Agema Romans

Agema Republican Romans. The figures that made me like Romans.

Officer.

Lovely delicate little fellow this. Looks almost like a fantasy figure but that is how the Republican Romans looked. He is from the time that Rome was kicking in Greece, the Successors and Hannibal. So the battles can look fantastic.

This is a resin velite officer. The white caused me all sorts of trouble to photograph.

Plastic Velite.

The plastic rank and file are nice too.

Few pics of Perry Miniatures stuff

Been painting Perry stuff on and off for a while. Thought I might as well put some pictures up of the last few things I've painted. The Perry miniatures projects are as follows. 8th Army. Italian desert war. War of the roses. American Civil War(both sides). Napoleonics(everyone, both scales they do) Samurai. Koreans. English Civil War(Cavaliers). And crusades. And got bits of AWI. Like Perry.

Plastic 8th Army.

Started painting these guys and they all look different. Been experimenting with different techniques cos I need to get lots done. Purely for the table top. This one has a nice face so I've done a picture of him. Technique wise I did him from a Vallejo English Uniform base. Seems like a nice colour to build all the khaki and sand on but also dark enough to define the figure without looking too stark which my usual black or dark brown would be.

Scots Grenadier Officer 1860s.

This chap is from the British Intervention range, a sort of what if Britain got involved in the American Civil War. Very pleased with the trousers. Far too bright to be accurate(should be virtually black) but for fictitious ACW battles and the occasional Martian incursion he is just right for me.

Plastic Zouave Command.

Rebels by choice. Wheat's Tiger Zouaves. The masochist's ACW unit of choice. Doing a 24 man unit. Got 6 left to do. Each one takes ages cos of all those stripes, jackets with piping, fezes... Worth it in the end though.

Saga of Saga

Thought I would do a bit of painting of Saga things. But couldn't really stick to one force thus explaining the unit of viking hearthguard and a Skraeling chief.

Also painted a Rus archer but the pictures are really awful.

Technically this guy is a Romano Britain from Musketeer Miniatures.

And here he is with his technically early Saxon friends. Also Musketee.r

Skraeling Chief from Gripping Beast.

Big Jenny

Awesome figure from Freebooter. Got this at Salute this year and already painted. Some kind of record. This is probably the first figure I have painted in ages that I am not totally disappointed with. Lots of bits I would do better if I did it again but not too disgusted with myself. :)

More 15mm

Next Northlander character done. Big dude on a stag.

I am bad at updating blogs

It is now next year. Last post was in October. I will put it down to the perfect shit storm life throws at me and leave it at that.

It isn't that I have not been painting anything since last time. I just have not mentioned it. For the record the projects since the last 7TV stuff have been The Trojan War(even sculpted a tolerable Helen and an execrable amazon), pictures may follow. WW2 Italians, been playing Bolt Action. The American Civil War(Perrys and I have discovered the secret of painting all those plastic figures).

And. Screw you English teachers I just started a sentence with AND. And it was a one word sentence....15mm Barbarians!

Yes. 15mm. Anyone who knows me or has heard me saying horrible things about the hideousness of 15mm over the years may be surprised. Very surprised if they are the Redditch Pimpernel. Private joke. Sorry. My real world friends will get the reference and the internet blog is the most self indulgent of all written media so forgive me if I self indulge. I know how bad that sounds but I am leaving it in anyway.

Picture.

See. Look at him. He's lovely and it's not his fault he's only 15mm tall(to be technical about 18mm).


The Great Mark Copplestone is the one to blame. He has done a range called Barbarica and they are the sort of Conany barbarians I have always wanted. The 15mm thing was a bit of a downer at first but I gave it a try. And I liked it.

These are fantastic figures despite being 15mm.

Now this is not going to send me running towards the expensive if you think about it, bags of shrapnel that most people call 15mm and shuffle around a table while gloomily playing some game with DB in the title. Never!

What it has made me do is utterly overpaint tiny little barbarians. The detail is the same as regular Copplestone 28mm man sized figures. He is so clever.

These are the Characters pack so I have gone a bit mad on the painting. I think the regulars will get a more basic paint. Not sure if I would ever complete the army if I NMMed the lot.

This is an ice troll. Not sure who's side he is meant to be on but in my head the trolls are friendly with the Conans.

Currently working on some big bugger on a horse. Pictures whenever.

Good girls wear black.

This is a Crooked Dice Dare Sister. Which are Captain Scarlet angels by a less litigious name. I have popped a spare Crooked Dice head on and twisted the arm a bit. OOO! Look at Mr "pro sculptor" and his conversions! I like it. Painting could be neater but I did it for the fun of it.

Back in the days when I did this sort of thing for a living I would have used way more layers of paint to get it looking much smoother but nowadays(currently in enforced hiatus due to being a 24/7 carer for an alzheimerzy parent) I paint for rest and relaxation. Figures only need to look good at arms length on a table so why kill yourself to make them look good blown up x20 on a computer screen.

Unless you want to. Tis an art. No real wrongs or rights.

Which leads to this question.

What do you do when it goes a bit wrong? Not utterly ruined, just not how you'd hoped or mostly ok.

Back in the day I would have painted at it till all looked right, and eventually burned the paint off in a bath of Nitromorse.

These days I leave it. The figure is painted and therefore looks better than an unpainted one and I do tend to lose interest after the first paint so I have bags of stripped figures sitting around boring me.

Viddy this Mongoose Judge Hershy.

Judge Hershy. A bit crap.

I painted this after a stress filled, exhausting day. At the time it looked quite good. NMM, nice face, good contrast on the green. I put it down in the early am and went to bed.

Next day I noticed the rough chest badge, the plainly wrong NMM shoulders - highlights all out of whack, and the leathers could have gone a tone lighter in the highlights.

Instead of having another go I had an epiphany. Why not just leave it? It looks fine on the table and the time spent fixing it could be used to reduce the lead mountain some more. Genius idea! Been doing that ever since and the boxes of boxes of figures are slowly getting coloured in. Instead of angsting over judge hershy some more I laid into the Gene Hunt figure from the last post.

Remember the most important 5 words in figure painting.

Fuck it. That will do.