Just a quickie

Occasionally, one gets inspired to just throw something together, and today was just such a day.

My godson Edward is six years old, son to a father who has been a medieval re-enactor for many years, and he already owns a rather lovely wooden castle that I bought him for Christmas when he was just four and a growing collection of Papo 90mm plastic medieval knights and footsoldiers.

Needless to say, I haven’t needed much prompting to start introducing him to the joys of wargaming, and over the last month or so, I have had a couple of games with him, played on the dining room table with rudimentary rules thrown together on the spot, assisted by the dice from the family’s backgammon set.

Well, young Edward has taken to these like a duck to water (though he does insist upon the solitary toy dragon being included, with obviously devastating results; I managed to persuade him that the addition of a rather large brontosaurus would be pushing things too far) and so the time has come to start bringing in some scenery that bears rather better resemblance to the European countryside than a check tablecloth.

To this end, and inspired by Rob dean and Ross MacFarlane’s article in Battlegames issue 6, I decided to create some rudimentary trees, hedges and bushes to match the figures. A quick rummage produced a piece of pale blue upholstery foam, about 50mm thick. For the trees, I cut three discs per tree, of descending diameters of about 6″, 4½” and 3″. As I cut them out with a long-bladed craft knife, I titled the blade so that the result was a series of truncated cones, so they would form something resembling a conifer tree. I also plucked and chopped the edges and sides to make them more irregular. For the trunks, I found some bits of 16mm dowelling, which I cut to lengths of between 12 and 14 inches. For the bases, a quick rummage turned up a section of half inch thick by three inch wide plank, which I cut into squares and then drilled a recess in each to fit and glue the dowelling.

The hedges were made from a length of the same foam, sliced in half to make it thinner, and then the top edges and ends were hacked about to make an irregular top. The bushes were simply some small offcuts of the foam, shaped with scissors.

Then came the really messy part! I have a cubby-hole in our attic that I use as a spray painting booth, with a face mask as extra protection and a large fan turned on to blow the fumes and residue out of the attic! I undercoated everything with GW Chaos Black first (it required two whole cans!), and then used up a can of Forest Green car spray paint that had been lying around for years to give everything a nice dark green colour. The hedges and bushes got a swish of Tundra car spray paint to break up the colour, and then some dabs and drybrushing of a slightly sagey green emulsion helped to give some relief to the whole lot. The tree trunks were sprayed with a chocolatey brown spray that I’d picked up from somewhere, and then the tree bases finished off with some of the green emulsion.

Once the paint was dry, I cut holes in the centre of the discs, applied Bostik (UHU is the same) to the trunk, and slid the discs into position, with a small gap between each. Job done.

Total cost? Well, just the couple of cans of Chaos Black, really, since everything else was just lying around, so let’s call it a tenner at the most. The look I expect to see on my godson’s face? Priceless. Total time taken? About four, very messy and smelly, hours. Fun factor? 10/10.

Highlighting flesh… in 6mm?

Yes, I know I said I was going to move on to the clothing, but when I decided to grab an hour this evening to move things a bit further forward, I picked up the first strip and thought, “hmmm, I wonder…”

So, this is one of those little detours that could have proved fruitless in this scale, but I’m in the mood to experiment, and since this is the only time I’m ever going to be painting Greek and Persian armies in this diminutive size, I might as well make the effort to make them as good as I can make them.

To begin with, let me say that this is where mounting the figures on wooden strips and working in production-line method pays dividends. Highlighting at this scale needs a steady hand, calm breathing and often constitutes the merest touch of the brush tip on the figure. Practice makes perfect, and having gone boggle-eyed on the first few, I was dabbing at speed by the last, taking only a second or two per figure.

In this first picture you can see the tremendous benefits afforded by mounting thse tiny critters on a strip of wood. When it comes to highlighting, we are generally talking about the merest touch of the tip of a size 1 or 0 brush on the figure, so a steady hand and calm breathing are imperative! Here, you can see that I’m minimising hand and brush shake by using the edge of the table as a support, with the light from the anglepoise coming from above and to the left front. Another anglepoise is directed from the right rear.

The second picture is very similar to the first, but shows how different areas of the figures can be accessed by a simple rotation and tilting of the strip of wood, leaving the brush hand in the same, comfortable and stable position. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the colour I’m using is Citadel/GW’s Elf Flesh, diluted about 50/50. I’m simply running the brush along the upper surfaces of arms that would be lit by sunlight from above, putting a wee dab on shoulders, thighs, calf muscles and so on. For faces, where I can identify a nose or forehead, that gets a dab too. Do not get stressed about accidents: “paint the unit, not the man”!

Here you can see the finished results, with the hoplites closest to the camera. Yes, okay, okay, it’s subtle, but when you consider how tiny these fellers are, I’m pretty gobsmacked that it’s worked at all, but there is undeniably a shading effect happening here, and my Athenian and Theban finest are coming to life. When I start on the Persians, I’m making a ‘note to self’ about trying a slightly different flesh tone to reflect the different origins of the men who served the King of Kings.

And finally, a macro close-up showing the archers closest to the camera, and the effect of brushing along the uppermost surfaces of the flesh clearly visible. As to whether it’s been worth it – we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? But since this little exercise took less than an hour, I’m happy. In essence, of course, it’s the Dallimore two-colour method writ small. Umm, make that “very small”.

So, next time, I really shall be moving on to other bits! (Darn, Henry, don’t forget about all those tiny toenails…) And I mustn’t forget, of course, that this is just the first of my hoplite phalanxes, with another nine to follow – and that’s before I order some more! (Oh dear, I had a sudden urge to cackle in a maniacal fashion there. Perhaps it’s just that it’s very late again…)

Getting the Greeks going again

Yes, yes, “where have you been?”, I hear you cry. Well, what with getting issue 10 out the door and having the usual seasonal commitments, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to find the peace and seclusion to wield a paintbrush in anger, but here I am, raring to go.

You may recall that I had undertaken the basic prepping of my Baccus 6mm Greeks, and the time had come to start bringing these diminutive little critters to life. The interlude had also given me the opportunity to take some advice on tackling microscopic miniatures, as a result of which I was certain that the black undercoat method was the way to go. The first picture, therefore, shows me at my painting desk examining the results of a spray of Games Workshop Chaos Black, followed by a dilute wash of the same colour from the pot with a brush. The reason for this is that I almost invariably find that no matter how thoroughly I think I’ve sprayed, it seems that within 24 hours I spot little chinks of bare metal that inexplicably seem to have escaped coverage. As a matter of course, therefore, I go over with quick brushstrokes loaded with a thinnish wash of the same colour.

The next stage was to apply a drybrush of mid-tone grey to bring out the detail on the castings, in order to give my fuzzy eyes a better chance of seeing where subsequent paint should be applied! Pure black has a way of making me go cross-eyed when I’m focusing on the tip of a small brush, so this is a variation of the suggestion made a while ago by Tyler Provick. I loaded my large-ish soft brush with Citadel Codex Grey, wiped most of it off on some kitchen towel, and applied lightly in broad side-to-side sweeps as shown here. this is also where mounting the figures on strips of wood really comes into its own!

The next shot shows you a close-up of the effect achieved. You can see how the raised detail suddenly leaps out in relief and the areas to be left as shadow are easy to identify.

I always like to work from the inside out, as it were, starting with the flesh tones. So, once the grey had dried (which really didn’t take very long under the anglepoise lamps that I use – the first strip was dry before I finished the last one), I loaded my brush with Citadel Dwarf Flesh, diluted about 50/50 with water. I did wonder about going straight to the paler Elf Flesh, but I want my chaps to have that suntanned, Mediterranean look, so I’m happy to start with the slightly darker tone, adding a highlight if I think it necessary later.

Already at this stage, I had Pete (owner of Baccus) Berry’s advice ringing in my ears: “At this scale, paint the unit, not the man.” My eyesight’s pretty good, but even with a small brush, it’s virtually impossible not to get paint on areas other than those you are aiming for. The grey drybrush definitely helped, though, making it far easier to identify what should be arms, legs, bits of equipment and so on. So, on went the paint, and before I knew it, I was sploshing the last bit of flesh on the last of the archers. Here’s a close-up on the result: hardly the neatest paint job I’ve ever done at this stage, but of course the effect will be cleaned up as each subsequent colour is added. A good time to take a break. This whole stage took probably no more than an hour and a bit, and that was with tea breaks!

Next time, I’ll concentrate on the clothing elements of the miniatures, before adding equipment and armour, so those Ospreys you can see around the painting table will come into their own.