Men at Arms Completed

Here's the finished Men at Arms unit complete with their close order movement tray:








Overall I quite pleased with the way these have come out, though to be honest I could never do masses of 28mm in a short period of time like some people do but at least I can do them in a way that I'm happy with.

Now back to something smaller.....


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Men at Arms

Here's the (almost) completed Men at Arms, all that remains to be done is the bases. I decided (on my wife's advice) to tone down the blue of the painted helmet, so it's now much more subdued compared to what it was. To be honest I couldn't find any evidence to support the brighter, more modern looking blue.


















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WotR WIP

Just some WIP shots of the 3 men-at-arms I'm working on at the moment. These are just about to receive washes and highlights for their clothing, belts, scabbards and my first attempt at a painted helmet (it appears quite bright at the moment but it will get much more colour depth as I apply the shading). The armour itself is actually finished, basically what I do with armour is dry brush the black undercoat heavily with Citadel Chain Mail paint then pick out the joins between plates, rivets etc with black. Some areas are also touched up with a detail brush (00) and the chain mail (if the figure has any) is washed with a thin black wash to make it appear different to the plate armour. The detail of the armour the designer has moulded on to these figures is really really good so they're actually quite rewarding to paint.








These are codes WR63, WR58 and WR71 respectively from the Front Rank WotR range.

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WotR Basing & Painting

I've now based all of my finished WotR figures on 25mm round bases from Minibits:


Here's all 8 figures:


The method I've used for basing the figures is as follows:
1. Paint the figures metal base dark brown (in this case Coat D'Arms brown horse tone) before attaching it to the MDF base.
2. Coat the base (but not the top of the figures metal base) in PVA and cover in grit (approx 1mm round). Leave to dry.
3. Once dry paint the grit and base edge in dark brown, I tend to water down the paint to make it flow easier around the grit.
4. Using the Baccus basing system dry brush coats dry brush each colour on gradually reducing the amount of paint used for each of the three coats (base, mid and top).
5. Once dry seal the base with a layer of mat varnish - its important to do the edge as well as that helps protect it.
6. Apply static grass randomly to the base leaving some of the grit showing. The static grass used in this case also came from the Baccus Basing System.

Another thing I've also added is some of the Dux Brittaniarum movement trays from Warbases which I've painted/flocked to match the figure bases:





All of the trays come pre-assembled and the Minibits bases slotted in easily (that was a relief!). I'm quite impressed with these and will be adding more for this and other periods. The movement trays allow me to have individually based figures but still be able to move lots of them around easily and they increase my options as to how I can arrange the figures. The trays are available in 12 versions (2 slots up to 12 slots) and I picked up the two 5 slot ones they offer (2mm top layer types).

Finally here's another pair of archers I completed and based (stage 2) earlier today:


These are codes WR2 and WR20 from the Front Rank WotR range.

I've just cleaned up ready for painting another pair of archers and three more men-at-arms which will complete the first 3 'units' of 5.

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WotR Part 4

A change of colour scheme for the archers:


And another Man-at-Arms in very detailed German armour:


All figures are Front Rank (codes WR24 (archer) and WR64 (man-at-arms)).

I'm planning to do a test paint this week with a couple of Aventine Miniatures Thureophoroi. They did take a bit of assembling (they have separate heads) but they're really nice figures so it was worth the effort.

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WotR - More Archers Completed

Another pair of archers completed. I don't think I'm getting any faster but feel that I'm getting neater and my black outlining is getting slightly thiner:



All figures are Front Rank (codes WR7 (green trousers) & WR27).

Finally here's all of the archers completed so far:


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Wars of the Roses Progress

I've managed to complete two more archers tonight, it's still taking me longer than I would like (2 sessions) but I'm happier with the results of this process than I was using the dip method (the figures are brighter). The method I've used involves a combination of shading and highlighting of the base colours so it does take longer than simply blocking out the colour and painting on the Army Painter "dip".

The next batch will have more variation in clothing colour but will still have some red and white to match in with the retinues red and white colour scheme.


All figures are Front Rank (codes WR23 & WR19).

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Wars of the Roses Test Paint

These are for a Wars of the Roses skirmish game we have been thinking about recently. I thought I ought to have a go and see if I could actually paint figures for the era:









All figures are Front Rank (codes WR12 (archer) & WR65 (man-at-arms)).

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A New Year a New Army

Happy New Year to everyone.

Just before Christmas I finally gave in to temptation and brought a selection of Aventine Miniatures very nicely sculpted figures from their Pyrrhic range. I have to say that the service I got from Aventine was very good and quick plus they were able to tailor my order to suit my requirements.

These 16 archers (codes SK03-06) are my first batch, they are Cretans in mercenary service (which appears to have been a common occupation for Cretans in the Classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods) which is evidenced by the bull motif shown on the standard.
















I really like these figures and have started the next batch of Thureophoroi. The next batch will take somewhat longer than the archers as there are more parts to them and assembling them ready for undercoating is more time consuming.

All bases are from Minibits who very kindly produced a series of movement trays for me (more on them another day). Minibits service was also very good and very quick.

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Fiona's WIP

My wife (Fiona) has decided that she will attempt to get me painting 28mm Napoleonics:


She has very kindly undercoated most of the components (the red jackets were painted by me some time ago) though I suspect that with my rather poor record of painting anything bigger than 6mm she will have to complete the figures herself if she wants to ever see them finished!

The figures are all plastic multi-part Peninsular British Flank Company made by Victrix.

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