Wednesday Workbench 13 May & Finished: 28mm WotR Mounted Men At Arms

The final elements of my Wars of the Roses army have reached the basing phase.

The first step has been done - sticking them on their bases with brown acrylic frame sealant. Before going to bed I will be adding sand - if all goes well, I should be able to finish all the other basing steps on these tomorrow.


I finished the basing on the mounted men at arms today and there is a full post on the Quarantine Challenge blog.

Finished: 28mm WotR Northern Border Horse

As promised yesterday, I finished basing the first batch of cavalry for my Wars of the Roses army today. There is a full post on the Quarantine Challenge blog.

Light Cavalry:

Medium Cavalry:

I actually finished painting the second batch last night, glued them onto their horses this morning and varnished them this afternoon. I'll start basing them in a while - they should be ready to post on Tuesday. During the long gaps in the basing process, I'll be working on the third batch of riders.

Paint Table Saturday 09 May

Things are progressing quite nicely with the mounted elements of my Wars of the Roses army. The first twelve riders have been mounted on their horses and the basing is almost finished. So, no close-up photos of them today - you'll have to wait until they've been flocked tomorrow!

I've also made very good progress today on the next twelve riders, this time knights and men-at-arms:

There isn't a great deal left to do on these - some metal details and a wash on the non-metal elements. I'll get that done tomorrow and should be able to get them mounted on their horses ready for varnishing and basing on Monday.

That just leave twelve more riders - six scurrers and six command figures - plus four foot command figures left to go. With a bit of luck I'll have them all done (apart from banners for the command groups) by the end of the week.

Wednesday Workbench 06 May

The first batch of 12 riders are almost finished - just the metals to highlight and touching up to do. That will get done tomorrow morning, then glue them onto horses ready for washing, varnishing and basing.

Next up will be a batch of twelve knights.

Lockdown Podcast 6 - and 7 Now!

It appears that I forgot to post the link for the latest edition of the Madaxeman Lockdown Podcast. Better late than never!






EDIT: well, blow me down with a feather! It appears that the episode we recorded last night has already been published:




In other news, I finished work on the barded horses for my Wars of the Roses army:

I've now begun painting the riders - I'll be doing them in batches of six or twelve, for the basecoating stage at least.

Paint Table Saturday 02 May

The horses for the mounted elements of my wars of the roses army are taking a bit longer to paint than I'd anticipated, but I'm almost there.

I've finished painting the unarmoured horses:

I've also made good progress on the armoured horses:

If all goes well I should finish painting them tomorrow, then it will be onto the riders. The horses don't have much left to do - painting the leather parts, the saddle-cloths and plumes and highlighting of the metal, then final washes to tie things together.

Wednesday Workbench 29 April

As you can see, I have started work on the horses for the mounted figures for my Wars of the Roses army. The first eighteen horses (the ones without armour) are the first batch. They're almost done - once they are, I'll be starting on the armoured horses; there are eighteen of those as well.

When all the horses are finished, it will be time to work on the riders.

Finished: 28mm WotR Spearmen

I was half-expecting not to have these finished today, but they are. These three bases would replace the three Northern Border/Militia billmen from my last post.

There's a full post over on the Quarantine Challenge blog.

Tomorrow will see me start work on the cavalry elements - horses first, then the riders.

Finished: 28mm WotR Billmen

And the third set of figures for my Wars of the Roses army are finished. They got posted on the Quarantine Challenge blog yesterday.

Retinue Billmen:

Northern Border/Militia Billmen:

I've almost finished the next set of figures, just matte varnishing and basing to do. Hopefully all that will be done by tomorrow.

Finished: 28mm WotR Longbowmen

The longbowmen are finished and have just been posted on the Quarantine Painting Challenge blog.


Retinue Longbowmen:

Northern Border/Militia Longbowmen:

Tomorrow I'll be starting work on the billmen - there are only 48 of hem to paint.

Wednesday Workbench 15 April

First of all, some of you will have noticed that I have switched the blog to requiring moderation for all comments. I did this because I had been heavily targeted by comment spammers. They seem to have stopped for now, but that could be because it is almost a week since my last post - I'll see if they suddenly become active again with this post being published.

Since last Thursday I have carried on with the WotR project and finished painting all the longbowmen yesterday. I varnished them this morning and this afternoon have started the basing:

In case you are wondering what the brown gunk is, it is this:

Yes, brown acrylic frame sealant from Poundland. I simply spread a dollop out on the top of the base to about 1.5-2mm depth and press the figures down into it, then use a crappy brush to smooth out the acrylic around the figure bases.

Tomorrow I'll be adding sand to the bases, then on Friday I'll do the flocking. That's not bad going - 72 x 28mm figures in just over a week.

Finished: 28mm WotR Knights & Men at Arms

I finally got round to flocking the bases, but decided not to add tufts to them at this point (I might do so later).

I've done a full post on the "Analogue Hobbies Quarantine Challenge" blog, but here are some teaser pics:

Royal Bodyguard Knights:

Men At Arms:

Foot Knights:

I've also finished painting (and varnishing - I decided to do that today rather than waiting until the other 48 are painted) the first 24 longbowmen:

I'll wait until the others are painted and then base them all in one go.

Wednesday Workbench 08 April

Well, that's quite a lot of figures currently on the workbench. The men at arms have all been based now, with just flocking and tufting left to do:

While various stages of the basing were curing or drying, I painted up these twelve figures:

I can't for the life of me work out what unit types these were meant to be for, so they might get popped to one side until I figure out where to use them (I suspect they may have been intended to be added to bases of billmen, archers or spearmen), once they are varnished.

Yesterday I started on the longbowmen, with the first 24 figures now almost finished:

The eagle-eyed among you may be wondering why one of them has a green blob on his helmet. Yes, well, indeed. Accidents do happen, dontchaknow?

When I have finished painting these chaps, I have another 48 archers to paint. 24 seems to be a reasonable batch size for them, so that will be two more batches. I can then varnish all the archers (and those twelve odd figures) and get them based up before moving onto the next set of figures, either the billmen or the spearmen.

Paint Table Saturday 04 April

A you can see, the bulk lot of WotR men at arms I was painting are just about done - all that's left to do is the varnishing and basing. After taking these photos I went back to the original two batches and brightened up their metal a bit so that they would match the later batches a bit better.

Tomorrow morning I will be varnishing them, then in the afternoon I will begin the basing process. I'll probably be able to finish them on Monday.

Tuesday Workbench 31 March

With the SS squad out of the way, I had to make a decision last week about what to paint next. There were several potential projects, but I decided to go for one which I had been somewhat dreading - a 28mm Wars of the Roses army for Art De La Guerre. Dreading? Well, just doing the chaps in plate armour, to be honest.

I did make a bit of a boo-boo initially - I decided to start with a batch of 24 figures. That was fine for things like the flesh, leather, wood and the small amount of cloth showing, but was too much for the metal. I also had a bit of a 'mare with washing and highlighting the plate and I'm not totally happy withe the end results.

I decided to switch to a smaller batch of eight figures next. That was much easier. I also switched how I did the plate armour. The results were much better, but still not quite right. It was also a bit of a waste doing the flesh, leather, wood and cloth on such a small batch.

I've just started the flesh on the next two batches of eight. I do have another batch of 6 figures for this board, but they are all in closed helms. I'll be doing the armour (trying a different wash scheme) in the smaller batches, then going back to do leather, wood and cloth on all three batches together.

AHPC9 Day 82 - Tuesday Update 12 March

Today was the last of the Tuesday schedule for posting. From Sunday until the end of the Challenge it is "free fire" when we can post as soon as we have stuff finished.

I have two submissions posted today. The first was some more early WW2 Aussies, this time Perry plastics as Militia troops:

*linky-link*


I didn't think I'd have a second entry finished in time but the painting went really quickly and they were done - another set of pulp figures for my collection:

*linky-link*


These two entries have upped my tally to 3214 points towards my increased target of 3350. I'm still in 5th place, but just 10 points below AlexS - it looks as though we might be jostling for 4th place next week (the gap to 3rd place is just too big for me to catch up).

AHPC9 Day 16 - Saturday Workbench 05 January

I've decided that during the Challenge I will be doing my weekend "workbench" posts on Saturdays rather than Sundays.  There are two good reasons for this:

1. The bonus theme rounds get posted every other Sunday, and I'll want to do a post when they are up for viewing.

2. I should have a bunch of stuff which is at various stages of being finished to show you.


Anyway, what's on the table (as seen in the pic above).

Two batches of almost finished 8th Army/1942 Aussies:

These are all Perry metals.  They have had their Klear coat and just need to have the basing done and a matte varnish.  As these will be for the militia, I've done them with green helmets.


One batch of just about finished 8th Army/1942 Aussies:

These are Artizan metals.  They just need the final wash and Klear coat to get them to the same state as the Perry figures.

One batch of just started 8th Army/1942 Aussies:

Artizan again.  I should be able to get the basecoats, initial flesh wash and maybe some highlights done this evening.  They'll be finished quite quickly tomorrow.

The Artizan figures have khaki helmets as they will be for the AIF troops.

If all goes to plan, I should be able to get all of the basing done on Monday.  As there are two steps which need curing/drying time, I should be able to get some other figures painted up for submission on Tuesday.

Although I have reduced the painting process for these a bit, what I have found is that it is probably taking just as long to paint them.  I think that is because without the initial wash on non-flesh areas it is more difficult to determine where highlights need to be applied, so I end up applying more highlights than I probably need to.  That was particularly true of the Perry figures which have so many creases, folds and wrinkles in the uniforms.

Once this lot are out of the way, I will probably switch to another project for the following week.  I haven't decided which one yet, but it is likely to be 15mm.

Thursday Update 15 November

Over the past two days I've received some shinies through the post. Yesterday these came:

Some people will recognise those little black boxes from Perry Miniatures. This is what was in them:

What are they all? British tank crew, Aussie slouch hats and a Blitzkrieg 1/56 scale M3 Stuart. I've checked and it's the same size as the Warlord/Italerei one I made earlier. I bought the heads to see if they'd fit the Warlord plastics, but it doesn't look as though they will.

Today I got this lot from Warlord Games:

That's a mix of stowage, some tank crew, a sprue of Chindit heads (which will fit on the Warlord plastics), some commando decals (bought for the rank insignia) and Army Painter dark and soft tone inks.


Now for what I've been up to since finishing those Kokoda Aussies. On Monday I primed the T34s and the Matildas. Yesterday I got the body colours done on the T34s with the airbrush. Before it died on me - the air valve is kaput. If I had the right tool, I could remove it and replace it with the one from my previous Revolution CR (which had the nozzle thread break off irremovably). Sadly I don't, so I've had to order a replacement; I decided to order a Revolution BR as well to replace my Neo for fine detail work.

Today I hand painted the details and did some washes.

They just need varnishing now, but that will need to wait until my new CR arrives - that should be some time tomorrow.

I've also been assembling the 8th Army plastics:

As you can see, they are headless for now. As the Perry slouch hats don't fit, I might need to get some more of the Chindit heads to get some in slouch hats. The fact that some of them are bearded and have battered hats is fine, as they'll be for the 39th. I'll need to order another pack of 8th army plastics for them. The big problem with the pack is the lack of left arms posed to support weapons - there are only two per sprue, but four weapons that need to be supported. And then there is the Lewis Gun issue - there might be a couple of arms that could hold one, but the guns from Colonel Bill's seem quite slender. I know that Minifigs do some, and Company B - I might have to take a look at those. There are also some for sale on Shapeways, but they are a bit costly.

Oh, and the Panzer IIIs have also been assembled. I won't be able to prime or paint the IIIs and IVs until the T34s are finished.