If you go down to the woods today.....

....you might find yourself getting duffed up by a bunch of Chumbondas

They got sprayed with matt varnish today, so I decided to take a couple of squad shots.

All that needs doing now is to glue them onto some washers for transport on magnetic sheet lined trays.


No actual painting done today, but I did prep 24 Alan light horse, which have also had a bath and are now drying out. I should get the horses stuck onto painting sticks before work tomorrow, then the riders will be glued in place when I get back after playing another ironclads game (ACW this time) at the club.

WIP: Chumbondas #4; WIP: Riders for the TEDF Horses

TEDF? What the heck is that? Tamsin's Equine Development Facility of course!


Chumbondas

This afternoon I did the ground work on the bases - base coat (Khaki Grey 880), wash (chestnut wash with a little bit of the black wash added) and dry-brush (Khaki Grey 880 and Iraqi Sand 819 in equal parts). I started taking pics when I spotted that the battery was almost out - I want to get some close up shots before I do the Klear/ink step, then they'll get a matt spray in the morning.

Riders for the TEDF Horses

I took a couple of pics showing their current primed state. I'll make a start on painting them tomorrow - boots and trousers first, then glue them onto their horses before painting the rest of the detail. I'll also be putting in the lances at this stage.

The 4 riders which broke at hip or knee

Other Projects

Well, in between various bits of painting I'll also need to start work on prepping my "Alan" light horse and Scythians. I might also prep some of my SF figures so that I've got something to switch to if my painting mojo flags again from doing lots of ancients. I haven't decided which ones yet - my Chewks from Khurusan could be a fun side-project, but there aren't many of them so I'll probably need to do something else as well - my GZG New Israelis perhaps?

A few updates

WIP: Chumbondas

Just did a little bit on these - Hull Red detailing on the weapons. Tomorrow I might do a little more - some black/brown wash into the eye sockets and a final very light dry-brush to highlight/weather the belts, weapons etc.

WIP: Sarmatian Command Group Figures

I've decided for these that I will try a different approach from my normal painting style - the riders will get a more detailed effort - base, wash, highlights for the cloth areas; the armour will be done as black base, Gunmetal Grey drybrush, Oily Steel highlight.

To this end, I've just done the black base coat for the armour.

WIP: Riders for the Horses

Counting the 2 lancers that broke at the hip during the prep phase, I've got 44 lancer figures and 16 armoured  bowmen almost ready to go. At the moment they are soaking in a tub of water/washing up liquid. I'll be rinsing them shortly, then letting them dry out overnight.

I've decided to abandon the crazy thoughts I'd had of rigging up some kind of holder for painting them - they'll be spread out on some card, spray primed on one side, flipped, spray primed on the other side. I'll then paint the bodies below the neck before gluing them to their horses and finishing the painting.

After these, 60 more lancers to prep, prime and paint, and then my Sarmatians are complete (although I might want to do a couple more command groups).


Remember those mis-delivered books?

I never did do an update about that. Basically, City Link were incredibly unhelpful and told me to contact Amazon, and that if Amazon wanted to try to reclaim the costs of the books they were welcome to try.

Amazon on the other hand were incredibly helpful, said they would send replacements and would mark them to be be delivered by Royal Mail. Unfortunately, the books were all out of stock (I'd ordered the last ones that were in stock) so I've had to wait.

3 of the 4 books arrived today (by Royal Mail), with the last one due within the next week. Hurrah!


Pics (lack of)

3 days, 3 posts, zero pics - I promise I will post some tomorrow, but there's not much worth showing you right now.


OK, Who was it?

That planted the seed in my mind that has been germinating for a few weeks?

You know who you are, so 'fess up!

As if I haven't got enough in my lead pile, book pile and such like, I've got an urge for Pike and Shotte gaming, probably FoG:R as that's what is played by most people at CLWC.

I thought the urge was under control and could be resisted, but after work I popped into Waterstones to see what might make a good prize for my 100 Followers draw (which may get rolled into my mumblety-mumbleth birthday draw as that is only 2 weeks away) and somehow ended up leaving there with 3 Osprey books:
Elite 179 Pike and Shot Tactics 1590-1660
MAA 457 Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years' War (1) Infantry and Artillery
MAA 462 Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years' War (2) Cavalry

Guys and gals - I'm counting on you to save me from myself! Please post comments to reinforce my urge-control and stop me doing this!!

WIP: Chumbondas #3

Last night I did the second drybrush with Iraqi Sand. This actually came out quite stark when it had dried, so I repeated the washes to tone it down (for the black wash I used a bit less black and added some brown to the mix).

Pics when the washes had dried:

Today I painted the base coats of the equipment and weapons. They still need to have some detailing done as well as highlighting. After the highlights, I'll go straight to the Klear/ink coat. Mind you, it might be a good idea to paint the ground colour and drybrush it before I do that step ;-)

So, pics with equipment and weapons base coats done:

WIP: Chumbondas #2

Having finished the horses (woopee!!!) I took a little time this afternoon to show the Chumbondas some love. First up, they each got a heavy dry-brush with 1 of 6 colours, jumping forward 1 place on each strip:

I'd forgotten that one of the colours I picked for this step (Vallejo MC 978 "Dark Yellow") has a greenish tinge when it dries. OK, a bit more than a tinge. The last time I'd seen that effect was on one of our golden retrievers following a soak in a canal following having rolled in fresh cow poo (she slept outside that night!!).

I don't think it will look too bad when the figures are completed though - the wash stages and second drybrush should tone it down.

I then applied initial washes, again 1 of 6 colours, but this time jumping back one figure on each strip. With the 6 different basecoats, this has given me 36 different combinations of colours (ie, no 2 figures the same).

If you look closely, you'll see that these guys have very bushy beards. The illegitimate offspring of Chewie and a member of ZZ Top?

For the next stage they will all get a light drybrush of Iraqi Sand 819, but I want to let the washes dry completely first.

I've also decided on the colour scheme for weapons and equipment:

Hunting Horn - German Camo Medium Brown 826
Straps - Middle Stone 882
Bags/Pouches - USA Olive Drab 889
Weapon Body - Dark Grey 994
Weapon Detailing - Hull Red 985
Weapon Barrels - Gunmetal Blue 800
Pauldrons - Hull Red 985

WIP: Tamsin's Equine Development Facility #11 - horses finally finished!! Woohoo!!!!

I didn't finish them last night as I was having a lot of trouble concentrating for some reason. Anyway, I finished doing them about an hour ago, so here are some pics:

(if you are thinking "didn't she have more strips of horses than this?", yup - there are more strips, but I'd removed the ones which would not have any "white" markings)

It was definitely more difficult to do the facial markings at this point rather than before having painted the bridles. Some of the blazes/stripes have ended up not looking as good as they should.

I'll probably do a bit of work on the Chumbondas this evening, just to keep them happy - to misquote C3-P0 "I suggest you let the not-Wookies have some paint".

WIP: Tamsin's Equine Development Facility #7; WIP: Chumbondas

The horses: painted the tack on a few more strips of horses earlier this evening, before uploading the "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" photos to my computer and then to Flickr. Here's a quick pic showing a few strips.

Tonight's strips take it to half of them done for this stage. I'm aiming to push myself to do all the remaining strips tomorrow evening.

The Chumbondas

I decided to make a start on these, getting the base colour for the fur done. I've used 6 different brown shades for this.

To maximise the variety of colourings, my intention is to use 4 different highlight colours (to be drybrushed on) and 4 different washes. At that point I'll have to sit down and decide about the detailing colours - weapons, shoulder guards, straps and bags/pouches. Given the limited variety of poses, I'll probably order some "Yeti Infantry" from Black Hat to create decently mixed squads.