Basing Day

Quite a few projects today, including sci-fi troopers to mediaeval warriors and even some ACW.

Above, Clone troopers get their red desert mix with tiny 2mm tufts. These tiny Tufts really do make all the difference with these 15mm figures.

Green 4mm tufts look great as grass clumps in the muddy English field look. I gave the grass a coating of the mud to help blend everything together.

 This is a Confederate base for Bonnie Blue Flag, when a unit fails the 10% rule, this base can be put down. It shows a unit that has run out of ammo. It frantically searches for cartridges in empty pouches while others jeer and throw rocks. A really fun little scene to put together. Just needs a Matt varnish to finish it off.

The little 2mm tufts are perfect for these figures.

Clone Wars Project

The crashed Republic ship is now finished. I added some carbon scoring with the Tamiya weathering kit. I also painted some magic 'shifter' paint on the view ports so the colour hue changed from different angles. Quite nice I thought for a polarised view port.

Droid command, a Super tactical droid briefs his subordinate.

A Super battle droid stands guard.

Super tactical droid and Tactical droid.

I was really impressed with little sculpts, the detail is very good for such a small printed figure.

I also finished off two more bases of Clones today, I just kept them in their white armour without any unit colour scheme. These can be used as 'shinys' or green units. Keeping them white and more generic lends them to many more theatres of war.

It's nice to see the Clone against the Republic ship.

The polarised view port.

This would make a great objective for a game, two Tactical droids in a downed ship.

 Next up...basing.

Crashed Republic shuttle

I ordered this printed ship off eBay to use in the Clone Wars project. It's a kind of generic ship but did have definate nods towards a Star wars craft. This is good enough for me.

As it's printed with the printed lines still visible, I stuck on a few plasticard panels. This will be nice and smooth and should contrast well.

White Hawk down...I repeat White Hawk down!

The model was about £12 and is really 28mm in scale. This shouldn't matter as the bigger the better for tiny 15mm figures. It will make for a great objective with a platoon of Clones stranded in the middle of the board to rescue. Stick an injured Jedi in there and you really have a rescue mission on your hands.

The huge gaping hole in the vessel is great for putting bases of figures in and will take a few 40mm bases. Heavy cover from the laser fire amid the crashed wreckage for sure.

Once the craft is painted in the Republic colours it should look right at home crawling with Clones.

 

Republic colour scheme.

Once the glue was dry I gave it a spray with a white rattle can. I also gave the blast hole a spray of black. I ended up keeping this effect and just blocked in the colours around it.

Now we're getting somewhere, the Republic colour scheme really puts the ship into the Clone Wars setting.

"Take cover, watch those wrist rockets!"

Like I mentioned before, I didn't really change the black spray as it worked so well. Using the reference for the shuttle, I painted on the Republic colours picking out key panels for the different colours.

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The real magic came when I gave it a wash with thinned oils. These ran all over the ship and into the recesses creating instant panel lines.

Space 1999 eat your heart out!

I'm pleased with this quite paint job, it was a lot quicker and easier than I had first thought. 

Orcs and Elves

I have been cramming an extra figure onto the odd base to use up the left overs.

The extra smaller Orc at the front helps with the scale of the boss, making him look even more formidable. It also adds to the packed horde look with hundreds of bodies crushed together.

This is the latest base and the last of the batch. These were the last in the painting qué and a couple that was finished long ago.

An extra blade shows the addition of a Nick Lund goblin to the mix.

 

On a different note, here are some beautiful Elves to chase away the darkness. These are the classic sculpts from Alternative Armies. I found myself just painting them in greens before I could stop myself.

The copper shield should tie these guys back into the autumnal look of the Silvan army. These were great fun to paint and are very nice figures.

Contrast paints are great for leather equipment. I think this is Gorgrunter fur painted over a white undercoat.

Simple green paint and ink washes over most surfaces helps give the character a woodland vibe. It's rude not to have a few green clad guys in amongst all the browns of autumn.

Update: A new Elf captain had stepped forward to lead the next company. He is a Reaper Miniatures figure and is quite large, but most of it is just cloak. Height wise he is good. 

Beneath his drab cloak he is actually quite colourful. Going through my Elf names now to see if one sticks.

Another Vitrix Norman conversion. 

I've just added some very small details to him like the hem of his tunic. Being an officer he gets a bit more time spent on him.

Their numbers are growing in the shadows. The mounted character has been painted for a while. Although, being resin I'm a little hesitant about putting him on a big 60mm base. 

Resin figures are nicely sculpted and detailed but their fragile nature is still a real kicker. Maybe a display case would be okay but the rough and tumble of a wargames event...not so much.

Chrome paint is used to give his elven blade a razor edge. Once given a coat of floor varnish it gleams from every angle. For these woodelves I give the blades of green ink to echo their woodland magic.

Gorgrunter fur contrast paint was used to tweak the colour of the shield. The paint is great for enriching any bronze or gold work, creating lovely rich colours.