Royalist Horse

About eleven years ago I bought two Civil war armies from Dixon. The Infantry are pretty bad but I have to say the cavalry figures are really quite good and have amazing detail on their armour.
The Renegade figures may be cheap but none of them have the classic lobster pot helmets of the Civil war, so I thought I'd enlist some of my old forgotten figures back into service. The Dixon horses were replaced with ECW Foundry ones to improve the look of the unit slightly. I am still waiting for my Renegade army to arrive and couldn't wait to get painting and so had to start.

The Sealed Knot (Britain's foremost re-enactment society for ECW) dress there Cavaliers in blue doublets, buff coats and red sashes so who am I to argue with those who live the life 24/7, mine will follow the same rules. I have also found lots of Ref for Royalist cavalry wearing blue sashes as well as red, after a little research I have concluded that these must belong to Prince Rupert's cavalry forces. I would be interested If anyone out there could help with this matter.
Thanks to films and Victorian paintings our views of the two armies can be split into dashing, fuss and feathers Cavaliers and staunch, bible bashing Round heads, in fact the two armies were pretty much the same in all but the sashes they wore around their waist.

Pennies from Heaven

About five years ago I used to dream of having my own small lead figure business, a little family run affair where I could sculpt and sell my own figures and earn an honest crust. My dreams were crushed about a year ago with the appearance of the plastics on the scene. My little fairytale turned into a nightmare as I watched all my figure ranges being undercut by big companies and their new plastic ranges, selling at half the price of mine. Struggling to keep up with the plastic take over I was forced to bow out and sell my fledgling company. Of course this was all a fantasy, but I no longer wish I was a figure company in today's market.

Although I have to say I am delighted to see the plastics and their new prices from a collectors point of view. My wake up call came when I went to buy some a pack of three pack ponies from Foundry, they were charging £11 for the ponies and £8 for the post and packaging! £19 for three bloody ponies! Things had to change, the average gamer with his wife and kids couldn't keep up with this kind of robbery.

Now is a good time to be a collector as the larger companies start to strike back against the plastic movement. Warlord Games have had great success with there Roman and Celt plastics and they are very good, but other figure companies must have felt the drop in sales as Warlord figures stole their market.

The war has truly begun now, as Warlord games prepare to launch their new plastic English Civil war range, Renegade Miniatures have released their Regiment deals. 24 metal figures for £11.95!!! "The quality of metal for the price of some Plastics!" Well, I almost fell out of my chair. At these crazy prices they will steal Warlords thunder and throw a bucket of water over their fireworks. Things had to change, the prices of figures had got out of control and now I suppose we are seeing the long awaited fall out.
What a joyous time to be a collector! I scamper out like a cockroach from under the ruins and devastation and clean up amongst the fighting giants. Price War....what is it good for?....well, about two cheap armies actually.

I have always liked Renegade's Civil War ranges but couldn't really spare the money, now they are giving them away and I recommend anyone interested in the era to go there and have a look.

Cromwell comes for tea

One day Cromwell came to tea.

Badofix joins the horde

Druid Badofix joins the Nobles in their fight

The scary Druid known as Badofix comes down from his hiding place and gives voice to the struggle with Rome. Having seen most of his order put to the sword, Badofix is in no mind for mercy and sets his band of dispels to the task of gathering Roman heads.
As I known Badofix very well, I thought it only right that I spend a bit of time creating him a nice figure base to go with his namesake. The Horned god standard was made from a Blacktree Design German and a lump of 'Green Stuff'. It looks quite dark and foreboding which I thought suited the base of Badofix very well. Prepared for battle, all of Badofix's followers have donned their war woad to carry death to the enemy.

Incoming!!!!

My Atrebates are finally flocked and finished. Their War Band still needs more members but it's nice to be over half way through.
After finishing those WWII bases I had some Milliput left over. I thought I try out a mortar blast hole in the ground and use it up. I will see how this looks when finished, If successful, I will make about six more.

The lost Patrol

A section of weary Tommies make their way carefully down a muddy lane in Normandy.


After the whole figure was painted and dry I washed the tracks on the base with PVA glue, which drys 'wet' looking. This mud is still fresh.
Also to add variety to some multiple figure poses, I gave some Tommies tea mugs on their backpacks. I like this touch as it gives them more character.

Corgi truck tracks

As my Tommies are heading down the muddy tracks of rural Normandy I thought I would put some transport tracks on their bases as well, both German and Allied.
As you can see these are from a couple of fine detailed Corgi models, these can be picked up cheap these days.

Making tracks!

Some more examples of my British Tommies with their vehicle track bases. Once the putty is dry, I give it a little coat of fine gravel. This looks good when dry brushed and adds detail to fine to sculpt.

WWII Base making

Back on track with my British Platoon, I had an idea to make their bases a little more interesting. So much so in fact, I thought I would share it with the world. As i built up the layers of Milliput around the feet of the figure I thought it would be good to put a few vehicle tracks in them to add detail and variety.
This was very easy to do as I just pressed a tank track into the putty while it was still drying. Fool proof. After I had done one and liked it, I thought I would dig out other vehicles and try them. To my delight the Corgi range of trucks and transports had excellent detailing on their wheels and so they too were in printed across the base. I am very pleased with the results and I think it really adds something to the base.

Merry Christmas from Ironmitten

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to you all. Keep your shields up and leathers braced for the coming year, It's going to be a big one.

Atrebates Warrior

Even More Atrebates

More Atrebates come down from the hills

Dumnonii

Above is another Celtic tribe I created last year. The Dumnonii have black and red shields and have a very war like appearance. I also gave them animal furs with 'greenstuff' and animal motiffs on there shields that show off their hunting prowess. This touch was inspired by the book 'Frontier wolf' by Rosemary Sutcliff. I also gave this tribe their own style of war paint with a thick band of woad across the eyes.

Atrebates

Painting 'horde' armies can be very time consuming and seem never ending. To help me get through the huge amount of figures required to make an army, I thought I would make it more interesting for myself by dividing them into tribes. Each tribe will have it's own look and shield colour/design. Changing cloth colour and textile patterns is another way of making units look different from each other.
I think creating interest within the warbands will help give them personality and help me keep painting through the never ending ranks of similar looking figures.
I've also been playing around with new ways of painting large numbers of figures and have worked out an easy way to help me cope with the work load. I have started to paint the same colour onto a number of different figures at once, this way the figures get coloured very quickly. Each new colour on the brush gets dotted around to add variety here and there until the figures are all covered. This helps with shading also as each colour is shaded at the same time. I am not worrying to much about the clothing colours as it is the shield colour and design that will dominate the look of the figure. I have also used paint washes more than usual to speed up the process. This was inspired in a way by the 'Quickdip' pot I bought, just without the glossy finish.
With around forty two models needed for a warband I still have a long way to go, however I managed to crack these guys in a day and a half and they were fun to do, so I may try to finish off the Atrebates before I start anything else. Famous last words......

The joy of painting Celts!

After studying and researching 20th Century soldiers where the colours have to be spot on, It was great to get back to using my imagination again. I thought I'd free myself up with a few Celts. Using the white horse hill carving at Uffington as a guide, I created this Atrebates warband.
Ever since I had seen the Uffington horse, I had wanted to recreate the tribe who would have used it as a tribal boundary, the Atrebates.
I have given the Atrebates black hair to add to their Belgic appearance.

Brother Bren and his mates

More Brits to join the fight.
Here are two members of the Bren team. The ten man section was divided into two teams, three men which formed the Bren team (officer, loader, gunner) and the other seven who formed a rifle team. As the Bren team would lay down fire and suppress the enemy, the rifle squad would use cover and try to move up and flank the enemy position while it was pinned down. Both teams worked in tandem with each other to get the job done.

Webbing nightmare!

Being a perfectionist is more of a curse than a blessing sometimes and researching these Tommies was a case in point. For ages I looked up British webbing from a huge number of sources to try and find the right colour to paint it, only to find a number of different shades and colours. Not being able to let myself just paint any old colour, I had to make sure It was the right colour for the D-Day operations. I pulled out all my hair and aged two years in the process, but I think I finally cracked the webbing colour enigma code (well enough for me to finally put brush to figure anyway).
I hope If there are fellow painters out there thinking of painting up WWII Tommies then all my long hours can help you and my time has not been wasted in vain.
WWII British Webbing;
Basically, the webbing was a light beige colour through most of the war. However, the light sandy colour, fantastic for the deserts of North Africa, was proven to stick out rather in the European theatre. The green hedgerows and grass fields of Normandy prompted the Men to recolour their webbing with Pea green 'Blanco'. 'Blanco' was a power that when added to water formed a kind of paste. This paste was then used to scrub on to the webbing to protect and die it a different shade. Hence webbing can come in all different shades of either Khaki (early war) or Pea green (1944 late war) colours. For a painter this is hard to swallow but basically means anything goes within those two ranges. As I'm painting my Platoon to fight in the hedgerows of France, I'm going for the 1944 green webbing. Although, on the longest day in history a lot of units didn't have time to prepare their equipment and so went to France with Khaki equipment still, this in mind, I will include a few of these into my units. Phew! I hope this helps fellow artists out there and helps to clarify matters.

Above can be seen both Pea green and Khaki versions of the 1937 pattern webbing.

Tommy Atkins makes a stand!

My British rifle section is finished at last and takes Its place in the cabinet.

Buried Alive!