Merry Christmas Everyone love Cromwell.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone from Ironmitten!

Here to play you out are the Cromwell 'Lets ban Christmas' band. Take it away fellas....enjoy.

Roman Night patrol

Roman Patrol

Praetorian on Campaign

The Fierce Celts

The only thing the Celts hated more than Rome...were the neighbours.

'Cedo Alteram'

The merciless Centurion nicknamed Cedo Alteram by his men. It meant 'Bring me another' and referred to his habit of breaking vine staffs over recruits' backs.

When his Legion rebelled, Cedo was given a taste of his own medicine and put to death.

The Legion had its own way of dealing with such men.

War on the Frontier

I have been finishing off those crafty Celtic horsemen over the last week and have just their shields to do.
Also I've managed to complete a unit of Jewish Slingers for my Eastern Roman army which is another weight off my mind.
I still have quite a few units to do before the new armies for COE are complete, all good fun though. In the meantime, here's an unlucky Roman guard on the Rhine.

Back to Work Again

A quiet day for thoughts

Happy halloween Everyone.

painting guide for British Tommys.

The new unit takes to the open field.

The new and the old. The second figure is from Crusader and is late war. The first is another BTD figure. I experimented with his webbing colour again by trying out a Coat d'arms canvas colour.

On the double Atkins!

Captain Jeffers with the 2" mortar team close behind. They will lay down smoke grenades to cover the advance of the platoon. I love these two characters (mortar guys), partly because they are standing. most other figures I have seen from other ranges are lying prone. This may be correct for firing but doesn't look that great in an advancing unit. The same can be said for the PIAT teams. This is why I went with BTD for a lot of these figures.

Private Phillips brings up the mortar.

The webbing on these chaps is another webbing variant from the Foundry paint palette.

This chap is from my late war Platoon.

Quick painting guide for Tommys.

Static grass and tufts were now added to finished the base.

Heavy!

Another unit of men ready for the big fight.

A tip from Kevin Dallimore here, with the use of Terracotta 'B' to paint the lips. I'm not quite sure myself but it works well from a distance which is the main thing.

You can see here the highlighting on the Ink washed canvas. I love the speed at which you can crack through these small units using washes.

Captain Jeffer's looks ready for business. After this macro photo, I went back and touched up the detailing around his face, got to love the close ups.

I have made this small unit of men part of the Wessex regiments by giving them the Wessex Wyven on their arms.

This is captain Jefften or Jeffer's as his known to his men. It's one of Alan's old Role play characters and It's fun to create him on the gaming table. It should bring a lot more interest to the game.

Painting Tommy

The canvas helmet covers are Foundry's Drab 'a', 'b' and 'c' colours layered up.

I used the same colour (Blanco 'c') to retouch the Inked webbing and equipment. This is effective and very quick and simple to do. One pot does all.

I do like Foundry's 'Spear shaft' colour for Enfields! The Inked Tamiya 'Khaki' was highlighted by using the Coat d'arms 'British Khaki' paint.

Almost ready for war.

These figures are from Black Tree Design. I like them because of their poses. They are slightly early war (BEF) and have canvas covers on their helmets. I like this aswell because it adds more character to my units. To bring them up to date with my Normandy units I have opted for the green Blanco on their webbing.

Next morning and Tommy and his pals are all dry and ready for some more action.

WWII Quick Painting Guide

The new Citadel Ink range is very good. I have become a big fan of paint washes over the last few years, helped in part by the Army Painter stain results. Horses for courses here though and this Ink drys a lot quicker that AP stain. I prefer it for small units where the painting standard is going to be slightly higher.

The satisfying part of the whole process is painting on the Ink and watching the figure come to life.

I also painted on a little stubble by mixing grey with the flesh tone. This was done before the Ink wash.

The chaps are ready for their Ink shading now all the basic colours have been painted.

Quick Painting Guide for WWII Tommy

I left a little black showing through around the equipment here and there. The base was dry brushed with Foundry's Sand 'a' and 'b' pots.

Foundry's Spear shaft 'b' and 'c' pots provided a great Lee Enfield colour. I'm just sad I didn't find out about it sooner. It always pays off to read the odd painting guide or too!

I found the Foundry WWII colours very helpful with painting these figures. Their Green Blanco 'c' pot gave a great colour, that kind of weird green that is hard to mix up. I didn't go for the 'B' pot but went straight for the highlight shade to paint the webbing and equipment.
This is a tip from experience.

The metal of the Lee Enfield was painted using Coat d arm's 'gun metal' paint. The whole gun would later be washed with black Ink.

I try to add a little more variety into the unit by changing the colour of the webbing on individuals. My Platoon is painted up for the Normandy campaign of 1944, so most of my men should have the green Blanco coloured webbing. A few though have not got around to colouring theirs yet and still sport the desert colours of earlier years.

Now that all the large areas have been covered I moved on to the more detailed side of things. The webbing and all its variants can be quite interesting to paint.