Knights Teutonic 15mm DBA army

This is a commission army that i finished late last year for Dave Batchulor, it was a boxset from a polish company the figures are rock sold you couldn't trim off the flash with a hobby knife had to file it off.

very small fine detail, nice figures

Eureka Minatures Spotlight of the month 40mm Musketeer finished

This months Spotlight is on the Historics 40mm Musketeer Minature

Eureka Minatures put out a wide range of 40mm historic minatures of a very high standard of quality. I found this minature to well detail and smooth allowing for easy painting, it had little to no flash on it at all and it was well preportions , I like the facial expression, very realistic.There are 15 minatures in this range from hired hands to serving wenches, they also provide a game set which include 2 scenery packs. I measured the figure and it does stand 40mm from foot to hat and came in 4 easy to assemble peices. It really was an enjoyable paint and i found it hard to put the paint brush down once i had started.  I have never painted a 40mm figure before and the challenge from painting 15mm to 40 is vast, they show up every brush stroke, but i found myself wishing i had more to paint, The trick is to work on your layers. One layer at a time and leave the detailed work to last so you don't have to redo anything tht you've painted over by mistake. I didn't use any dry brushing on this figure. It is all aout consistancy of paint, which ihave to admit is my biggest struggle but i'm getting there. I will probably purchase the game set later this year as I enjoyed this a lot. the rule set looks fun and you don't need a lot of figures to play a game.

Eureka  has a free set of rules that you can down load from the below link as a pdf

http://eurekamin.com.au/games/andoneforall

My inspiration for painting this model came from this pictire I found on the internet, I believe and correct me if i'm wrong, that the uniform is from the kings army of Louis XIII  1643, the shirt i have painted slightly different from another picture i found.

I use a three step layering method to paint this figure i find that it gives a far better finish, with brighter colours and better shading. Ii'd like to try some of the foundry paint system paints one day that have been designed specifically for this method.

sadly I had problems with my camera and the pictures of the steps look terrible so here are my colours i used if you want me to post the pictures anyway to see how i did each step let me know

I used Vallejo paints for the blues first dark prussian then dark blue then flat blue 50/50 flat blue white for small amounts of extra highlights.  games workshop white. (maroon and blood red,for under the coat).  face- vallejo red brown first coat, citidel flesh 2nd, games workshop flesh 3rd

pants - dark drown with 20% black added then dark brown again leaving small amounts of the lower layer then mid brown highlight with light brown finish

Boats mid brown 50/50 mid brown yellow orcha yellow orcha highlight.

well on to the minature

I found i had a wee bit of fun with the smoothness of my paint as it was around 30 degrees inside the house  then i had my lamp on as well and the paint was drying on the brush even before i got it to the model, but I'm still quite happy with the out come.

My Daughter slipped in the car as i was taking this model to get some nice pictures at a friends house and broke it off the base and the sword, so i had to drill out the sword and reattach it and fix some chipped paint, i was a bit bummed and had to use my own camera to take some pictures

the base isn't attached to the figure I painted it up so it had something to stand on for a

better angle fortake photos it's actually a hunk of lead i found at work nice and heavy.

 

well i hope you've enjoyed the first of my eureka Minatures highlights as much as i have doing it.
Next time I've asked a Local historian and Gamer Dave Batchelor to do an in depth historical background on either  A british square diorama being attack by cuirassiers or maybe some romans from around 100 - 150 ADc I will be using his research to paint the figures so that they are as completely and historically accurate as possible.   

French Napoleonic 15mm update 8

Well with putting the back out for two weeks its been a slow month but i'm all up and painting again below is a few snap shots of the french job i'm working on i'm actually a few steps further down the track and hope to have the 100 that i'm working on done by the weekend so i can satrt the next 100.

As you can see there's still a bit to go, what makes this job a little harder to keep a flow is there are probably 5-6 different makes of minatures

Flames of war army for competition

Well  one more week and Day of Days begins the once proud and mighty German army is now on the back foot , actually we've got one foot in the grave, but we're ready to lay down a few more lives for the fatherland.

we have 1200 point armies with the possiblity of  reserves. But if i know my luck thats a slim one.

Below is my list and a few shots of an army that really needs an upgrade my sad looking HMG crews with more paint missing than i think is actually on the figures, I think looking at them they were mortar crew that i cut up so i could scratch some gun crew together for another comp some other time.

1 Panzergrenadierkompanie

Hq with 2 pzf

1st platoon +pzf

2nd platoon +pzf

2 Hmg section

3 Panthers

yes thats it boys and girls just enough to die with glory!!!!

the joy of chipped paint work

And i whipped up a couple of bunkers today as i heard that i'll need them, already have barbed wirer and mine fields.

hope they can keep my hmg's alive for a while longer. Just long enough to mow those russians down, sorry if your out there and russin no offence intended. but wars hell, and a lot of fun as long as it's kept on a 4x6 table.

Cheers guys

15mm acw figures

These are a mixture of figures that i painted for a friend and some he had painted for him by a another painter i traded them all for a rather large russian army, Sad to say the minatures that don't look to good were one of my first attempts at painting for commission, I think its good to look back and see how far you've come it's been a big learning curve and the more i paint the more i realise that your always learning, and thats what makes all this fun that and the fact that i get to move around little armies.

So i was sitting there when i though lets drag out these guys and put them on a DBA game bord just for fun

nothing like a bit of artillery to stop those damed rebs.

these minatures are based on flames of war bases for a game called battle smoke which is in trial testing stage at the moment, I've played 5-6 games and the gaming system seems to work very well its a fast paced game which takes around two hours to play. It is a Brigade level (with support) the overall value of these rules is to capture in a historical manner the dramatic colour, flair and excitement of the era.

there's nothing to worry about here hee hee

here they come.

here's the rest of my acw army

I've been thinking about starting  American war of Independence armies in 15mm if anyone out there can point me towards a high quality manufacture i'd be very thankful. I love painting high detailed figures 15mm-18mm is fine.

2mm La haye sainte

This is the last in the series I've gone from15mm to 6mm now to 2mm  and really i had to paint some soldiers tonight just to get me in the mode to finish this lat one.

This last model only measures across and was a real challenge to make and paint and will be my first and last at this size I'll probably get around to trimming the grass down as it's to big for the building.

the three buildings all together

grass is just to big

i hope you've enjoyed my journey through making this building which played such a pivotal role in the battle of waterloo and should be on the shelf of anyone considering gaming 1815

10mm Giant

this is my first Giant ever and had some real fun painting it as i had no idea how it was to look

I have changed the way i paint flesh since this figure but still i'm happy with the way the figure looks on the table.

6mm La Haye Sainte finished

Yes the madness continues to sidetrack me from my work at hand  but its fun

Other than missing the second story window on the main building this is an exact replica of the 15mm Building.

for the rest down its 6mm

Having never built a 6mm building before it was quite a challenge

but a lot of fun specially when it came to painting.

15mm Battleline late byzantine figures

I have to admit that of all the minatures i've ever painted Battleline would have to be one of the hardest because of the lack of detail even though i was semi happy with the out come this was a commission job that i started the year with.

was really happy with the way this shield came out this is one of 4 that i did like this