March painting

Phew! Been a long time. I had a great start to February and was on track to really get ahead for the year... but unfortunately the second half of the month got to be insanely busy so nothing else got painted after the first 2 weeks.

First half of March was more of the same, but for the past week I've been back in the saddle getting some painting and terrain done.

First off the painting desk was a new unit for my FIW collection, Canadian Militia by Old Glory.

 

The sculpting was a bit crude compared to most of the other models I've been painting up so far. As opposed to the Warlord/Conquest models where I really think it was just the casting that was the problem, I get the sense these were mediocre sculpts to begin with. Not terrible, but definitely less than the Crusader and Conquest models I've been using.

I like the fact that they have the long "tuques" that makes them instantly recognizable as Canadians, though, so they were worth getting. They also fit in well size-wise with my other FIW stuff, as opposed to Redoubt or Galloping Major which seem to be a bit bigger. I think I'm going to have to go with Old Glory for my British Light Infantry for the same reasons that I went with these guys.


I also painted up a few fantasy models over the past month.

This is a Reaper vampire model that I've had for quite a while, since before Bones existed as a line... he's a metal model in a wide stance, so wouldn't fit on a standard base.

I only plan on using him in Frostgrave / Song of Blades & Heroes anyway though, so fortunately both of those games are "low stress" when it comes to basing.

Next up is a Barbarian, also for FG/SoBH. He's a Rackham model that was produced for the game Confrontation, which I bought but never played. The model line is awesome though. I have a good number of their minis but have avoided painting them because they intimidate me!

The sculpting is so fine and the studio paint jobs were so incredible that I never felt I could come close to the image I have in my head of these models. This guy sat on my painting desk for over a year. I base coated his skin and weapon and originally planned to do a non-metallic metal on him. That didn't go to well though, so back to the drawing board. He sat there untouched for many months and finally I finished him off this weekend, figuring since he wasn't going to live up to my expectations I might as well get him done and add him to the display case.

Even though he didn't come out as I hoped, he looks pretty cool and I'm happy with him. Definitely spent a lot more time on him than most of my Bones models!


Finally, I got a "bonus" model done as my buddy James sent me a whole bunch of Warhammer Fantasy models that he apparently no longer wants. I will store them in my basement until he changes his mind... but in the mean time, there was a High Elf Mage in the lot that I had painted for him over a year ago and left the base undone so he could base it to match his army.

Well... the army will now never be completed, so I threw some flock on him, varnished him, and "bam!" instant extra model completed this month!

I took some additional shots of these guys in a new terrain piece I was working on too, using a much more "serious" camera. Most of my pics are done with my cell phone so I wanted to see if there was a noticeable difference. Unfortunately I haven't downloaded them yet so I'll have to do that in another post.

President's Day... round 3

Finally, I finished this guy off this weekend:







He's actually been mostly done for about a week but I was waiting until I had some more models done to flock and seal him. He's a Reaper Bones model. Only a couple more to go! I was shooting to have 6 Worm models for the Frostgrave scenario "The Worm Hunts," but I'm not sure why. With my luck we'd roll an 18-20 every time.

President's Day continued...

On top of doing my first Donnybrook unit for the English Civil War, got a couple more civilians done for the French & Indian War this weekend.

I imagine these two as an old couple, worried about an imminent Indian attack!

President's Day Painting

Got a lot of painting done this weekend!

In fact, I am already ahead for the month after this 3 day weekend of painting.

First up, I finished the first pack of Perry English Civil War Scots. It was a pack of 6 musketeers loading. It will also be my first unit for Donnybrook.

I am sure I will have nightmares about trying to paint these tartan patterns... grrr....

Fortunately I don't think the Warlord Scots (which will make up my "big" army for Pike & Shotte) have any of these.

Since you are allowed to take a Hero for each army point in Donnybrook, I painted up a character to lead them:





Here they are all together:

Otherworld

One of my buddies asked me about my Otherworld fantasy minis recently... so here is a short review!

I bought a bunch of their models at the end of last year, and I was not disappointed. I focused on character models since I have so many Reaper Bones models from the Kickstarters for monsters.

I don't feel the need to go into too much detail, since their web site is full of great pictures of their models which speak for themselves. They are absolutely awesome.

But here are a few pointers that you might not get from the web site:

1. Many of the models are multipart and require assembly. I would say at least half of them are multipart models. I hate gluing metal models together, so this was a downer, but at least they were not usually more than 2 parts (i.e. a weapon arm in a dynamic pose).

2. The sizing is not completely consistent across the range. For the most part they are standard heroic 28mm scale, but a couple were quite large and there were more than a few really "dainty" ones.

Here is a comparison shot of a few models. The Tavern Bouncer is one of the largest that I saw - look at the Halfling next to him! Now I know halflings are supposed to be small, but that thing is tiny! The Wizard on the left is "average" 28mm (he measures 32mm from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head).



3. I bought a couple of the boxed sets and a bunch of loose blisters. One thing that I didn't see advertised on the web site about the boxed sets is that they come with foam lined trays to transport the models in, AND they include multiple types of bases for each model. In addition to the standard plastic round "slotta" base (a la 40K), they all came with sculpted metal bases that had a flagstone theme for dungeon crawling.
















I thought this was awesome and was completely surprised!

I will definitely be buying more Otherworld models in the future :)

Some more FIW models

I did get excited starting to paint some ECW troops this weekend, but in order to keep myself from getting carried away with them and ignoring my FIW models I painted a couple before I dug into the musketeers!

I figured these guys would be really easy and quick to paint, and I could then say that I painted 2 models for the French & Indian War this month.

Jesuit Priests could be used as civilian models in any game where you need them... but from all the reading I've been doing it seems they could just as well be considered militia leaders! In Acadia in particular it sounds like the "missionaries" were very much involved in goading the natives into raiding neighboring areas. In some cases, a bounty was put on their heads by the English.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Norridgewock

Sounds like an interesting scenario...

Anyway - here are my Jesuits:

First Pike & Shotte model done

I sat down and did a test model for my ECW Scots this weekend. It's always exciting painting the first model of any unit or army... before the excitement wears off and the tedium sets in is where the real fun is.

The first step was to come up with some ideas for what colors I wanted to use for "Hodden Gray." I had always thought it was a neutral or bluish gray, but after doing some research it turned out it's actually more or a brownish gray color, with a tinge of purple! Which is funny since it's supposedly made from undyed black and white wool. Oh well.

Here are the paints I chose to experiment with:

Reaper Master Series have been my "go to" paints for the past year or so. I still find myself reaching for a bunch of Vallejos and GW Foundation paints every now and then, but I do like the RMS paints. I'm a slow painter and I don't use a wet palette, and I love the fact that these stay workable on the palette for a bit longer because they already have flow improver / retarder mixed in the formula.

I like the uniform look of Hodden Gray but I'm not sure I want to use these guys as Covenanters, so I may decide that they are part of the Strathbogie Regiment at the last minute! I guess I can make up my mind when I paint the standard. 

In any case, I chose to start with a pack of loading musketeers. Here is the first musketeer:

Here he is after some flock and with different lighting. I think the shadows were too harsh though.

Now to paint the rest of his buddies! I'd like to paint the rest of this pack and also get a Character/Hero model done for these guys this month.