“One Little, Two Little, Three Little….”

“Sometimes men just can’t help acting on impulse”, as the old commercial used to say and that is very much what happened to me the other week, scrolling down the “Miniatures Page” website I came across a news story that “Lancashire Games” were having a 20% off sale, and it was coming to an end that very night. So not really looking for anything but just being nosey, I clicked the link…Long story short I talked myself into six “wild west frontier” wagons, some settlers and twenty four mounted Indian Braves in 10mm. The justification in my mind being that I could quickly paint these up and do a little solo gaming with some really simple homebrew rules. Anyway they arrived a couple of weeks back (just as I was finishing my Blood Bowl Team) and after their three day “quarantine period” in the garage were put in readiness, so I could I set to work on the little chaps as soon as “Elvira” was finished.

Now the trouble with 10 (and 15mm) figures I have found is though they are smaller so need less detailed paintjobs, and of course you get more for your money, they do need as much (if not more) “cleaning up” of the castings than 28mm figures, and as I said you also have more of the little buggers! So that was the next job (Booo!!), I also discovered that I didn’t have any appropriate sized bases, so I sorted out this problem, by ordering some from “Minibits”, they thankfully arrived swiftly so we were off again. Next problem was the inconsistency of the thickness of the cast bases on the figures, now I know a lot of people wouldn’t care or even notice this on figures this small, but it bugged me no end, so what to do, either spend eternity sanding down the bottoms of the Indians horses bases or build up the ones on the settlers? Well out came my paper guillotine and some 10mm squares were cut from thick card and sandwiched between the settlers and the new MDF 15mm square bases. The Indians were also glued onto their new 20x15mm bases, the wagons however would have to wait for now, as I felt I had more than enough to keep me going.

Next I had to “fill” around the bases of all of them, I went back and forth over whether to use “Tetrion” filler or my basing sand, in the end I went with the filler (still not sure that was the right decision), then it was out for a spray coat of matt black, and BANG as I was picking up the board I spray my figures on, I dropped it! (These figures do seem cursed!) Luckily I was going to touch them up with a brush after this anyway so not a major disaster. I thought I’d split them up into groups, starting with the twenty four mounted Indians (more batch painting hooray!!). So about half the horses were painted chocolate brown then highlighted with chestnut, and the other half were painted coffee and highlighted with cream. I then added splodges of the opposite colours (chocolate and chestnut or coffee and cream) over this along with a few in black and dark grey over the coffee/cream ones to create some American painted horses.

Turning to the “Redskins” themselves next there are six different poses (three with bow and three with rifles), So I took my pot of conveniently named “red Indian flesh” (honestly it is check the paint list at the top of the page if you don’t believe me!), and after painting all the exposed flesh areas with this I then gave them a wash with skin wash ink, and finally another highlight with some more red Indian flesh. Clothing came next, so a base of chocolate brown was applied over these (and some other) areas and then Khaki was highlighted over the clothing areas, with leather brown used over the (you guessed it!) leather ones. I deliberately left a little black showing around the edges, to better define the colours, with them being smaller figures I thought this would help. Next I added the bow’s these were once again undercoated in chocolate brown this time highlighted (heavily) with butternut, I also added the couple of rifle stocks and lower barrels you could see in this too. Talking of the rifles I next added chainmail over the barrels, I know this is probably (well definitely) a lot shinier than they should be but again I thought it would make them easier to identify in game terms.

I dug the coffee and cream back out next to do the feathers in their hair along with their breastplates and the fights on their arrows. Finally to add a splash colour I painted some of their loin cloths in porcelain blue and others along with some of their accoutrements in bright red. It was at this point that I discovered an extra figure that I had somehow managed to miss after the black spray coat (see cursed!!), I’ll have to do him once I start on my settlers. My customary coat of “Quickshade” Strong tone followed and once dry the bases were first painted with Musket Brown, before being given dry-brushes with sand and then coffee. I still have the settlers and wagon’s to paint, but at least it’s a start.

A couple of weeks back “Pete” over at “SP Projects Blog” (check out the link at the bottom of the page), posted some very lovely winter war WW2 Finn’s in 20mm, I mentioned that I had some 20mm Sci/Fi figures painted in winter colours, and Pete asked if I could post a couple of pictures of them. Well never one to disappoint (not what my wife says!). Here they are, I seem to think they are by “RH Models”. Do you know what, I’d forgotten just how nice these figures are, thanks Pete 😉.

So till next time, stay safe and cheers Roger.

https://spprojectblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/12/from-the-shed-more-finns/

 

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