I'll open this week's post with my long overdue Warhammer Fantasy Lizardmen Cavalry, how much better can it get than big lizards riding even bigger lizards!
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| Finally! The completed Mounted Lizardmen |
These guys have been hard work, as there is so much detail on them and it takes time to do them justice, that and given that as ever, I sourced them from eBay and this meant that they arrived pre-assembled and thus much harder to get in to all the nooks and crannies to cover all the detail that is found on them.
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| Another view of the Lizardmen |
This is a unit of 8 x Lizardmen, riding Cold Ones, I did a similar unit for an AHPC XIII Challenge last year and these were the older sculpts and as such were simpler to paint - according to my memory at least! After applying a cream coloured undercoat, I decided to make the riders green with a brownish yellow underbelly, the Cold Ones would be blue with a similar but lighter yellowish brown underbelly.
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| Lizardmen in column with a good view of the banner |
I used GW Algae Green for the riders scaly upper surfaces and a mix of watered down GW Nazdreg Yellow and Bad Moon Yellow for the underbellies etc. On the Cold Ones I used the same mix as on the riders.though I tried to keep these lighter. I used Army Painter Magic Blue for their scales, all horns, teeth and claws were treated as if they were bones and as such got a wash of GW Skeleton Horde and then a drybrush of 'Linen' then White to draw out the highlights.
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| Close-up of two Lizardmen Riders |
All straps were painted with GW Snakebite Leather and saddlery and shields were painted with AP Vampire Red before being washed with AP Soft Tone for shading and depth. There are lavish amounts of gold on these figures and this was done with Valeijo Brass and washed with AP Light Tone ink.
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| Two more Lizardmen riders |
Then it was on to endless details of feathers, skulls, banners and then retouching other areas as I managed to splash / mark already completed areas as I did the details! For the record these figures contain 8 skulls!
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| Right Lizardmen Rider Champion and a companion |
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Standard Bearer and Musician, if you look closely you'll see the musician does not have a drum to bang!
An unfortunate side effect for getting figures from eBay,
I'll have to source a suitable drum to correct this on when I can.... |
I took another sprue for Warlord Games Epic 15mm ACW Confederates and decided to paint them up as Fenians for a potential 1866 Fenian Raid of Canada scenario. Now I'm no expert on those period but it has always plucked at my imagination - I'm a big ACW fan - and ways to use my ACW collection in different ways is always of an interest to me.
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| Completed Fenian Regiment, in epic 15mm |
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| Unit in column of march heading to the right! |
I think in reality these Fenian units were largely in Union Army surplus gear - so mostly blue - but also I'd expect a lot of civilian homespun materials as well. Looking for inspiration on Google turns up a few images but one of the most interesting one I found is below.
I particularly liked this as it seems to show an interpretation of a Fenian unit in Green, so I decided to base my test unit on this image.
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| Marching to the left, the classic Harp insired, green flag is clearly visible. The other flag is green with yellow stars, both sourced from Google |
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| Close-up of a couple of the bases,I could have used a union sprue to get most figures in kepis, but I liked the irregular feel of the confederate sprue with a lot of blanket rolls in the mix |
Figures were undercoated in light grey and then GW Russ Grey (which is quite blue) was used to paint the trousers whist I used a mix of GW Algae Green & Orc Skin to do their jackets. Boots & straps were black and weapons, skin and hair was done in natural colours. All got a watered down Dark Tone wash before varnishing. Flags sourced from Google!
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| Another close-up |
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| A better view of the star covered flag |
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| Final couple of bases |
Next I have a small group of 3D printed Rogue Trader Space Marines, now sadly I'm old enough to remember when the original guys came out (maybe around 1985 at a guess) and I have a couple of these in my collection somewhere. One has gone astray over the years but I know have the other somewhere, I saw it a couple months back, I just don't know where at this exact time!
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| I'm pleased with how these guys came out |
I had painted the originals in white armour, but having just done so many Tau in white, I wanted to have a break, so instead I have done them in a deep red with bright green eyes, lenses & laser sights. Belts were done in black and weapons in silver (as per my originals) with a few added details of red and blue wires.
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| Weapons are a far cry from the ubiquitous Marine Bolter on modern figures |
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| Another view, showing the eys and helmet sensors |
As with my originals I have given them a big 'M' as their unit badge - back in the day I called these my McMarines for hopefully obvious reasons!
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| This is pretty much the pose of one of the old metal figures I know I have somewhere |
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| Final shot of the Marines |
Next is another Flodden Scots unit, this time spearmen, so I assume these to be men supplied by a 'less well schooled' noble, rather than the fashionable pike block that I recently completed. I think in reality the move to pikes from spears was a contributory factor in the Scots loosing the battle, so I may be perverse in any scenario that I put together and give these guys better morale than the pike blocks as the spear had been a weapon of choice in Scotland for centuries - as opposed to the new fangled pike!
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| Scots Spear block for Flodden. |
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| With a selection of flags to divert the eye! |
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| The pointy end of the unit, again 2 ranks of three bases. |
Anyway for painting purposes these guys were tackled in exactly the same manner as the pike block, as was their basing and organisation into a 3 x 2 base unit, again with lots of flags to distract the eye!
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| The unit marching to the left |
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| and to the right! |
Finally to get up to date with the bonuses and shelves that I have visited here is my Library Map, I forget to post this last week!
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