Ratty

I have spent a couple of hours this evening painting up Ratty from Mr Hick's wind and the willows set. I decided to paint this fine fellow up as a hunt master. I like how the muted red jacket turned out, and the contrast the red cravat gives to the creamy white waist coat. In general I'm really pleased with the results and the model is really nicely sculpted.

Imperial Stormtroopers

For the last couple of evenings I have been painting up these four Imperial Stormtroopers from Games Workshop. There's another 6 or so of them in the box, which was purchased for me by the wife a couple of years ago and I just never got round to painting them.

I went for a fairly plain, non 40k, colour scheme which I think turned out pretty dam well. I also had a go at some OSL around the side light and helmet light thingy, I think the green glow has worked not to badly given that I have not really practised OSL before.

The models themselves are okay, but had pretty big mold lines and flash. Also I find GW mini's really fiddle to paint, I don't really know why but I do. These chaps turned out okay though and I might even crack on and finish the rest of the squad at some point.

They are however very expensive, as are in my opinion all GW models. I really do not understand why they think its okay to charge two or three times what any other manufacturer would charge for a lead mini. Anyway I'll just put my soap box away and go quietly! 

Mr Toad

Finished painting this great model by Mr Paul Hicks. This is part of his "wind and the willows" set, obviously this is Mr Toad. I still have Badger, Moley and Ratty to paint up. For Mr Toad I used a classic Wind and the Willows water colour painting for reference I really like how he turned out and am looking forward to painting the remaining three models.

The first Sculpt is the deepest

Little change this evening. I had painted up a modern miniature from Empress but to be honest I was really not happy with the results (my fault not the casting, which is top notch).

So whilst poking around in my pictures folder on the computer I found these pictures which I did not know I had of a gamesworkshop mini I sort of sculpted for use with a Diorama I was building at the time. The Diorama is of a genestealer breaking out of a holding tank and about to eat a couple of unfortunates. The Diorama itself is up on the public gallery on Dakka Dakka if anyone is interested just search within the gallery for Containment Breach, or Smillie and it should pop up.

Any way I thought I would post my feeble sculpting efforts and add quick "what I did". So from 1 to 8 above.

1. I took a Gamesworkshop Cadian Imperial Guardsman and cut of the pockets on the trousers (I thought they looked to combaty) and hacked the body armour off the front and back of the model as well. This took about 45 mins as I had to be careful and as the plastic was quite thick in places.

2. Next I added some greenstuff to the front of the chest to bulk it back out for molding into a sort of technicians top.

3. Added the front seam of the top and a pocket on the bottom left side of the models top.

4. More work on the front seam and rounding of the shoulders and back.

Sorry guys I've just noticed pictures 5 and 6 are the wrong way round .

6. I didn't sculpt the arms they were scavenged from an Empire pistol model as where the hands, I think. But the hands came from a different set so I had to cut them from the arms and glue them on the new arms.  I also had to severely cut down and scrape flat the shoulders to make the arms fit.

5. More green suff worked around the shoulders to make quarter sleeves for the top.

7. I did not really fancy having a crack at a head so I used the Srg's head from the Imperial Guard set. Although I cut the mic thing from his face so he just has the head phones.

8. Painted up.

Things to remember about the finished product. Firstly this was painted quite a while a go when I was still getting to grips with shading, highlighting etc when painting. So the paint job is a bit simple, that said I still like how the model turned out.

With hindsight I should have used greenstuff to make the arms flow into the hands, but at the time I thought it would be covered up by painting and I don't really want to fiddle with it now and I don't think it's hugely distracting.

Anyway hope you like my efforts, which are very much in the beginners league, picture of the whole Diorama below, which despite the basicish paint jobs still has pride of place on my miniatures shelf.

French Officer

Just finished painting the French Officer from the Warlord "Defenders of France" boxed set. I like the model, nice and active with some movement. Only took me an hour or so to paint as the paint job was pretty simple. All in all a nice model and I like the results. Just the Morter team from the boxed set to paint now, although I am sort of putting of doing them. Probably be tommorow that I finish of the Morter I think.

I'm trying to resist the urge to buy some Vikings from Gripping Beast. I have no medieval models, don't usually collect or paint the period but I just fancied painting some brawling raiders! anyway must resist.

Imperial Officer

As a change from my french troops I painted up this GW Imperial Guard officer that I glued together a while ago and undercoated and then, in true wargamer fashion, loss interest in painting. I decided to give him a more sedate paint job than GW miniatures usually receive, and quiet enjoyed it to be honest.

I'm not a huge fan of GW what with the insane expense of the army's, the constant changing of rules, army books etc etc. But I might be convinced to knock up another squad or two to accompany my other very blue Imperial guard troops.

Half a rifleman!

Finished painting the last four of my normal French infantrymen, you will notice that one of my chaps has but half of a rifle. Unfortunately Warlord had packed these models quite badly and the rifles were all very badly bent when I unpacked them from the Blister pack.

I was able to carefully straighten out the other models but unfortunately one rifle was too badly twisted and broke off. Never the less the model looks fine, and will do.

Just three morter men and an officer left to paint of my french set. In the future I plan on picking up another infantry section and Warlords lovely 75mm cannon. But that probably wont be for a few months at least.

Lord Cirencester

I have spent a very fruitful afternoon painting up this top model from Paul Hicks. I decided to paint him up to go with my Zulu War era troops, either in the VBCW universe or the actual Zulu War period. Either way a really great model to paint and a really sharp casting from Paul Hicks.

French LMG

Painted up this french LMG team, no thankfully not the Chauchat. These three finish off my french infantry squad from warlord. I have a five man command squad and a mortar team to paint up. However I think I will have a bit of a break from my frenchies and paint something a little bit different next. 

And yet more french infantry

Completed another four of my french infantry. Next I'm going to paint the last infantry man and the LMG team to complete the 12 man squad. Then I have the mortar section, and five man command squad to finish of my first group of french infantry.

Klaus

Decided to have a little break from painting up my French Infantry and painted this German General model from Artizan. I have had it undercoated and on the "to do" shelf for a while but wasn't sure about a colour scheme.

Well I had a scoot around on google images and found a nice green/grey WW2 uniform style which I think lends this model a very evil look. He may eventually make it onto the table in a pulp game or maybe at some point in the future I will pick up a squad or two of early war jerrys to accompany this model.

More French Infantry

Painted up another four of my french infantry from Warlord. I like how they look and they didn't take too long to paint so all in all they were a pleasant evenings painting. My only criticism would be that some of the model's (only one or two mind) are a bit flash heavy in awkward to clean places like the face!

Bonjour!

Painted up the first of my Warlord early WW2 French Infantry yesterday. I usually paint in batches of four to eight miniatures but I haven't painted a French uniform before so this was the colour test model. I like how he turned out and the Warlord sculpts are nice and were quite easy to paint.
In other news I spent today in Tring attending a 1 day wargames event organised by Mort from GWP. It was a good crack (even though I got a drubbing) and nice to have a gas about the period and modelling in general.

A few more grunts

Just finished painting my last four Vietnam grunts from TAG. I don't know why but I got a bit bored half way through painting these chaps, still polished them off in short order and I'm now ready to start on my first squad of french infantry from Warlord.

Green Mean Fighting Machine

Painted up another three of the TAG Vietnam figures I had knocking around. I kept up the simple green look. Got another four of these models in the back of the cupboard, so they should keep me busy until my purchase from Warlord arrives.