Norms

Well, Ray posted a comment saying he's looking forward to seeing the Norms, so here are some pics:



Norm Peterson:

Norm-an Wisdom:

Norm-an Bates:

"Storming" Norm-an Schwarzkopf:

And the fabulous Norm-a Jean Baker:

Oh, it was Normans he wanted to see? Oh well, he'll just have to wait.

The Normans are progressing nicely. I actually managed to do all the steps I'd intended last night, so there's a very good chance I'll have finished and submitted them before the weekend.

Tonight I'll be finishing off the horses. I've already done the horseshoes where they are visible and done the basecoat on the "ground". I'll be doing the rest of the basing texture and hopefully the metalwork on the bridles.

WIP: Red Reiters #3; On The Workbench

WIP: Red Reiters

"Yay!" to some warm dry weather when I got up this morning - I was able to do the matt varnish spray on these (I'd dry-brushed the basing texture last night). This evening I have done the flocking and tufting - they're finished!

On The Workbench

Last night I did some pre-painting of bases - eighteen 40x20mm which I'll need for basing my Swiss handgunners and crossbowmen as well as the rest of my 30YW foot regiments. I still need to do some more of this size, as well as a load of 40x40mm bases for artillery, dragoons, ambush markers and camp pieces.

This evening I've been gluing the prepped figures onto painting sticks (40x40mm bases for the field guns), gluing riders to horses, then gluing lances and shields in place. Doing the shields was unbelievably fiddly - I'm wondering if that was due to the superglue I was using - next time I'll try a more gloopy type.

Once they were all glued and the glue had had time to cure, I primed them all with grey gesso. So, my painting list for the next few days is:

Medieval Swiss
27 Knights for my Lorraine contingent
16 handgunners

30YW
3 bases of dragoons - 4 horses with riders, 6 horses without riders, 6 dismounted dragoons
Artillery - 2 field guns, 8 crew, 2 piles of cannonballs, 2 powder chests, 2 budge barrels

And here are the whole lot in glorious grey:

WIP: Old Glory 30YW Cuirassiers #3

Well, the knackeredness is almost gone and I got some more work done on the cuirassiers this evening.

Done:
White markings on horses - socks, and facial markings (Ivory 918)
Leatherwork - bridles, reins, girths, holsters (Leather Brown 871)
Saddle-cloths, plumes, sashes (Black Green 980)
Ground colour on bases (Flat Earth 983)

I will probably do a couple more bits before bedtime tonight - eyes and saddles (where they show).

Anyhoos, here's some pixels for you to admire:

I probably won't get any painting done tomorrow evening as I have a 650pt game of FoG:AM lined up. I'm entered in the club's medieval tournament, and have borrowed a Swiss army from someone else. This should prove to be very interesting - me fielding an army with absolutely no cavalry (not even light horse)! Tomorrow night is just a practice game against Gordon's "Santa Hermandad Nuevo Castilian" army.

I will admit to being tempted to buy my own Swiss army, but that will have to wait until I've at least finished the bulk of my 30YW army.

And then there are the Koreans, the ....

Piccies from Campaign; WIP: Old Glory 30YW Cuirassiers #2

I'm still too frazzled to do AARs of the weekend's games, but I have uploaded my pics to Flickr. At some point I'll go through and add to the descriptions.

Cuirassiers

I've done a bit more on these this evening:

• Basecoats on horses (3 different browns for the bays, and a red-brown for the chestnut and black)
• Black wash all over on the grey and black horses - thinly on the grey and heavily on the black
• Black wash on cannons, tail, mane and muzzles of the bays 
• Chestnut wash mix on the chestnut
• Dun/bay wash mix on the bays
• Black wash thinly on the armour

Tomorrow evening I'll do the markings, ground colour and a lighter highlight on the mane and tail of the chestnut. If I have time, I'll do the leatherwork on the horses and maybe the saddle cloths.

I guess you want pics? Well, here they are:

WIP: Old Glory 30YW Cuirassiers #1

Sorry - pics from Campaign will have to wait. When I posted yesterday saying that Campaign had left me tired, well, that was an understatement. I was shattered but the adrenaline had disguised it. I was really drained today - just as well I had booked the day off work. Unfortunately it means that i haven't been able to face editing and organising the photos yet.

Besides, it is well over a week since I applied paint to any figures (with a brush anyway - spraying the space demons doesn't count) so it was time for me to get at least something done. Looking at my workbench, the obvious troops to crack on with are the 12 Old Glory 30 Years War cuirassiers that Seb gave me for my birthday. I din't want to do too much this evening (still knackered) so these were ideal.

What have I got done?

1. Black 950 undercoat on armour
2. White 951 undercoat on horses
The undercoats were thinned down quite a bit, but not quite to wash consistency.
3. Dry-brushed Gunmetal Grey 863 on armour
4. Taken some pics

I spotted as I was doing the dry-brushing that I'd missed the undercut of the armour at the back of some figures, so I had to go back and carefully apply some more black.

What's next?

I think the next stage will be to paint the horses using my normal technique. Mostly as bays, probably with the command on a grey, black and chestnut.

WIP: Tamsin's Equine Development Facility #1

Well, my cold was a bit better today, although my energy levels were still down but at least I wasn't as achey and my chest didn't feel as clogged up.

In between bouts of coughing, sneezing, nose blowing etc I did manage to get all 120 horses primed with gesso (quick check - all grey, no green = none accidentally primed with mucus *lol*).

Nope, no green primer there!

I wasn't totally happy with the wash stage when I did the horses for my "other cavalry", so this evening I played around testing a few mixes to see if they might do better. I eventually settled on 3 new mixes - 1 for chestnuts, 1 for duns and roans and 1 for the very occasional palominos that I might paint (although it could perhaps be used for creams as well - I'll be giving it a tryout with some of these horses). I also need to remember to use a thinned-down version of the black wash, particularly when doing the dark-greys.

Tomorrow, if my cold permits, I'll make some headway on the 48 javelin troops, then on Wednesday I'll do a "whitewash" on the horses, followed by the brown-wash to pick out details.