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.

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, 

Union Cavalry unit, Bonnie Blue Flag

On checking the regiment size for cavalry in Bonnie Blue Flag, I noticed the unit was quite small. 4 mounted bases and dismounted was similar with the fourth base being a horse holder.

I was inspired to paint one up for a bit of a change. I took inspiration from the author Kevin Calder himself and based my dismounted cavalry on round bases. 

 As my infantry are mounted on 45mm wide bases, I used the same measurements for the round ones. 

Some figures from eBay sparked the idea as they came with a few horses too.

Cavalry and infantry bases. As there are only a few in a regiment, I will use three figures to a base to bulk them out.

 

I stuck the figures down to the base, the next test is to see if I can paint them on this size of stand. My sharpshooters were mounted on 60mm bases so they were a lot easier to paint around. As my infantry are stuck down in a row, they too are much easier to paint. This will be interesting.

Well, after painting up a few bases I can safely say they weren't too difficult. There's enough room on these 45mm stands to get around the figures with a brush. Some of the piping was a bit tricky on some but nothing too bad.

The three horses I put off for another day. These will finish the unit once done.

I also need to source a standard for the command base.

The figures are from 1st Corps and like Dixon have a style all of their own.

That was fun, I enjoyed that. Another unit ticked off.

UPDATE: I got those blasted horses done, like most people I find them a bit of a chore to do.

I sprayed the unit with Halfords Matt varnish, then gave the uniform a coat of Ultra Matt varnish from AMMO. That way the metal and leather work will have a bit of a sheen to it compared to the material.

Just need to flock the base and they're done.

UPDATE: Spurred on by the recent joy of finishing a unit, it wasn't long before I was going through my drawers digging out more troopers.

These figures have been sitting unloved for over twenty years, nice to get some paint on them and push them into service.

There are some Redoubt and Foundry troopers, the Redoubt ones have to be stuck together. This is quite nice as you can create different characters.

I also did some research and came up with the idea of giving my cavalry regiments skirmish bases...or picket bases to be more accurate. 

In Bonnie Blue Flag, all regiments can throw out skirmish lines to soak up fire, there's no reason the cavalry units can't have the same.

Here we see a new cavalry regiment of three stands with a skirmisher stand behind. The skirmish stand is 35mm with two troopers on it. This can be advanced six inches out in front to form a picket line.

Good old Redoubt figures, it was great to put these together and base them up. It's a shame about Redoubt miniatures these days, I guess I'm lucky to have ordered these many years ago.

Here two broken standard bearers (Dixon) have been turned into horse holders with the help of some twisted brush bristles.

The finished horse stand gets a brush bristles too to help keep the horses steady.

A new picket line prepares to go out ahead of the dismounted regiment. These stands of two troopers can be put with the mounted versions too.

The couple of extra stands I had done before get turned into a full regiment with an added command and skirmisher base. The horse stands will come later.

UPDATE: The Union Cavalry are on the move again, another couple of bases get put through the colouring machine.

The Redoubt and Foundry figures go well together on the same base.

I do like the big white gauntlets on some of these troopers, maybe it's a result of growing up in the 70's with the countless cavalry films at the weekend. It's a classic look.

The standards are Wargames Design, they seem a little too big to me, but when you have Brigades to do, the price is right!

I bought some for the Confederate cavalry too.