More Saxons

Miniature painting has been a little slow this week, mainly due to a mixture of being too busy and being too fussy with my painting, trying new things and slacking off.  Anyway, I ordered a handful of Gripping Beast miniatures a couple weeks ago and they arrived early this week.  They were, a packet of GET1 Armoured Command and LR23 Late Roman Leaders.  I just wanted to see what the Gripping Beast Barbarians were like and how they compared to the Musketeer Miniatures that I have.

One Late Roman miniature in particular captured my attention and all painting on the Musketeer Miniatures, Early Saxons stopped, while I concentrated on this Gripping Beast mini.  I’m going to use some Late Romans mixed in my Saxon units, referring to the WHAB Age of Arthur book that says: “May of the helmets of earlier warriors will have been ‘liberated’ or copied from the Roman empire, so you can quite happily use a few suitable Late Roman models”.

I am also going to get a few Wargames Foundry Saxon miniatures, to see how they combine and then figure out how I will make up my final Saxon force.  I really like Musketeers range, so my dilemma is whether I combine all makes into each Unit, or do I make some all Musketeer and mix others… Hmm, not sure yet.

Here is the Late Roman figure I’ve been talking about, next to the last Saxon I finished.

More Saxons

As you can see the Late Roman is less hairy and doesn’t have the same Barbarian feel, but when mixed into a Unit, it won’t matter.

I saw a similar shield design in a book and decided to paint the shield myself.

Let me know what you think.

On the workbench

My first Caesarean Roman Century

 

This is a work in progress of my first Caesarean Roman Century.  I tried using the army painter shading method on the first few, but really didn’t like the results I was getting and changed to a more conventional style for the majority.  I am struggling to just paint the core troops to a minimal standard and focus on the command and front rank more.  

The painting has progressed quite quickly considering I have working and have a new born baby to also contend with and I am really enjoying painting at the moment.

Let me know what you think.

New uploads

I’m slowly populating my Gallery page with miniatures I’ve painted, so please take a look.

Roman are you?

I’ve been reading a book by Simon Scarrow about a young boy who is sent from the Imperial Court in Rome, to join a Legion in Germania.  It’s well written and has re-inspired me to paint some Romans.  I’ve had some Caesarean Roman’s sitting in the draw for some time now, so I took out a figure and started painting it yesterday evening and finished it today.  

I’ve probably got enough figures to make up a 16 man WHAB size Century, but need a Musician to finish off the Unit.  This will compliment the unit of plastics that Guido got from Wargames Factory.  I have to admit that I am not planning on spending lots of time and energy painting this unit to an immaculate standard, I just want to get them on the board. 

Sorry Beccas, I should be painting Rambo…

Rambo – 1st three stages of flesh colour

 

First 3 stages

More Rambo

Sorry for the delayed telecast… I actually painted more late last night, but it got too late to post… well I got tired.

A couple more coats of flesh.  First a 50/50 mix of GW Dwarf Flesh and Tallarn Flesh was painted onto the miniature.  This time I attempted to give a little more colour to the recesses where it was still looking a little black from the undercoat. After that, I very watered down GW Dwarf Flesh was painted on.  Whilst this was drying I painted the headband GW Scab Red and painted another layer of black onto Rambo’s hair.

Next I applied a tiny amount of white to the eyeballs and the upper teeth.  I’m not too worried about maintaining the correct eye shape here, because there is still a lot of shading to go.  After the white had dried I applied a dot of black for the pupils.  It’s definitely looking more like Sylvester now!  I applied one more coat of Dwarf Flesh before I called it quits for the evening.  This was a little thicker, with focus towards the upper and more prominent features of the body.

More soon…

Step 2 – Rambo

 

 

Here is Rambo with two coats of flesh.  The first is a watered down layer of GW tanned flesh.  I mix the paint with water to about a skim milk consistency before applying to the miniature, the black undercoat still shows through and the paint is not even on the miniature.  Then I applied a watered down layer of GW Tallarn flesh, which is from the GW foundation paints range.  Tallarn flesh has more pigment and therefore goes on easier.  I don’t coat the whole figure, leaving darker recesses alone, to aid with the contrast.

I’m a real instinctive painter, I follow a process but if it’s not working for me I will “Improvise, Adapt and Overcome”, changing directing and trying things if it feels right for the miniature.  I don’t really plan ahead, aside from what I think will be the basic colours.  I find it is important not to rush and ensure you don’t apply the paint thickly.

NB:  I’m not saying this is the right or best way to paint, it’s just displaying how I do it.