“Conan. What is Best in Life?”

“To complete your figures”.

“To see them drying before you”

“And to hear the lamentations of your woman” (because you haven’t done the washing up!).

OK so these aren’t the proper words, but Conan did sort of steal them from “Genghis Kahn” himself, so deal with it Conan! As you have probably guessed from this introduction, I have now finished my “Cimmerian” based Barbarian “Hott” army, this means I’ve also completed my entry for Dave Stone’s “Unity Challenge”, though I can’t really “blow my own trumpet” too much as it has taken me two whole months to paint up ten bases of infantry and cavalry (or to put it another way thirty 15mm figures). Not I have to say my proudest achievement! I think the problem was unlike my previous “Hott” armies which consisted of mainly units of identical “rank and file” figures this is essentially and army (albeit a small one!) of individuals, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it anyway!

The final two “Warbands” were completed in the same manner as all the previous ones (as were the riders for the cavalry), with lots of different flesh tones used along with copious amounts of chocolate brown highlighted with either butternut or leather brown, dependent on what they were representing, along with some dark/mid grey used on other areas of fur to add a little variation.

When it came to painting the horses I was originally just going to go with my usual brown/white/black colours but thought that as there is so much “brown” on these figures I’d try and ”spruce” them up a bit, so went with an “American Painted Horse” style like the Native Indians are famous for, whether this really works for Cimmerians I don’t know but I sort of like the end result. I began the painting with a coat of coffee, followed by a heavy dry-brush of cream, then mixing a little black into the chocolate brown, I added the “splodges” to one of the horses, in this dark brown, and highlighted this in just chocolate while I did the “under” splodges on the other two in chocolate brown also, these then were highlighted with chestnut. The harnesses were more chocolate with leather highlights. Black eyes and nostrils and hooves in khaki highlighted with butternut finished them off.

Once everything was glued to its relevant base, they were given a coat of Quickshade, and this really brought out all the wonderful detail sculpted into these great little figures. Then their bases were liberally painted with PVA wood-glue and a few layers of modelling sand was applied along with the odd piece of “kitty litter”. Once dry the bases were painted chocolate brown, before being dry brushed firstly in Khaki and then again in coffee. As I only wanted the odd sparse tuff of grass here and there I decided to forgo my usual areas of scenic green and just added the odd dot of PVA and sprinkled some hairy flock over this, a final “blow over” with some matt varnish and they were done thank god! (Or should that be “thank Crom!). A final thank you to Dave for coming up with this challenge, I don’t think I would have ever got these chap’s “over the line” without it.

I also added the final bits to my “Elvira” sculpt, these were the sleeves on her dress, that were just small balls of putty run around her wrists and blended into the “spikes” I’d already added. Lastly the rest of her hair was added over the “support sausage” (yay got it in!) I’d put on the top of her head and down her back, the detail was then tapped in with the blade on a small knife, I ran a couple of lengths down the sides of her face and out over the tops of her breasts, for interest, and again tapped in the hair detail. Once dry she was pulled from the “bottle top” (I should point out that instead of the corks most people use to sculpt on I use old juice bottle lids filled with “Blutack (Poster tack), The remainder of the florists wire was cut off and she was pushed onto a disk of putty to form her base. I’m not sure when she will get painted as I have been concentrating on my Conan stuff, so it might be this year. Or it might be next, who knows?  

As regular readers will be aware I generally take December off from painting as I prepare and then indulge in the festive season so for the rest of the year I will be posting some requested but slightly different posts….

So till next time, stay safe.

Cheers Roger.