Batch Painting II ...Part 6...almost there!

So another couple of productive painting sessions and these guys are nearly complete.  I got the flesh tones done and eye balls painted.  I also put the wood grain on the spear shafts and got most of the other fiddly bits taken care of.  Really I just need to highlight the Gold areas...of which there are very few...then it will be time to tackle shields and bases.  Though I'm not really sure what to paint on the flag hanging from the musicians trumpet....hhhmmmm

Anywhere...Here are the pics.

On the subject of the Shields I want to say a huge THANK YOU to all the folks that copntacted me or took a couple of minutes to dig through their bits box.  I think I'm all set now but greatly appreciate all the help.

Cheers,

Blue

A Quick Cry for help....

So...after writing that post yesterday...and realizing that I hadn't really thought about shields for these spearmen...I went for a long troll through my "Box O' Shields" and found one that is a good option for them....sadly I only have three of them...and need 15!  So I'm looking for some help...any one have a few of these old Marauder fighter shields they can spare?  I have trades and Cash!

thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Blue

Batch Painting II Part 5...and LPL 7 Announced!

Howdy all...

I managed to get a fair amount done on my batch of spearmen over the last two days.  I finished highlighting all the cloth areas (though I may add one more layer to the blue..) I highlighted up the padded armor and then gave it a good wash with a mix of Gryphone Sepia and ancient Chestnut ink...gives it a nice reddish brown look.  Then went back and picked out all the studs in the armor with a spot of black followed by some bolt gun metal.  I also highlighted the blades and armor with Mithril Silver and then washed these areas with a slightly diluted Badab Black wash (approx 75% strength).  Lastly I got the first highlight on the leather areas.  They aren't done yet but they are starting to come together.

Almost there!

...so just the brown areas to highlight...and then the faces and fiddly bits....oh yeah...and shields!  I haven't really thought about the shields! shit!

Anyway...on another topic....

The seventh edition of the Lead Painters League was announced on the Lead Adventure Forum this week... I greeted the announcement with mixed feelings. 

First of all the downside....the timing couldn't be much worse for me...I'm right in the middle of painting this unit and have to finish it before I can start on any more teams for the LPL.  Also, the late start this year means that the contest will stretch into June!  As a working archaeologist my summers are extremely busy and I'm often on the road and away from my painting desk. Then there are all the late nights and stress of trying to get a team done EVERY week...for 10 weeks... I dunno...its a tough call...

On the other hand...competing in the LPL pushes my hobby to new levels...both in the speed it insists on...and in developing my photography and terrain making skills (both of which need work!).  There is also a very collegial atmosphere to the League that is really fun to be a part of.  Plus at the end of it you have a lot of painted figures...which is the point of the whole thing right?!  I have no illusions of winning this contest...the skill level displayed by the top-tier challengers is out of this world!  Its more like a marathon...you know the Kenyan is going to win...but you have to compete and finish...just cuz!

So...yeah...I'm going to do it....you know I will...  I actually have three teams mostly painted and one complete and even photogrpahed.  that puts me in a better starting position than I've ever been before....and I still have the week and a half after I turn in my Bugman's unit and before the end of the LPL submission deadline to get more teams in the bag....I hope.  If I could have 5 teams painted and 3 photographed before the contest actually starts I would be feeling pretty good about my chances of having a new team each round.

The special themed rounds this year are fairly straight forward.  The first round theme is to depict a command element of some sort....I already have this one taken care of.  Round 5's theme is "Historic Civil War"....this is the one round that I will need to buy figures to paint...and I have some real jems in mind...in fact I've been looking for an excuse to buy/paint these guys since I saw the greens for them on LAF.  Round 10's theme is Sci Fi....this will see me dipping into my extremely small collection of RT era minis...we will have to see what pops out?!

So...thats today's update....thanks for stopping by...see you all soon!

Cheers,

Blue

Batch Painting II Part 4

I had a fairly productive weekend...I got all the base colors on the spear men and even highlighted the red areas and started on the blue.  Tonight I hope to finish the blue and green areas and then turn my attention to the padded armor and flesh highlighting.

Only one pic today....

On another topic....the seventh running of the painters has been anounced!  Lead Painters League 7 starts in April!  More on this in another post.

Cheers,

Blue

Batch Painting II Part 3

Great!  Thanks for the suggestions all...Both Erny and Thantsants pointed me in a direction that I was leaning toward myself...toward a brick red or terracotta color.  Excellent...with that in mind I delved into trying to create a color I was happy with.  And that took took some doing....I don't have a handy color pre made that fit the bill...and I have a love hate relationship with the painting the color red....I love the super saturated red that you are used to seeing on my Puff and slash figures....but making a believable red that didn't turn pink or orange while highlighting has always proved difficult for me.  So I tried a couple of colors...and after lengthhy discussions with my Color Consultant (my lovely wife) I came up with this color...What say you?

Sorry for the crappy iPhone Pic...

So that took up half of last night....I spent the other half getting the base colors on all the cloth areas...except those that will end up reddish...they will probably get a brown base coat as well.  So here is were I am at this point.

Cheers for now!

Blue

Batch Painting II Part 2 Bret Spearman

Alright! last night I got base color on all the metal areas (bolt gun metal) as well as a brown base color (VMC Chocolate brown) on all leather, wood, and Gold areas.

The pressure is really on with these guys....the contest that I am entering them in closes at the end of the month...so I need to average 1 figure a day right up to the end....its going to be close!  Tonight I'll start to get the base colors on the cloth areas.  I will be using the same Blue and Green as you saw on the Bret archers...but I'm still trying to decide what the tertiary color should be.  So far I have used yellow/tan, orange, and grey as my third colors....what else would you suggest? A faded red?  Some sort of purple? hmmmm better make my mind up quick!

Wish me luck!

Cheers,

Blue

Whoops...forgot... and Batch Painting II Part 1

I completely forgot to include this in my last post.....I meant to include a picture of all the the complete Bretonnians archers that I have at this point...this small "unit" includes the 5 I painted for the LPL last year as well as the 3 I just completed for the BSL.

Here they are:

They will be joined by their 10 comrades very soon!

Also...I started in on the Bret Spearman unit that I'm painting up for the Bugman's Brewery Unit painting challenge.  Last night I got the base coat of the flesh areas taken care of on all 16 figures.

Using my new "handles" for these guys...nice!

...and so it begins again!

More soon!

Cheers,

Blue

Batch Painting Update and MORE!

Greeting all.  Time for a bit of an update.  The long slog thru my group of 36 minis continues...I'm happy to report that I put the finishing touches on 10 of them last night.  The rest are a few good long painting sessions away from being complete.  And while I can't show you the whole lot of finished archers here are a selection of 3 that I used for my latest entry in the Brush Slave League over on CDO.  These will give you a good idea what the rest of the unit looks like.

I think they came out quite nice...am I saving time by painting so many at a time? ....the jury is still out on that.  I will certainly work on smaller groups in the future...maybe 10-15 models at a time.

I will probably have to pause on the the rest of the big batch I have been working on and shift gears to working on a small unit of Bret spearman (10-16 strong) that I have committed to completing before the end of March for the Unit painting Challenge over on Bugman's Brewery...I run the contest so it will be embarrassing if I don't have a unit to submit!  Luckily I'll be able to follow the progress of that unit a bit more closely with blog posts so I will (hopefully) be posting a bit more frequently going forward.

On another front I recently received some new Puff and Slash goodness from Lead Adventure Miniatures (LAM).  The latest Brugelburg release from LAM included a few Arquibusiers that I had to add to my collection.  Sadly there are only four sculpts at this point...not nearly enough to make an independent unit...so I ordered them on the hopes that I could mix them in with my current unit of handgunners which is made up of the Empire figures that were released at the tail end of the 3rd edition.  These are also excellent figures but they could use a bit more diversity of sculpts...particularly in firing poses.  Luckily the LAM release includes 3 unique firing poses.  Much to my joy when I mixed them in they look right at home.  The LAM boys are a tad stockier and more elaboratly decorated but I think they will blend in nicely when the unit is painted up.

Here is the before unit picture

Obviously I need to convert that damaged Halberd into a standard...

And here it is with the LAM gunners mixed in

And here are a few side by side photos of the individual figures (alternating between citadel and LAM)

Really fantastic figures all around...the Brugelburg forces just keep getting better and better.

Other than that my hobby time has been mostly adsorbed with buying/selling and trading little hunks of lead!  Its been a busy month or so with lots of small packages coming and going to all parts of the world.  I'm getting really close to reaching my initial collecting goals...just trying to plug the last few gaps in some units and am now focusing on the details likes identifying and procuring shields and bases for all my units.  Also since we are having a brief warm spell here in the NE US I've been getting a lot of figures primed and ready to paint.

So...that's whats happening in my slice of the Hobby world....more soon!