Painting British 2nd Afghan War soldier

 Getting close to finishing now. Painting the boots dark grey/black and some final highlights on the tunic with drab 'C' from foundry.

 Bread bag given another brown wash, I may highlight this again with white. I think most of the white equipment was stained with tea to make it less visible in the field, so I made a point of washing it with brown. For the next batch I might paint the bread bag in a creamy colour.

 These are still not quite finished as I ran out of time. I will clean up the faces a little bit and add some more detail to the helmet flash on the side. I have a few books coming in the post so hopefully these will help.

 Very enjoyable to paint as the figure is all the same colours really ( and I thought ACW was easy!). Creating units of 12 men should be quite simple with these colours and things will only speed up now I have worked out my painting order and colours.

 The Scots will be a little more challenging but still very fun and rewarding I imagine in the end.

My rough 'idiot' notes I made as I went along, these notes come in very handy If ever you have to leave an era for a few weeks or even years. Makes getting back on the horse a lot easier.

Painting British 2nd Afghan War

 After the figures were sprayed I gave them a wash with Woodland scentics brown paint. This stuff is great and works much like ink, brown ink would work for this too.

The detail is now much clearer to see and the paint acts as shading saving time.

 I then started to paint, first I painted all the belts etc white and gave them a wash of brown to whether them in.

 I decided to paint the canteen belt brown to add some variety, not sure the one on the model is right for the time but I'm not going to get caught up in all that so just moved on.

 Painted the lower legs in a slightly darker drab colour with a slight dry brush high light.

 Foundry flesh colour, didn't use the base straight from the pot, instead went slightly lighter with a half and half mix. Just gives the skin a more subtle look.

 Next step started on the khaki drill colour, this was tricky as I had so many different paint colours to chose from, In the end the best one was Foundry paint trio 'drab'. The last paint in the trio was a perfect mix for the light sandy colour. Painted mess tin with a grey black cover.

Gave the flesh a wash with black ink under the helmet and around the chin for stubble. Also gave the legging and rifle, canteen and mess can a wash with black ink as well.

Painting British 2nd Afghan War

 I wasn't really looking out for yet another era to paint, but then I stumbled across these amazing looking figures on the Artizan web site. I fell in love and decided I had to paint a few. I have long been a fan of the Victorian era and grew up watching Zulu and Zulu dawn, so these pith helmets really appealed to me.

 I was a little disappointed when I first received the models, they were covered in flash and had lots of vents on them. Some of the mold lines cut down the faces which was bad, but with a trusty knife and file all was soon how It should be.

 Lots of vents.This is a new range from Artizan and I thought maybe there might be a huge demand for them at the moment and they were being churned out quickly...who knows. Still lovely figures though so don't be put off by a little filing. I plan to play a small skirmish game with them and so prefer metal figures over plastic, more expensive but feel better in the hand.

 I then based the figures on 25mm round bases for the skirmish game 'Men who would be kings'. This game only needs around 36 figures a side (regulars that is) and so perfect for a small force. I added small stones from the garden. Pea gravel is great for this and I had gathered a bag of them from my travels.

 I bought a few spray cans a couple of years ago and managed to find one that suited my khaki needs perfectly. It matched the Foundry paint 'Drab B' colour and proved to be a god send and saved a lot of time.
 If you are painting Khaki Drill colour I recommend this can!

Men sprayed and ready for the next step. I am proud to add a new label to my army lists...North west Frontier.

Battle mat

 I am now the proud owner of a battle mat, I've wanted one for ages and have finally put my hand in my pocket and gone for it. One day I plan to have a small selection to cover most arenas, but for now, a European field should just about cover it all.

 This one is from the BigRedBat shop and was very reasonably priced I thought, it's also large enough to cover my down stairs table which I was hoping for. It will certainly make games a lot more accessible.

 Fresh out of the package, It needs a slight iron to get the folds out but on the whole I'm pleased, loads of little details I had to keep checking to see If they were printed or something under the mat. A nice over all colour scheme as well and a feature that could be used as a dirt road. yep great.

I also have my eye on a forested road map from Cigar Box, but that will have to wait a month or too until I save up.

ECW Command bases WIP

 My ever evolving ECW regiments took a another turn on their development yesterday after I visited Simon Miller's new ECW blog ' For King and parliament'.

 I had created my three bases with battle hardened men with minimal officers, this did leave me with a pile of unused, angry brass.

After seeing what Simon had planned for his regiments I noticed he had a smaller command base, one that could be put in front or behind the battle line. Well, I thought that tidies up all of my problems in one. My unused officers and drummers get a home, the figure count goes up...which I like. The standards can be moved to the middle block and the sleeves of shotte can be just that and look better for it. I also get to use up a load of HOTT bases (60mm x 40mm) I bought years ago and have never used.

 I had to paint up a few extra musketeers but that was no problem as I already had some on the boil for the next Regiment.

 I think It looks better than how I had It before and It doesn't effect the frontage of the unit, something I am very pleased about. Having a limited playing area, I want to be able to have more than a few units on a side.

Receiving cavalry can look a little more authentic as well with an extra base.

Basing Gundabad

 The orcs of Gundabad finally get there tufts and flock after sitting for a while on the shelf.  These were really fun to do, partly because a lot of them were created from plastic kits, with most of them being conversions.

 I have a lot more of these orcs made up and look forward to swelling the Gundabad horde, they are addictive to make and paint.

The large rocks are painted using Foundry's Granite tri-colour range. I gave them a brown wash around where they met the ground, then gave them a green wash in 'splodges' all over. The green helps gives them a kind of 'fantasy' look I think.

The Eagles too got their finishing touches and can finally fly back to the highest shelves.

Basing the Wolves and Wargs

 Last night as the moon rose high in the sky, howls of delight were heard coming from the mountains. The long awaited night of basing had come again after seven years of waiting. This is the hallowed night were flock and tufts are added to the dry brushed sand and stones.

 I do like to sprinkle a few mixed herds on the bases to act as bracken or leaf matter.Also a few twigs from the garden were added for fallen trees, very useful on troll bases.

 The wolves of the mountains are mostly grey with a few variants on this theme, however, the Wargs I had made very dark If not black in contrast.

Three large Wargs equal five lesser wolves. In Dragon Rampant six of these will be classed as a unit of Greater War beast.