“Plodding Along” (Weeks 42 & 43)

Well as you may have noticed there was no post last week, but this doesn’t mean I haven’t been painting, because I have. Now I have a new project on the cards that I hope to be starting next month (more on that then), but for now I hope to get finished one of my other long running (too long I might say) sets of figures, so this month is now designated “Very British Civil War” month. To this end I have pulled out all the remaining unpainted figures (four boxes worth), cleaned up the sculpts, added the odd bit of greenstuff here and there, based them all up and undercoated the lot. Now I started with the Policemen I had left first so…

Box 8– (3x 28mm Police Cavalry)

Box 12 – (4x Policemen with machine guns)

Now you might have noticed that there is also a dog in the photo’s but he may or may not get done depended on time, but anyway I’ll just stick with the figures for the minute. So as stated above first job was to clean up the sculpts with a shape knife and file, the horses being particularly bad here. Next I had to make up some bases for the horses so taking the template I have made from two “tuppences” taped together I marked out three “lozenge” shapes onto card and after cutting them out and adding another smaller layer of card on top of this to add a little height, I glued the horses to the new bases, the standing chaps were simply glued to coins with a card spacer, before covering all the bases in “Tetrion” all-purpose filler. After this the mounted Policemen were sat upon the horses (but not glued) and all the figures went out for their coating of matt black.

So working from this black undercoat the four standing “coppers” were first dry-brushed with royal blue before I painted in the wooden stocks of their guns with chocolate brown and butternut, after this I added the metallic parts of the guns along with the buttons and badges in chainmail. Flesh was next I took my flesh tone seven and mixed it with some European flesh and this formed the undercoat, then after their eyes were added pale flesh was mixed with more European flesh for the highlights. Then this group was given chocolate brown hair highlighted with chestnut. Next after I had touched up the boots and belts in black these were highlighted with dark grey and lastly I added their warrant “cuffs” in black and white. Done, now I can turn to the Cavalry.

The Bobbies riding the horses were removed from their mounts and had their legs “clipped” with small pegs (the type you hang Christmas cards with) to keep them upright while I paint them. They were of course painted exactly the same as the above with the addition of their ammunition belts that two of the figures are wearing were added and these were highlighted with some dark grey.

The horses, well rather than just do another group of brown or chestnut one I decided to add a little variation by doing a white, grey and black version, so one I left black and then dry-brushed this in a dark grey/ black mix, which then formed the undercoat on the second, which was then dry-brushed with a dark grey/ lots of white mix, this (you guessed it) them formed the undercoat for the white one. A dry-brushing of white with a tiny bit of grey was applied over this, but I decided it still wasn’t white enough, so a final light dry-brush of white was then put over the top of this. However I then decided that I wasn’t keen on the grey horse so after looking up pictures of “dapple grey” horses I took some white paint and dabbed this on with a sponge over the main body of the horse, then mixing up some mid-grey (dark grey and white), dotted and splodged this over this, more dark grey was blended down it’s legs till I was reasonably happy with the result.

The reins and saddles came next these were painted with a mix of chocolate brown and black. Then I added a couple of forehead “blazes” and socks in either coffee highlighted with cream or black and then did the blankets under their saddles in dark grey highlighted with light grey, I also added a dark red stripe to them (I also did the bed rolls behind the officers like this without the stripe. The eyes and hooves were then added in black and the saddles themselves were painted in a mix of chocolate brown and black and the stirrup straps down the figures legs were added in this too. The officers were glued into place and I touched up any missing paint from their boots with the black, along with the bags at the front of the saddles before they were highlighted with dark grey. Chainmail was then used on the stirrups and bridles, and they were all ready for a coat of Quickshade.

And that is where I’m up to with these chaps. I’ll start of the civilians next, and probably paint the bases on them all at the same time, and do one or two complete group pictures at the end.

Till next time, Cheers Roger.