Friday 16 February 2018

Less IS More

Well, it certainly seems to be the case when applied to painting units for my fledgling ECW armies!
Hobby time has been severely limited this week (not helped by me also spending some time finally finishing "Resident Evil:Biohazard" on the Playstation!), but I've still managed to add another regiment of horse - Royalist this time, which have spent far less time under the brush than the previous unit.

Major Wormsley's Regiment of Horse

I deliberately chose another unit of buff coated arquebusiers so there would be a direct comparison with the previous paint session, but for these guys I started off by fully assembling the models, with the riders fixed on the horses, so painting would be as per a 'one piece casting'.
After priming, I decided to limit the range of colours for their palette,  and also "eased back" on picking out individual details (a step which proved to be really difficult, as the temptation to keep revisiting each mini was extremely hard to overcome!).
This meant adopting the mentality of viewing the whole, grouped  'unit' as I would normally view a single 'model', and concentrating on getting them to look OK on the table from normal viewing distance (they'd win no prizes in any painting competition, but they're not destined to sit on any display shelves - I think the word is "functional"!)

The speed painting allowed me to paint up the excellent little "Tavern Set" from Col. Bills,
and some casualty markers for the "Victory Without Quarter" rules,
proving that not only does the new approach to painting cavalry units save me time, but also doesn't  dent the painting mojo like the last regiment did!

Just to finish this post, here's yet another reminder why you should always keep an eye on the toy shelves in your local charity shop - I couldn't believe my luck this week, when I spotted this for 50p
The info on the chassis tells me it's a Maisto Humvee made in China, and because it's not 'playworn' the paint job will be OK until I find the round tuit that'll allow a repaint.

As ever, a big thankyou for visiting, and for those that prefer batreps to bodges, the next post should be more to your liking.

24 comments:

  1. The painting looks good in the group photo Greg, so target achieved, nice work on the tavern and casualty markers, a very productive week

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    1. Many thanks Dave, it turned out to be a far more productive week than I expected, and I'm hoping to keep the pace up with a similar output this week :-)

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  2. For a weeks work and according to you - no time - I am in awe of your work rate. I finally got round to painting some figures and managed 12 in a 3 day marathon, mind you I am pretty slack when it comes to painting.
    The Col Bill's set looks good, funnily enough I think I was painting one of their sets, probably early 1800's but they are western towns folk for me.
    The Humvee was a good find, well done.

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    1. Cheers John, but 12 mini's in 3 days sounds like a good rate as well - especially to the standard that you achieve with your painting :-)
      I had to squeeze in some "late night painting sessions" (well early morning when we arrived home from gigs), NOT something I usually do ;-)

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  3. Great find with the Humvee. It does appear that you have had quite a productive week, despite what you may think.

    What really interested me was seeing that you are currently reading "Can you Survive the Zombie Apocalypse" by Max Brallier. I reviewed it on my blog here - http://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/can-you-survive-zombie-apocalypse-by.html
    And I got to interview Max here - http://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/interview-with-max-brallier.html
    He's one cool dude, and was incredibly generous.

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    1. Thanks Bryan, having had so many useful finds in charity shops, I find it hard to walk by them nowadays ;-)
      I spotted the book on ebay while looking for something completely unrelated and couldn't resist it! I've only just read the intro, so I'll check out your review if there's no spoilers???? :-)

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    2. I didn't think there would be buddy :-)
      Just read your excellent review and interview, but also spent some time looking at old posts I hadn't got round to reading yet - I'd forgotten just what works of art your magnificent card stock buildings are!!

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  4. Love the casualty markers. I'm always looking for them.

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    1. I'm a fan of mass battle rules that have multi-bases and no figure removal Tim, and though casualties can be marked with chits, tokens, dice etc, I reckon wounded mini's add a little to the look of the game - though some folk might think it's a bit morbid and represents the 'human suffering and horrors of war'...... just wait til I paint up the surgeon and his mate! ;-)

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    2. Yep I'm right there with you. I always look for some casualty figures to use just for that purpose or even just a dressing for the battlefield. Can't always find them but I always have a bit of a look......maybe I'll need a few dead space ships....

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  5. Great posting, Wargame Addict, especially if gaming has distracted you as well. I'm utterly in love with your "ECW" collection, so please do keep up the very good work :-)

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    1. Thank you Simon, I'm off to the English Civil War Centre in Newark this weekend for a bit of an inspiration top-up, so I'm sure there'll be some "ECW action" to come on the blog ;-)

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  6. So far so good buddy. The ECW are most certainly tabletop ready and to my tired eyes look fab “en masse” the humvee is a marvellous find.

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    1. Cheers Andy - this unit straightened out the dent in last weeks painting mojo, so I'm really glad I decided to tackle 'em straight away.
      The Humvee was a brilliant stroke of luck, and I'm tempted to add a new 'label' to the blog to illustrate just what can be picked up from the charity shops ;-)

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  7. The unit and the tavern set both look excellent. :)

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    1. Thanks Leon, they're much needed additions for the games for the 17thC projects and I'm really glad to have them ready for the table :-)

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  8. Nice one, Kev-Greg-Wargames Addict (you can slap me round the back of the head at Hammerhead, if you like!).

    Getting figures painted and onto the tabletop is what it is all about, so, ultimately, whatever works is a winner. I've loads of kit, unglued and unpainted and unplayable. So top job finishing everything that you have in this post. My motivation would have vanished midway through the cavalry.

    Depot Battalion is the number one selling range at Col. Bill's, if its of interest to any one. And we were talking about casualty figures on Friday. Dead horses, actually, but the sculptor says that getting the laid out animal anatomically correct and it's muscles looking right is a tricky job, so possibly I'll have to convert GEG's cowboy dead horses when needed.

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    1. No 'slaps round the head' Roy - I get worse at gigs, my guitar strap has GREG embossed on it, bit the first G sometimes sits under my shirt collar, so I get folks who think my name's "Reg" ;-)

      For dead horses, I'd be tempted to simply use one half of Warlord Games plastics (I'll try doing a quick example to illustrate), but at the moment I'm just using rider casualties - assuming the men were hit and the horses simply ran off, so legitimately claim "no model animals were harmed during this battle" and keep the RSPCMA off my case ;-)

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    2. "but" not "bit" - I'm in the middle of another cavalry painting session, and my speed typing is as bad as my speed painting!

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  9. If I can finish 1 figure per day (or more accurately, 7 figures in a week, because they tend to be painted in batches) then I think I'm doing well. Did you really paint a unit of cavalry, the tavern scene and a bunch of casualties in just 7 days? Impressive!

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    1. To be honest Hugh, four of the casualty markers only needed finishing off ;-)
      The BIG thing is the quality - it would take me a whole week to finish a single mini to anything approaching the standard you achieve. These are just block colour then wash, finished with homebrew texture base paint (I need to revisit the bases with a lighter drybrush)

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  10. Good looking unit of horse and no-one will ever know you'v missed some detailing off. I do like to see mass-production of wargame figures too!
    Very jealous too of you Humbee - I;ve been looking for something suitable for ages.

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    1. Thanks Joe, and your current 'Sudan project' has been instrumental in getting me to get these ECW units done, so thanks also for that :-)
      I was quite happy with my Humvee look-a-likes that I happened to find (in a charity shop!) after spotting yours in an old post on your blog, so that's TWO credits to you sir in one comment ;-)

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