“Not really a roll of the die”

OK I’ll admit it I’ve been dying to get my hands (and a paintbrush) on my new “Very British Civil War” figures since they arrived from Irregular Miniatures the other week, but I’ve come up with a plan on how I’m going to get them done without boring you lot silly with week after week of the same figures. I’ve added a third list to my “random painting generator” system (Merlin, to continue the Arthurian theme!), so now instead of tossing one coin; I’ll toss two with results pertaining as follows…

2x Heads = Items from Lancelot’s list

2x Tails = Items from Galahad’s list

1x Head and 1x Tail = Items from Merlin’s list

Now I sorted out all the figures from my VBCW buying spree into nice little paintable chunks of three to six figures dependent on type, and put them in the relevant numbered boxes, one to twenty one. But sadly they don’t make a D21 so I’ve decided to paint up the figures in box twenty one this week so it will all work properly from now on (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!). Also this week I’m going to finally complete a project I’ve been itching to do for many years, but more on that later.

Box twenty one contained four policemen armed with rifles, and a police woman (I’ve only got one of these so she might have been a sample), anyway I decided to base them up in my new manner (on two pence pieces and painted to match my super’s/sci-fi etc). Now I don’t want to start bleating on about “scalecreep” and incompatibility of figures, people are different sizes I know and it doesn’t really bother me, but just take another look at the picture above, all of the figures in that photo were sold as 28mm (I rest my case m’lud). Anyway after a coat of matt black, the PC’s were heavily dry-brushed with dark royal blue, then the wood on their rifles was painted chocolate brown and highlighted with beige, next all the black bits (belts, boots, and metal rifle parts) were touched up before I added some chainmail to the rifles and painted on their buttons and helmet badges, then dark grey highlights were added to their leather items and white stripes to the black and white cuffs on their jackets. Next I painted dark flesh on the “fleshy bits” and after their eyes were added highlighted these in pale flesh. The lady was very similar but had white added to her blouse and hat. The good thing about batch painting is that it allowed me to paint all of their hair ginger, as next time I came make them all blond or brunette, anyway once done I quickshaded the lot and based them in my usual way.

This Elven lady was a give away figure at “Bi-Frost” (the SFSFW show) many moons ago and though I like her she is; a) huge! A lofty 42mm’s tall and b) sculpted in a distinct chunky style, so there was no way she would fit into any of my fantasy forces, so what to with her? Well all of the above traits meant she lent herself well to the roll of “Statue” so that’s what she would become. But this meant what I needed was a tall but small base however the lack of one of these meant she became one of those “one day” projects that never actually happen, and I’d basically forgotten about her, till after my dad died and we were clearing his house, always a big (and quite good) dart player he had a tea chest full of trophies including some very small ones (imagine “Actionman’s” FA cup!), now as these were not engraved they went to the local charity shop, then a few days later the penny dropped and… “Damn! They would have been perfect for this figures base”. Upon mentioning this to a friend at work he volunteered to make me one up on his lathe, and what you see here is what he presented me with the next night (even more perfect thanks Rob!). So after drilling and inserting a metal rod into both figure and base and adding a wider scenic base in MDF and Tetrion, she too was undercoated in matt black. Next day I gave her a heavy dry-brushing of deep bronze green followed by successive lighter dry-brushings of a turquoise/stone green mix followed by brass and finally copper. Her base was similarly worked up in shades of grey, before she was glued onto it and a coat of Quickshade applied. She then also had her base finished in the usual way, with a few bits of rubberised moss added for interest. All of the above were then finished with a coat of matt varnish.

Now before I go, myself and another “blogger” (Blax the Kleric) have decided for a bit of fun that next month will be “Mo’vember” rather than November and that each week we have to paint up at least one figure with a moustache, so as well as my usual randomly generated paint victims, I’ll also be slapping some colour on a few “fuzz faced” figures as well. As well as this I’m off to Fiasco tomorrow, so I might pick up some bits there too, (shouldn’t really as I blown my wargaming budget at the moment!)

Till then, cheers Roger.