Last Chancers - 2 down, 10 to go

I thought I would post something other than 6mm for a change. These two are 'Grease Monkey' and 'Fingers' from Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers. I bought these years ago and have finially decided to paint them up so I can sell them to fund my next projects.

T.

The Skirmish Screen

I haven't been posting as much as I would like to and Joey seems to have disappeared into the ether (i.e. the real world populated with real people rather than little toy soldiers ; ). So as my Napoleonic project progresses I will endeavour to post more pictures and hopefully in the next month or so maybe even a battle report. Anyway I finished my voltigeurs in skirmish order and am very pleased with them, so I thought I would take the opportunity to post some pictures of my collection so far.

The French advance (click to enlarge):


The voltigeurs screen the advance and hold broken terrain like forests:


The voltigeurs make their way through the trees to the edge of a field ready for harvest:


On the other side of the crop field the Austrians wait, positioned on a hill:


French artillery and cavalry are next on the hit list and maybe a couple of the those humongous 28mm miniatures as well.

T.

March of the Austrians (3)

Its been a month exactly since my last post; the blame for this can be fairly and squarely placed on the fine weather we have been having recently. It seems wrong to sit inside hunched over the painting desk when the sun is shining and there are barbecues to go to, so progress on the Austrians stalled slightly. Then the rain came back, I got back to work and have made lots of progress, in fact I have finished painting the little blighters! So.......

Step 7: Now all the white is done I can do all the fiddly bits. First up are the cuffs, collars and turnbacks. Turn backs are easy, cuffs are ok but those collars can be quite tricky. The trick as with all steps is to find the right angle of approach so you hit the area you want. These have been done in the regimental colours for Reuss-Greitz's regiment no 55 and Czatoryski's no 9 as below:


Step 8: Next up is the musket which I do with Mahogany Sand/Brown 846 and GW Mithril Silver.

Step 9: Then its the back pack with Flat Earth 983 and Neutral Grey 992 for the rolled up great coat which is just done by dotting the raised areas.


Step 10: The brass plate on the helmet is done with Gold 996. These details which can be quite tricky are made so much easier to paint thanks to the excellent way these guys are sculpted allowing you to just run your brush along the detail to pick it out.

Step 11: The crests on the helmet are done with Flat Yellow 953, followed by black to give a nice neat stripe. This is the final step for the basic infantry and for me makes them look really smart.

Step 12: Next up I do all the last little fiddly bits like the drums, Officer's mounts, blood and hair colours on the casualty figures which makes a nice change from the production line approach.

The horses are the only stage at which I do more than one layer. I've used GW Devlan Mud wash which seems to work well.

Well that's, that. Quite a hefty amount of painting and from now on I think I will only take on single regiments rather than brigades at a time. However now these are done I have all the regulars I need for a division, so I can enjoy doing more interesting bits and pieces like cavalry, artillery, skirmishers and commanders. As ever if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Happy painting,

T.

March of the Austrians (2)

Step 6: Just a quick update to let you know that I have painted all the white on the Austrians, as you can imagine that's a lot of white! Now this colour is done they are well on their way to completion. I won't give a step by step for this bit as its pretty obvious what I have done from the pictures. However I will suggest to anyone thinking of doing big batches of 6mm is to break the painting down into separate stages and bruch strokes, then just focus on getting these done one at a time as it can be quite daunting to paint 216 figures in one go. However the knowledge that once these are done I will have 12 battalions completed; enough for a reasonable game keeps me going.


Next I will do the cuffs, collars and turnbacks in the colours of Reuss-Greitz's regiment no 55 and Czatoryski's no 9. These are light blue and green. Next update soon (hopefully).

T.

March of the Austrians (1)

As I mentioned at the end of my last post my next painting endeavour would be to complete 2 regiments/6 battalions/216 figures worth of Austrians to bring them up to strength with the French. Well this post will be the first of a few following my progress and also be a simple guide to how I paint Adler Napoleonics. It will hopefully encourage me to keep going as there are a lot of painting hours going into this but once complete my Napoleonic project should be well on its way to two table worthy forces.

Step 1: I clean the casts; getting rid of flash, mould lines and wash them in soapy water to get rid of casting residue. I think this step is especially important with 6mm as any faults in the casting won't be so easily hidden by a paint job at this scale. Adler figures do tend to have a lot of flash and the occasional casting flaw but do tend to clean up quickly and well.

Step 2: I use PVA glue to attach the strips of 4 or singles if command/casualty figures to lolly sticks, then undercoat them black using several thin coats making sure I get all the nooks and crannies.

Step 3: I then paint the earth round the feet as this will help with the basing later. As you can see in the picture I have cheated a bit as I had 4 fully painted Austrians left over from my other 2 Regiments so all I have to do is change the colour of their facings and their done (every little helps).

Step 4: I always like to start with the flesh no matter what scale I am painting as it helps to bring the figure alive and encourages me to finish it (can't resist their little faces staring up at me pleading .....paint me..... paint me.... ahem! anyway...). With 6mm figures (especially when you are painting lots of them) it helps to break it down into stages with as few brush strokes as possible and go along the line of figures on your strip and repeat the strokes on each. First I do one cheek with a single 'blob'.

Then the other......


I then join the two cheeks up with a single stroke across the chin

A light dot on the nose, just enough to show its there and a short line underneath for the top lip.

I then 'tighten' in the cheeks around the nose and 'dot' the hands to finish

Step 5: Next comes the white trousers. I break this down into a number of strokes that will enable me to get to all the areas that show. This is probably one of the most boring bits to do, no where near as fun as all the straps and things : (.

This is as far as I am now, I will endeavour to get as many other steps done and post an update next weekend.

The Impetuous Project

On a separate note, I have had a couple of 500 point games of Impetus now and have to say it is currently my most favourite rule set being both fun, exciting, tactical and historical. As such I am now very keen to collect some 6mm armies for the Punic Wars and have been playing around with ideas on how I want to do my armies. I've now decided to go with the 15mm scale bases giving me a 80mm by 30/40mm base size for heavy infantry. This should give me units of 60 Roman Hastatii/Principe looking a bit like this:

The rule set and base sizes seem ideal for 6mm Mass armies. After ordering some Romans from Baccus I am very pleased with the sculpts. They aren't as detailed as Adler figures but this is actually a strength when I will be having 60 of them to a base. They paint up very will, quite quickly and should look amazing on mass.

That's it for now. Hopefully more updates from Joe or me soon.

T.

Pointless pontification

A long overdue update by me but I thought I should drop in and outline what I'm currently doing hobby-wise and pontificate pointlessly.
The less said about my painting the better I think. I haven't don't too much since my last update, although I have completed a few of my Blood Bowl team. I am having a bit of a crisis of confidence at the moment though because I'm finding it hard to judge when a figure is finished. A part of me will look at a figure and think about adding just one more highlight or just one more glaze, etc. This usually happens when I have spent too long around one project (this BB team has been on the go for about seven or eight months) and I find you lose a bit of perspective.
Despite this, I feel I'm nearing the end on a project that, in the hands of any normal painter, would've been finished months ago! Anyway, must go an browse the Baccus website for my next project...

J

Painting Report

Haven't posted for a while so I thought I would post some pics of the fruits of my labour from last weekend. First up is a British Riflemen for the Zulu wars from Empress Miniatures. This was a commission given to me by one of the guys at the club (Loughton Strike Force). He is doing Rorke's Drift 1:1 and will be sending this figure off with hundreds of his unpainted comrades to one of those painting companies in Sri Lanka to act as a painting guide.


I also based up another French regiment. However they still require some flock, I am waiting for the new small scale flock to arrive from Baccus so I can try this out rather than the longer stuff I normally use. This regiment brings me up to a total of 12 battalions of line, with only three battalions of Legere, a few brigade and divisional commanders, a couple of artillery batteries, skirmishers and a light cavalry regiment to go before my division is complete.


So whats on the painting mat now? Lots and lots of Austrians. I have set myself a bit of a challenge to get a whole brigade of six battalions done in one to catch up with the French. The handy thing with the Austrians however is that apart from command figures they are all identical allowing me to do some speed painting. I will be posting regular updates to keep myself motivated and also to act as step by step guide to how I do my Adlers as requested by David. Heres a pic of all 204 of them ready to go.


Also look out for a 500 point Impetus battle report in the near future.

T.