Finally painted something!

Over the weekend, I managed to get some paint onto some figures! It may not sound like much of an acievement (and the grand scale of things, it really isn't ...), but I'm pleased, as I can't really remember the last time I painted anything ... :(  I've got pics below of what I've painted, and the cars I got from eBay that I mentioned in my last post; however, I've just added a desk lamp which seems to have made the photos to bright :( I suppose it makes a change from too dark though!

Anyway, last week I'd managed to base up all the 6mm figures I'd got from Irregular to use with ATZ-Mass Hysteria, and you can see them in the group pic to the right. Humans in ATZ-MH come in 3 types, Military, Police or Civilians and in the pic, the Military bases are in the green rectangle, Police in the blue, and civvies in the red. As you might be abble to make out, there are 2 types of Military bases: 'normal' and 'support' (the smaller ones at the top).

To the left is a close-up of  one of the painted 'normal' military bases. Flesh for hands & faces, leaf green for uniform, umber for boots and dark grey for weapons is the extent of colours used.  With 6mil's the key is to paint in blobs and remember they'll be seen at arm's length!

Here is one of the Police bases. Again a very simple scheme. As this photo and the one before show, I've gone with 4 figures per base for the Military and Police, but five for civilians - none of them painted so no pics!  I've not got any zed bases done yet - figures not arrived! - but when I do them, I'll stick as many on as I can manage for a real horde effect ...

So, as all the military bases were done, I dipped them using Army Painter magic dip, strong tone. This really gives the mini's a great finish, although the pics don't do it justice I'm afraid ...  to the left is a normal base

Here is one of the two types of support base I've done - this is a GPMG

And here is the second type of support base - a mortar team. In Grekwood mini's accesory sale (thanks Carl!) I got some Extra fine ballast that I'm going to use to finish the bases

I trawled back through my photos and found this picture to the right that shows more clearly how the dip finishes the 6mil figs - in this case a Baccus WSS infantry strip (the sames as recently seen in this post on Clint's blog); for before and after dipping pics see this post:
army-painter-quick-shade-aka-magic-dip

On to the cars I purchased from eBay. For the princely sum of £6.17 (with free p&p) I got the bag of painted model cars that you see to the left. Allegedly it contains 100 painted cars, but I haven't counted them ;)

The ebay item description (hope the link works!) describes them as 'N/Z 1:200' scale, but as you can see in the pic to the right they fit almost perfectly with the (supposedly!) 1/300th figures from Irregular - at least IMHO!

And they also seem to fit with the 1/300th vehicles that I got from Irregular at the same time, which are (l-r in pic) a fire engine (which seems very small to me!), Transit Van and Saxon APC

Apart from use as board clutter/decoration, I intend to use them to make the barricades that ATZ-MH allows you to make to slow the onrushing zed horde, and the pic to the right shows a quick mock-up of how that might appear; not entirely sure at present how I'll do it though ...

That's it for this post; next time I'll show the city-scape I've made for the game, and hopefully some more of the figures painted

Brigade Models' 2mm Middle Eastern Village

I'm not entirely sure that I've mentioned on this blog that one of my (many!) ongoing projects is 2mm VSF using the wonderful Aeronef and Land Ironclad figures from Brigade Models and infantry figures from Irregular Miniatures' 2mm range.  Anyway, to go with these, I got Brigade's 2mm Middle Eastern Village at salute and finished painting them last week:

Not that they took much painting really ...  After gluing them to coffee stirrers, I sprayed them with Halfords' matt grey primer as undercoat then covered them with Coffee, White or Unbleached Linen paints. Then I picked out the windows and doors with black before using medium tone magic dip. I'm not entirely sure how I'll base them for gaming yet, but I am pleased with how they've come out.
(Note: the tower at the right end of the back stirrer will be attached to the building at the right end of the front stirrer to form a mosque.)

In other news:

• DIY disaster over the weekend; discovered that what I thought was the water mains stopcock actually wasn't when I cut through the water-pipe ...
• Martian conversions are ready for undercoating (well nearly anyway)
• Irregular Mini's 42mm amazon figures leave a lot to be desired in their face scuplts ... :(
• I intend to be at Broadside next weekend; if I make it, I'll wear my t-shirt with my blog address on the back, so please say hello if you see me!

Only one - but it's a biggie!

I finished the Clearco ladies last night, but the photos I took this morning have not come out well at all :(

Therefore I'm going to try again tonight - hopefully with better results!

I also finished Talos and that photo came out better and has a Clearco lady in for comparison. I'm very pleased with how he's come out, but the magic dip I used has given a very glossy finish - I don't think it did this last time I used it .... perhaps I didn't shake it enough ...



In other news:

• I fished out my VSF minis last night and started painting them - really getting into this painting lark again now ...
• I had a quick guestimate at how many IHMN companies I could make and I got to about 6 without even trying! more details on that after I've finished my Clearco series - and read the rules of course!

AWOP again, ME3, Dr Who Locations, the TARDIS and SAGA

Done it again, been AWOP (Absent Without Posting) once more. No intention to do so, but just seem not to have had the time ... mainly due to buying Mass Effect 3 and playing that; another great game, but so totally let down by its ending :(

Anyway, one of the things I have done, was go on a Dr Who location tour in Cardiff. I was a bit sceptical of it, but it turned out to be quite fun in the end. An added bonus was the guide learning where filming was to happen the next day so I got a photo of the real TARDIS in-situ

While in Cardiff, I went round Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch, both great places to visit.

On a wargaming note, I played my first game of SAGA last friday, mucho fun. A simple, but not simplistic system that needs a hell of a lot more thought than I realises! As a consequence, my Anglo-Saxons (in the first expansion book) got shot to bits by my opponent's Normans :(

Anyway, as previously promised, here are some photos of my warband. All the armoured figures are made from Gripping Beast's plastic saxons box, while the metal levy figures are from Black Tree Designs. All of the figures have been "magic-dipped" and I'm very pleased with them

Group shot of the entire Warband

Warlord (centre) and unit of Hearthguard

2nd unit of Hearthguard

3rd unit of Hearthguard

Example Warriors 1

Example Warriors 2

Levy 1 (metal from BTD)

Levy 2 (metal from BTD)

I'll certainly be at Salute this coming weekend and will post tomorrow about what I'm going to spend money I can't afford on!!

Army Painter Quick Shade - aka 'Magic Dip'; part 2

Been a while since I posted, but I have been busy painting my Baccus 1/300 War of Spanish Succession (WSS) infantry, and then after SAGA finally arrived, I switched to my Gripping Beast plastics to create the warbands for that.

Way back in this post I posted on my first results with 'Magic Dip' and negatively compared it to the mucky wash finish that I normally use. Last week, I decided to give it another go, using my WSS 6mm stuff as the experimental figures. I have tried to use the wash on 6mm minis before but have been very dissatisfied with the results as it made them too dark, hence I wanted to try the dip.  So here are some photos of the tests:

strip of Baccus WSS line inf painted

same strip just after dipping

same strip approx 12hrs later

The photos above show my first test with just one strip and I am very pleased with the results. Unlike the wash I previously tried, the dip gives a lighter overall effect, whilst still creating the shadows and depth I wanted. Its effects are also much more even and consistent than the wash has ever been and its also a varnish! Even the gloss finish it gives - I think - is good for these tiny minis. Once I've done some more I'll put up a group shot of bases to show you all.

I'd painted around 30 or so of these strips and the others were all stuck to bases so I was holding the base with a pair of pliers while dipping the others and as I was doing so, I was wondering how I would be able to retrieve the base if I dropped it in the tin of dip ...

Of course, no sooner had I thought about it, than it happened ... my base of painted British grenadiers:

slipped from the pliers and plunged to the bottom of the dip! :( I eventually managed to fish them out with the pliers and they seemed none the worse for the experience, although the MDF base had soaked up the dip:

When I started I was dipping the whole figures in so that just the green painted strip was showing, but experimenting with how much to dip showed me that I only need to dip them to about the waist - as they stand to dry, the dip on the top half flows down (slowly!) and covers the bottom half.

I've also tried the dip with a 28mm Gripping Beast plastic and I am very pleased with the results! I'll put some pics of them up next time.

All-in-all I have now revised my opinion of magic dip completely - no more washes for me as the final step. It will be magic dip from now on!

PS - this post told how I had been making a model plane for my Dad's 70th and mentioned I had lost the canopy parts for it - I found them yesterday!

Army Painter Quick Shade - aka 'Magic Dip'

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I bought some Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade (aka 'magic dip') from Figures in Comfort at this year's Colours convention. I paid £19.95 (IIRC) for it, but saw it cheaper from other traders :(   I decided to use it on a new project so that all the figures in that project had the same finish. I didn't want one side in a game looking completely different from the other - in terms of finish anyway!

So - somewhat appropriately - my new 18mm fantasy animal figures from Splintered Light Minis, were my guinea pigs and now that they're done, here are some before, after and 1 'during' pictures, with my conclusions on Quick Shade afterwards.

Hedgehog and Badger - before



Hedgehog and Badger - during (immed. after dipping)



Hedgehog and Badger - after



Otters - before

Otters - after

Shrews - before

 

Shrews - after

Squirrels - before



Squirrels - after

Note: All the 'after' pictures were taken approx 24hrs after dipping.

When pulling the minis out of the dip and then standing them on my cutting mat, they were covered in huge blobs of the dip - the Badger and Hedgehog 'during' photo shows this perfectly. There was so much dip on them that you couldn't see the gap between their legs!

Not having used the dip before, I spread the excess around with a brush and felt obliged to do that with all the dipped minis ... but that rather defeats the object of the dip doesn't it? If I have to spread it around the figure with a brush I might as well use a wash - how I normally finish my figures! Perhaps they would have been ok without spreading the dip, but to me there seemed far too much to just leave it ...

As an example of the wash finish that I normally use, the 28mm Sci-Fi figures in my last post were all finished with the mucky brown/black wash and I think the effect is just as good as Quick Shade's and is also considerably cheaper.

The only advantage I can see of using the dip is that it is a varnish as well, but seeing how glossy it is, I fell that I'm going to have to put coat of matt or satin over it.

So, my conclusion ... I like the shading of the finish, but not the gloss; Army Painter Quick Shade is not for me due to its high gloss finish and cost. I'll probably use up the tin I've got, but I won't be buying anymore.

OFC, YMMV.