat. 'Layer' is a color painted on that almost completely covers the color below, leaving the darker tones in recesses. This paint is thinned with a tiny amount of water to add a bit of transparency for a softer transition. If there are two 'Layers' in a sequence, the second is painted only on the upper surfaces (the top of arms, the edge of sleeves, collars, and tunics, etc), again thinned with a tiny amount of water. 'Highlight' refers to edge highlighting where only sharp edges or pinpoint highlights are applied. Don't worry about some variation in tones between models - uniforms would be far less... err... uniform after a few months in the Sudan!

Primer
Zhandri Dust Spray Paint

Helmet, Jacket, and Gaiters
Base Coat: Zhandri Dust
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Tallern Sand
Layer: Ushabti Bone
Highlight: Screaming Skull (Helmet Only)

Puggaree
Base Coat: Zhandri Dust
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Ushabti Bone
Shade: Reikland Fleshade

Valise Kit, Tassels, and Rifle Sling
Base Coat: Administratum Grey
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Pallid Wych Flesh

Sporran, Mess Tin Cover, Scabbard, and Boots
Base Coat: Corvus Black
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Highlight: Dawnstone

Stockings and Sergeants' Stripes
Base Coat: Mephiston Red
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Evil Sunz Scarlet
Stripes: Corvus Black

Musket Stock
Base Coat: Rhinox Hide
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Highlight: Doombull Brown

Canteen Cover and Pistol Holster
Base Coat: Mournfang Brown
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Mournfang Brown
Highlight: Deathclaw Brown

Canteen, Bayonet, Sword Blade, and Rifle Barrel
Base Coat: Iron Warrior
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Highlight: Stormhost Silver (Bayonet Only)

Buttons, Buckles, Sword Hilt, and Rifle Butt Plate
Bace Coat: Liberator Gold
Shade Agrax Eartshade
Highlight: Liberator Gold

Ok... let's pause here for a moment. If you've read this far (what about the bloody tartan? I'm getting to it...) you've probably seen that ALL of these areas are shaded with Agrax Earthshade. To save yourself a huge amount of time, paint all of the base coats on these areas and then shade the entire model before moving on to anything else. After you've finished all of your layers and highlights, you can go back with Agrax Earthshade if necessary and fix any areas where belts may have strayed into one another, to bring out buttons, etc. This will give you a nice, dark edge around the flesh areas too...

Skin
Base Coat: Bugman's Glow
Shade: Reikland Fleshade
Layer: Cadian Fleshtone
Highlight: Kislev Flesh

Kilt
Ok, here we go.. first of all there is no shading or highlighting required. The pattern is busy and the fact that we've left off this stage won't be noticed and would be an even bigger mess than it already is. Having said this, painting the tartan isn't as difficult as it seems.

First, the diagram...

Don't worry about trying to work out how this falls into folds and such. I start by painting the bottom green stripe above the bottom edge and a parallel one midway between the first and the figure's belt. then paint the vertical stripes as evenly as possible all the way around.

No... Citadel hasn't started making paint in dropper bottles. I made these myself. I'll write a post on it at some point if anyone is interested in the how and why.

Base Coat: Kantor Blue
First Stripes: Waagh Flesh
Intersect Squares: Warboss Green (you can stop here for the Black Watch tartan!)
Red Stripes: Flesh Tearers Red
Yellow Stripes: Averland Sunset

The 'Intersect Squares' will likely end up more as dots than squares, but that's ok. The last two colors should be painted with the finest-tip brush you have. Flesh Tearers Red is a Citadel Contrast paint, which means it is somewhat translucent. This is perfect to mimic the stitching of the real thing. It's also thinner than 'normal' paint, which makes it perfect for painting fine lines. There should be TWO parallel red stripes for each one above, but at 28mm, they are lucky to get one. The yellow stripes seem to fall between every other red, so in the case of my models, there is only one about midway up. There would be vertical yellow stripes in the same manner, but I've chose to pretend they are all hidden in the creases! Since there isn't any shading, you can touch up errant strokes with Kantor Blue or Waagh Flesh as necessary, but you only need to correct egregious mistakes.

Stage by stage photos to better illustrate... looks a bit naff viewed at such size and I shudder to publish such pictures, but no sacrifice on my part is too great for you! The illusion works at normal scale - especially when they are seen from three feet away on the game table.

NOTE: The above figure was painted before I settled on my final khaki recipe so appears a little lighter than the finished versions (see the good captain at the start of the post). I wanted the jacket to be a shade darker to better contrast with the white belts and straps.

Finally, here are recipes for alternate colors you might see on British troops in the Sudan:

Alternate Red Coat
Base Coat: Mephiston Red
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Mephiston Red
Highlight: Evil Sunz Scarlet

Alternate Grey Coat
Base Coat: Mechanicus Standard Grey
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Mechanicus Standard Grey
Highlight: Dawnstone

Alternate Valise Kit (Bread Bag should still be 'white')
Base Coat: Zhandri Dust
Sade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Talleran Sand
Highlight: Ushabti Bone

I would only use the alternate valise kit color with the red or grey coat. Rifle units may still have black valise kits at this time and I would use the same formula as for the mess kit and boots above.

Right! Clear as mud? Hopefully this is useful to someone - at least it will help me later! If you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

More soon...

From TamsinP: 28mm Wars of the Roses Billmen

Continuing my Wars of the Roses project, this week I have some billmen for you. You may remember from my first post that the AdlG list allows for six bases of foot knights or retinue billmen. The list also allows for three bases of Northern Border/Militia billmen, so of course I had to do all nine bases.


Retinue Billmen:

Northern Border/Militia Billmen:

As before, all the figures are 28mm plastics from Perry Miniatures.

I should have another (smaller) group of figures for you on Sunday if all goes well.

From TimG - Soviet Hurricane

 Having commenced the build of this ancient Revell Hurricane with no particular plan in mind I eventually decided to follow up my recent La-7 and finish it as a Soviet machine in much the same colour scheme.  I hand painted some shaky stripes on the tail and the decal box provided the rest.  Given that the Hurricane is  - certainly to my eyes - such a distinctive shape it's quite difficult to make it  look 'different'.  I hope you think it's a success.

JTinQT - Week 4 - Swiss Pike

Hi All

Happy to get a more substantive post this week, that includes finishing a unit! First up are the figures painted this week. These are mainly Old Glory, but the two on the left are older Irregular Miniatures. The figure without the pike becomes a standard bearer in the finished unit.

Now these were done I could combine with those previously painted and some rebased figures to give the finished new pike block.This represents the third pike block at Marignano 1515 based around the cantons of Lucerne, Basle and Schaffhausen.

The ram flag is from Pete's flags and had to self create a flag for the Lucerne canton using the white cloth material left over from the flag sheet. Luckily Lucerne is a simple two colour banner white/light blue so quite easy to paint and weather in - should I call this a plagiarised Pete's Flag? Anyway pleased with the effect. As always great to base the figures and spend time to create the look of the unit. 

Post Covid this unit is going straight into action in a Basic Impetus rules Swiss army to take on Burgundians! Cant wait ..........

Cheers Jez

From MartijnN: QCWk4, Scaling up again..

The past two weeks have been rather hectic and I have been unable to follow the Challenge. I have however just managed to complete a task this week.

First, though, I 'd like to share a memory with you. Last week my father died, rather unexpectedly. My Dad was 81, so I guess unexpected is not entirely true, but somehow you think of your parents as immortal, and there were no signs that he would go so soon. My dad was my best friend. He was not a wargamer in any sense, but he was the one who bought me my first Airfix soldiers when I was a little boy, and he was the one who took me to the only shop that sold tin model soldiers in the Netherlands in 1980, the Boutique De La Grande Armée in The Hague. I think he also bought me my very first wargame figures then, and I still have them. Of course, for a lad of 12 or 13, they had to be the Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, and they are Hinchcliffe 25mm. They are still based for the WRG 1685-1845 rules:

The second figure from the left in the front row was painted by my dad as a example; ruining it with a home-made wash was all my own idea, some years later...

Thanks dad for introducing me to a lifetime passion!

As I live in Belgium and my parents in the Netherlands, getting to my parents' and back was not straightforward. Still, both before my journey and since my return I have been able to do some painting.  The weekend before last I had found an unexpected treasure in my pile of shame in the shape of 8 Essex 15mm late Roman clibanarii. I did not remember buying them, must have been sometime in the nineties when I was building an army for the Newbury Fast Play Ancient Rules we then used at our club in Delft.

So I decided to paint them up, using contrast paints, apart from the metallics (which obviously is most of these figures...) which are a mixture of Citadel and Vallejo.

I have based these on a single base, for I am looking into To the Strongest and into Aurelian, the ruleset by Sam Mustafa.

So there you have it. I'll track my way back to the posts of the last week and add some comments here and there!

From MikeW - Mounted Elizabethan Border Ruffians

Again real life events and running a PBeM campaign have severely cut into my painting time but I was determined to get these little guys finished this week.

Three Ruffians on Perry's WoR Horses

I got an eBay lot of 16 mounted border reivers a few weeks back and I was looking for suitable horses to mount them on, then I remembered I had a couple of boxes of Perry's War of The Roses mounted figures in the loft.

Unusually for me I glued this English flag in position permanently,
here are two Warlord Pike & Shot Horses Centre & Right

Seems I'd already raided these boxes for horses and between them I managed to source 12 horses, so I then dragged in 4 Warlord Pike & Shot horses to make up the numbers.

One figure came with a moulded on Targe, he makes a good leader figure

I found some bags in my spares box, to add to the horses and also made some extra blanket rolls to add extra clutter to the figures but what I was really looking for was some small 'Targe' shields to add to some of the figures to give them that additional something else.

More usual for me, a Scots flag that can be swapped as needed,
also an example of a saddle holster added to give more period flavour

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any, so maybe later the lockdown I'll look harder and add some of these to the figures...

I like that only two of the figures have muskets, two others have crossbows
and one I added a pistol, as his saddle holster was empty! 

I'm not certain of the manufacturers of these figures, I suspect Wargames Foundry or Hoka Hey as they fit in well with my foot figures for the period.

Another view of some of the figures

So I'm now out of Elizabethan figures to paint, so guessing I'll revert back to Pike & Shot, Siege of Vienna figures. I have an infantry regiment to paint up and I have just found three Ottoman Heavy Cavalry figures to have a go at,,,

I use steel spears / lances on all my 28mm figures and yes, they are sharp!
But I find players give the figures more respect when they know they
can hurt themselves if they mishandle the little guys....

Another random selection of the little guys...

And a final shot, I added swords to a couple of the figures to give variety,
half of them are spear armed.