Thursday, December 18, 2014

It's All Done with Mirrors and Painted Smiles


Last week, I had some time off, and since the nanny was here during the day to take care of the Young Lord, I spent much of those two days painting:


Fearless Men Who Jump and Die!

The Flames of War Open Fire! box is a heck of a value, whether or not you plan to play FoW. Of course, it's only a value if you actually do something with the included bits. I started this platoon of US Airborne last year, put it aside and then, suddenly felt the urge to complete them.






This is my first time ever using static grass. I don't know if I did it right or not, but i love it!

It Was Just My Imagi-nation Running Away from Me

I got a Risk set (the AWI looking bits) a few years ago, thinking I'd use the map for a campaign. But it sat in my closet. Lately, I've been reading about Imagi-nations and getting excited again by the idea. And so, inspired by Kaptain Kobold's Great Northern War project with Risk figures I pondered whether or not I could do something similar. And then it hit me, Riseling vs Sauvignon-Blanc 100 years before the current conflict.

Here are 40 Risk figures painted as the Saintonge Regiment of France, which participated in the AWI.  

There are four bases of line infantry, 2 bases of light infantry. 



I speed painted these to look decent as a group, at wargaming distance. Up close, not so much. (it doesn't help that the figures themselves are terrible. Misshapen heads, missing feet, etc). 





Leader of the PAK

1 1/32 Italeri PAK 40 - nice, easy to build model, it took 3 attempts at priming to get it to stick.

It fits nicely into the 6" grid I use for the 1/32 toys.

Itsy-bitsy Teenie Weeny

Sometime last year I picked up 2 sample packs from GHQ just to see what 6mm looked like in person (yes yes, I can look at a ruler but that didn't tell me what I needed to know).

Here are 3 GHQ 6mm US Army Infantry - painted the same way I paint my 1/32 stuff - this was a test to see 1)if i could paint 6mm, 2)if i would like the results. 



Oh. My. God! This may be my second favorite scale after 54mm (what can i say? I am a man of extremes). They painted up super easily - the details are easy to hit with a brush without painting over previously completed kit. I suspect could knock out a 1:1 company in in a few hours. It's just about all I can do to restrain myself from taking advantage of their holiday 15% off orders over $50.00 deal. 

Bonus:
This may not look like much, but some regular readers might know what's afoot.


On their way to a Slitherin village, two Riesling platoons, led by Feldwebels Feuerbach and Handel, are ambushed by lizard warriors.

8 comments:

  1. I recently purchased a copy of RISK for the miniatures to create two ImagiNations armies for solitaire play. After mounting the soldiers and looking at these very tiny soldier and wonder to myself, "Self, how the h&ll can I paint those!!"

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    1. Hi Tomo,
      Their small size and general lack of detail makes them fairly quick and easy to paint, without magnifiers even. A decent size brush - 2 or 5 with a good point and the pants will take maybe a brush stroke or two! You don't have to worry about painting over straps or buckles or buttons - they aren't there and if they are, they are really hard to see anyway at wargaming distance.

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  2. Nice looking units for FoW!

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    1. Thanks, Phil! Haven't decided if I will try FoW or not, but the minis are very nicely sculpted. I will for sure give them a go with Disposable Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers since those rules use the fire team as the smallest unit, which happens to coincide with the FoW basing.

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  3. Your 6mm figures look great! What colors do you use?

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    1. Thanks, Chris!
      I primed these guys in white (which is unusual for me but they are so small, i didn't want them to be any darker than necessary). The only things I base coated were face and hands - I used Americana Light Cinnamon. Flesh is Vallejo Flat Flesh (70.955). Actually, all of the remaining paint is Vallejo. For the pants and boots, I used Flat Brown (70.984), jackets are German Camo Beige (70.821), webbing is Middlestone (70.882), helmets are US Dark Green (70.893), weapons use gunmetal and one of the many many shades of browns I have acquired.

      This is the same paint scheme i use with my 1/32 US forces, which I try to match to my W. Britain's "Big Red One" infantry.Simple block painting, no shading and no black-lining.

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  4. Damn man your a really good painter. I wish I had your skills it would make finding cool looking minis a LOT cheaper.

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    1. Thanks, Aaron! I appreciate the compliment. For what it's worth, I'm generally not happy with my own painting!

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