Ruthless Painting - Napoleonic Bavarians!

This will probably be first in a series of blog posts as its something I want to encourage more people to try when painting models for army sized games. Recently, I got back into painting 10mm scale fantasy stuff (more on this at a later date) and I really tried to be as ruthless as I could when it came to the time I spent painting them. I only painted the entire figures in the front rank of units. Ranks beyond that only got painted from the waist up. The backs of the models were just darkly shaded and left. All this was done to maximize the amount of time and energy I had to spend on units that had at least 50-75 little mans in them. I was super happy with the result and wondered if I could get away with it on ranked units for a 28mm game. 

This brings me to four infantry battalions of these cats. 

Enter a unit of Napoleonic Bavarians that I had sitting in my lead pile. These sculpts by Front Rank Miniatures are just awesome - the perfect blend of cartoony and realistic. And crawling with detail. I wondered how I could knock them out with the least amount of effort possible. 

Bavarian troops are some of my favorite Napoleonic units, but they are time consuming to paint!

A game's eye view of the rear of the unit.

Looking close, you can see I skimped on details like coat tails, water bottles, and cartridge box insignia.
Also, the priming was a little rough. However, this is the side of the unit nobody ever photographs or pays
attention to!

The first step in my plan was how to handle the priming coat. Priming is SUCH an important step in miniature painting for armies. The right color can knock out so much time and the wrong color can add hours. For these guys, I choose a spin on zenithal priming. I wanted the back of the models to be dark and wasn't concerned with layering colors to get a bright finish. Conversely, I wanted the front of the models to really pop and again didn't want to spend time layering up from a dark color. 

A black spray was used to prime the back of the model.

The front, where I wanted bright saturated colors,
was primed white. 

Then I painted the flesh and gold on the helmet. As these
colors dried, I painted front of the boots black.

Next, the flesh and gold were washed with GW Reikland
Flesh Shade wash. As this dried; I painted the green facings,
the musket and the backpack with their base colors. The pants
were given a coat of GW's Apothecary White Contrast paint
-focusing only on the front.

A view from the back. I only did the backpack - 
everything else was neatened up with black. 

Everything but the pants and face were given a wash
of Army Painter Strong Tone Ink. One pass was all I'd do 
at this point.

Once the ink was dry, I highlighted some of the green and
filled his jacket in with some GW Lothern Blue. The helmet 
was then painted Black and a wash of thinned down
GW Kantor Blue was used to shade the jacket. A few
remaining details were picked out and
DONE.

Using this method and painting two guys at a time, I managed to knock out about a guy a day. So a unit that might have taken me four weeks only took 2 or so. On the board with 800 of their friends, they look great. Painting your models to a gaming standard doesn't mean laboring away on each of them like they were individual competition level figures. It means looking at them as a whole and deciding what you can get away with - what will draw people's eye and focus their attention and what can just be allowed to fade away. A big part of painting an entire army is figuring out what you need to lavish attention on and what you don't. Both are skills that need to be developed. 

Cheers!

The Great Hobbycation of 2017

So this year I took an extra three days off during the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. I stayed home for 9 glorious days of sleeping in, hanging out with the dog, gaming with friends and painting models. Tomorrow I head back to the real world, but I have one night of painting left in me. Its been fantastic.

This "Hobbycation" has also coincided with a neat little hashtag on Twitter called #Hobbystreak. The goal is to do at least 30 minutes of hobbying a day, share your results, and see how many consecutive days you can string together. Its meant to motivate you on projects, inspire others and make taking time out for doing something you like a priority. So far, I've managed to get 18 consecutive days in! I'm aiming for 20. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, here's what I've accomplished over 9 days of pure hobby time!

In preparation for the release of Necromunda, I started on some Sector Mechanicus
kits I was sitting on.

I've managed to create a system to paint this stuff up really quickly.

A squadron of French ships-of-the-Line guards this platform under construction.

You all saw this jabroni last week, but I finished him on the
first day of my vacation.

This thing beats the hell out of the granaries I scratch built out of Quaker Oats tubs when
I was in college.

This is now the 4th skull crane I've done. I should put that on a resume.

I cannot wait for some hot sweaty Gangwar action on this badboy!

I added a third Contemptor to form a Talon in my Horus Heresy army.

God help me, I tried Shadespire and liked it. I'm 3/4s of the way through the Orruk war band.

I used these guys as an excuse to experiment with a
different skin tone. I didn't want to paint green for the
millionth time.

The chance to make comments in a dopey Bane voice makes this guy totally worth
having in any war band.

He likes to bash things. That's his thing. Apparently. 

I finished 10 more Poxwalkers, completing the whole 20 in the Dark Imperium kit.

I set about making a custom conversion from my Inquisitor Greyfax model. I have lots of plans for this gal.

Its been quite an adventure. I'm sure some people would consider my Hobbycation a living Hell, but for me its been Heaven and really great way to recharge. I may have to do this again next year!

Cheers!

Celebrating the 4th - Nerd Style!

Whew. Its been a couple weeks since I posted anything on this blog. I wish it was because I was busy with lots of models I was working on, but I was just a little burnt out and enjoying the start of the summer here in Seattle (which needs to be enjoyed before it vanishes!). I've ended up with a nice long weekend to celebrate the 4th of July (US Independence Day for my non-US readers) and I decided to do EVERYTHING nerdy apparently.

On Saturday, I played 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. I don't think I've actually played in, and not ran, a game of D&D since I was in grade school. My buddy Josh ran us through the first in what I hope is a series of adventures in his own setting and I don't think I've laughed and had such a good time in a long while. It was great fun to play and solve problems (or create them) and let a story evolve rather than plan and run a game. I'm playing a Dwarf Fighter, Ulf Rolfsson - who I'm vaguely patterning off Sean Connery's character in "The Untouchables." The bad impression is a lot of fun to do in game.

"Just like a goblin, brings a knife to a crossbow fight!"

Sunday, I set up a Napoleonics game and three friends came over to fight a critical made-up battle for supply depots during the War of the 5th Coalition. We managed to complete the game in about 3 hours and had a great time. Somehow, the Austrian Army managed to brutally savage the forces of the French Empire despite losing the initiative for 7 out of 9 turns.

I broke out the full 12'x4' set up for this battle.

French starting positions.

The Guard advances! Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough to carry the day.

After battling it out over the rolling fields of Bavaria, we switched gears and travelled to the far future of Warhammer 40,000. This was my first test drive of 8th edition. My Orks faced off against Necrons and got stomped pretty hard. I learned a ton about army organization and missions in this edition from just one game. I liked that it played pretty cleanly; and while my Orks had an uphill battle all game,  I felt like that was more about my own poor tactics rather than just having a bad set of army rules. I'm looking forward to playing some more games of 8th ed - and I'll share my thoughts on that at some point.

My Waaagh! advances across a desolate refinery world against the newly awakened Necron horde.

Even at 50 PL, its a lot of Orks!

Its also a LOT of Gauss weapons… 

These are my buddy Stuart's lovely models. 

Ohhhhhh! I so wanted this showdown to happen - unfortunately the 20 Warriors on the gantry had other ideas.

Paint-wise, I finished up a unit of 3 Killa Kans which brings my Ork army over 100 Power Level-things. I also finished up some more Shadow War scenery and I'm already eyeing up getting a little more. Because I am crazy, apparently. But for now, I am fully satiated on gaming after this weekend and my feet are sore from standing at gaming tables because I'm a million years old I guess!

Huey, Dewey and Louie are ready to rumble!

I had such a great time this holiday weekend and I'm really lucky to know such awesome people to game with!

Cheers!

Nerdcation Part 1 - A Yank at Salute!

So this year for vacation I decided to cross a few things off the ol' bucket list and got tickets for the Salute show in London. Salute has had this near mythical status in my head for years - the pictures online always display a lot of work and love of toy soldiers done by local clubs. I'd also get to meet some people in the industry that I've known online for years that I'd otherwise never get the chance to meet. With tickets secured, I boarded an airplane and set off half-way around the world for one of the best toy-soldier shows anywhere!

My first jet-lagged day there, I spent seeing the Tower bridge and the Tower of London itself.

I was tired by 2 in the afternoon. This trip was a mess with a 9 hour time difference and wrecked
havoc on my internal clock.

Relaxing and then doing some touristy stuff was first, but Saturday was the big dance. Salute was a massive show - not quite on the scale of GenCon - but bigger than most others I've been to. It was stacked with vendors ranging from the big boys at Forge World to the little guy casting in his garage and everyone in between. It was fun to see what they had to show, but my main interest lay in the displays and games put on by the fans and clubs. I was not disappointed. No half built, un-primed models playing on green felt here. Only 100% certified awesome was on display. Let's take a look!

This massive display of a fort on the coast of New Sweden was the first thing to greet me
when entering.

Loved the ship readying its landing parties!

Love all the little details on this board. It really brings it to life!

Indian war parties patrol the shore!

Im sure the nearby village was concerned with the thunder of guns the fort and ship
were exchanging!

A display for Wild West Exodus built by my buddy Rob Hawkins at the Rob Hawkins Hobby Blog.

It was awesome to check out this massive Dropfleet Commander dropship in person.

Check out all those ships ready to descend on a hapless planet.

Germans vs Soviets in the snow.

I really liked the winter paint on the German armor.

Life finds a way in this Jurassic Park game!

The raptor section really needed to be run by woman so that when she beat you, the
proper response would be "Clever Girl!"

I was happy to see no sign of Chris Pratt.

A game of "To The Strongest" being run by its writer, Simon Miller of The Big Read Bat Cave blog.

All those pikemen in 28mm were giving me a bit of the vapors. So sexy!

Who'd think this was played on grid? So cleverly hidden.

This board was the Fall of Saigon and packed with models!

Again, full of lovely little touches.

The Japanese column brazenly advances!

With a little air support, of course.

Great looking 1st World War trench table action.

Some ACW action ready to occur.

I think them Union boys gonna have a looooong walk over to
them fences.

I think a War of Spanish Succession battle? Anyway, that town in
the back was great!

Sweeeeet.

I think that's a LOT of robots by anyone's standards.

An evil genius' derrick lair for a game of 7TV

This fantastic game of Napoleonics was a scaled up version
of Command & Colors Napoleonics.

Even in 15mm, this was a huge board.

Giant Robits fight it out in this Wolsing display.

A lovely game of Sharpe's Practice put on by the fellas from Lard Island.

Some hot Pike and Shotte action on this table.

Some great D-Day action here!

This whole table oozed with details. One of my favs there.

I really loved the buildings.

This table for Mierce Miniatures was fantastic. I got to watch it grow on Twitter
and the end result was fabulous!

And a shot from the other end.

Some 15mm Napoleonics using the new "General de'Armee" rules, I believe.

This Infinity table was full of vibrant colors!

And probably cost a fortune!

Loved this little board for samurai skirmishes.

Battlegroup Tobruk by Ironfist Publishing. 

They do great work with materials anyone can get.

This amazing castle and town by Oshiro Models was another show highlight.

Those buildings are just wonderful!

I loved how many boards incorporated water and boats into their design, and this was
no exception.

A line of samurai and their troops make their way up to the castle!

More 15mm Naps! That town in the corner was just the best.

All hand made, from what I was told!

Some far future action from Halo Ground Command over at Spartan Games.

This Pelican model almost made me want to play this game. Almost.

Great looking Frostgrave table.

From another angle.

More Frostgrave action. I think this was a display by Sarrissa for their laser cut range.

I really dug the mountain shrine added.

I ended up making only a few purchases at the show. I was most enthused by some more Time Robbers figures from Northumbrian Tin Soldier and scooped them up as quick as I could!

Kevin completes the crew! And Og as a pig is just icing on top!

"I would have started with Micro Chips, the Laser, DAY ONE!"

I never pass up on a model that gives me the chance to use a Sean Connory voice!

Aside from a few bibs and bobs, that was my Salute. It was a fantastic show and everyone there was so kind to me. BUT! That wasn't the end of my Nerdcation - I figured while I was "close", a trip to Nottingham and Warhammer World was in order. That's part 2 later this week!

Cheers!