Weekend project

 I've had a few days off work and I've found enough head space to think about painting again. Lately I've been completely swamped with work and I hit a dry spell.

I got myself thinking about painting up a small Parliamentarian regiment.

This time I tried the thinner brush bristles for pikes. These are not as manageable as the thicker ones as they tend to split when flattened. They look more in proportion with the figure being slightly thinner.

This force is up of a mix of old Renegade miniatures with newer 1st Corps too. The two go very together in a unit and scale perfectly.

80mm plastic pikes created from brush bristles. The ends flattened and shaped into spear points.

1st Corps then Renegade, the two march well together. 1st Corps figures only come in a marching pose so it limits you a little bit. Luckily, I had some marching Renegade figures from when they had their crazy cheap deal days. I believe these deals led to the company going under back around 2011.

UPDATE: So it's Saturday morning and I was up early to start on these musketeers. I set about with my usual method of dry brushing the leatherwork.

I also use the same light brown colour to dry brush the trousers and shoes. This is useful because once dry, it can be stained with Contrast paint to colour them.

I also stained the cross belts in leather brown Contrast paint to give them a richer colour. The shoes also get a lick of the same colour.

I keep on adding Contrast paint until most areas are covered. The tunic I paint with normal paint and touch up any areas I feel need it with conventional paints.

I chose a nice green standard for this new regiment, so found a matching green for a couple of the tunics. I figured being a mid war unit, many of the uniforms would have been replaced. So quite a few of the men are sporting Parliament grey tunics now. This rag-tag looks will help the regiment look a bit weathered and worn.

Parliament grey uniforms cover most of the regiment, it was either this or the red of the New model army.

The 1st corps figures are nice but don't quite meet the quality of the old Renegade figures. I still like them though as they do have a character of their own.

 Also, they are in multiple poses of marching which is useful and helps to create variety.

Even though the figures were finished I took the brave decision to give them a coat of Strong tone. This is partly because the rest of the army has been given the same and it also gives them a bullet proof layer.

I gave it a stir and brushed some onto the upturned lid.

 I then used this as a little palette to brush on the dip rather than dip them in the pot. 

This way I had more control over the dip. I also brushed off any pooling and tried to make sure areas weren't too flooded.

Some of the 1st Corps figures have nice big snapsacks which are different.

I find that the Dark tone drys overnight, unlike the other dips. This I find very useful and saves waiting around too long.

Before the dip, I gave the figures a wash of flesh wash. This helps shade the flesh but also adds some nice browns to the different areas of cloth like the cuffs.

A motley group of musketeers. Green and grey tunics with a blue one thrown in for good measure. A Saturday morning well spent, I feel great now I've got my painting mojo back.

A really useful colour guide from the Baccus website.

Tonight I've done a little watercolour test on these blank playing cards. I couldn't wait for the paint to dry so it got smeared on the underside too. No worries this is just a proof of concept.

I was really pleased to see the watercolour paint seemed to take to the card well. This is definitely good enough to warrant the creation of some more.

These unit cards are to be used in the game of victory without Quarter. They depict the order in which units can activate...if at all. There are other cards too, like artillery and turn over. If this last one comes up the pack is reshuffled and the turn starts again. This means some unlucky units may miss their chances to act that round.

I'm glad these cards worked because my other idea was to cut out watercolour paper for the plastic sleeves. This would have worked but the flip side wouldn't have looked as good.

I have been planning this for a while and picked up some card sleeves from a Pokémon shop in preparation. They work well and protect the artwork nicely too. 

I will redo this card now I know the paint works, I won't colour the bottom panel as it might bleed again. Felt pens was another idea but I think the watercolour looks better. I might use felt pens to add a line of colour to help denote the army faction.

UPDATE: I've painted up a couple more just to see how they look. I think the idea works well so will do some more.

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Gundabad Command Base

I selected these two figures to finish off the command base. A pointing character always goes well with a big grumpy looking commander.

The other character is a guard looking fella. The actual figure was broken so I mended it using a brush bristle. This was flatten off using pliers and shaped with a scalpel.

 Being a big leader means you get more tattered banners behind you basically, so everybody knows where you are.

The brush bristle spear.

Halfords Matt Lacquer!

This stuff is great for putting on a protective matt coat. It has got a very slight sheen but I use this as an advantage.

 By coating soft material items like hats and uniforms in Ultra Matt varnish and leaving the Halfords varnish on metal and leather work, a really nice realistic effect can be achieved. I also leave flesh and hair in the Halfords lacquer giving them a realistic sheen.

Ultra Matt varnish for cloth, another very effective product.

Autobot Sun streaker

It was nice to finish these models off, he can now join his twin, Sideswipe in battle.
 

Sun streaker is a vein showoff who takes great pride in his appearance. To this effect, I only did a tiny bit of battle damage to him unlike the previous Autobot paint jobs.

I found this chrome paint from Green stuff world, it's perfect for Sun streaker and his immaculate paint work. It really does catch the light and reflect the surroundings beautifully.

The Alt mode is a Micro machines toy, while the robot mode is a diecast figure. The two scale well together.

 I added a tank track onto the car to make it look a little more Cybertronian, I also stuck this same piece onto the figure.

The twins,