Furst Guntram and the Cavenderian Ambassador

Furst Guntram Blauerwolf of Hesse-Engelburg (on left) in conversation outside a small local church with the Cavenderian Ambassador (on right).

As you can see, Furst Guntram is finally fully painted. He's far from perfect, certainly, but I believe we can declare him my first fully painted figure for Hesse-Engelburg. Only a couple of thousand to go! The Cavenderian Ambassador was of course painted by the talented Geoffrey of Cavenderia.

A picture

Only one as of yet, because I didn't like how any of them came out, really, and ALSO because I actually got another hour in this weekend. This is the picture taken after the first batch. I've not taken pictures of the most recent work, as I'm hoping to do a little more on it yet while I've a little bit of the mood for it.

Playing with Paints

Yesterday saw me actually spend the better part of an hour playing with paints. I gave the Lord a vote of thanks afterwards, for it's rare for me to actually sit and enjoy painting. But yesterday, I had a fun and felt accomplished afterwards.

Total output:

1) One building now has a brown thatch roof. I may change the color later. Perhaps try some of the sage green paint.
2) The Furst has added to his purple coat with a blue waistcoat and blue lapels. Next session, however, I shall keep the blue waistcoat but turn his lapels and cuffs red.
2) The Furstin now has a blue dress.
3) The black-primed and white-primed Minden Miniatures musketeers now both have blue coat and trousers.
4) One WW2 British officer now has brown helmet and uniform.
5) The other seven Mindens, including the officer and NCO, are now black-primed and ready.
6) I have painted skin on the other 8 RSM95 figures for my first company.

If by some miracle I manage to conduct sufficient painting sessions to finish what I've started, I'd have a royal couple, two companies of infantry, and a company of pioneers.

Yes, I Still Exist

I actually did a miniscule amount of painting yesterday. Mostly, I tried out a few paints acquired at Wal-Mart at least a month or two ago. I put a bit of flesh on a dozen or so figures, and despite it being early in the process, put some silver on several bayonet tips as I started out putting silver plates on the front of my pioneers and ended up with a lot of silver paint left over. I also painted the linen color on the back of the pioneers' aprons. Which means I'm gonna have to go back and repaint the backs of the legs. I'm also going to have to repaint a couple of faces where the silver paint got too far down on the faceplates.

Beyond that and occasional participation in Yahoo groups, about the only other thing I've done wargaming-wise is successfully sell a couple of books on Bartertown.

Sunday's Painting and Cavenderian Ambassador

As promised, we have a series of photos from Sunday's output, as well as pictures of the Blue Moon civilians and the Ambassador figure sent to represent Cavenderia. Captions and photos below, and click on the pictures for a closer view. All paints are acrylics.

First up, we have the six-figure pioneer unit in its present state.The details, such as cross-belts and facings, are yet to be done, but I'm pleased with how they've turned out so far. Colors used are Liquitex Black Colored Gesso for the basecoat, Vallejo Model Color 70815 Basic Skintone for the face and hands, Delta Ceramcoat 02054 Golden Brown for the pants and axe handles, Vallejo Model Color 70960 Violet for the coat, and folkArt 420 Linen for the apron.


Next up, notice the beautifully painted Cavenderian ambassador to the right of the photo. This is a gorgeous figure, and finally pushed me over the edge to hunt down some civilians of my own. To the left (from the viewer's perspective) is my chosen figure for Furst Guntram Blauerwolf, wearing the same basecoat, Violet, and Linen (on pants and neck ruffle) as the figures above. I know it's bad form to not paint the skin first, but I needed to see how the colors looked on him. I still can't decide what color to paint his cuffs and the feathers on his hat. Continuing to the left is my chosen figure for the Furstin. Furst and Furstin and the unpainted civilians on the back row are all Blue Moon castings from the Duel box set. Continuing to the left again, we see an RSM95 Prussian Musketeer testing out the black basecoat with the Violet coat. I used, I think, Delta Ceramcoat 02126 Medium Flesh on him. Not necessarily fond of the medium shade. I may have to paint over it with a lighter one. I love the violet though.


And lastly, you can see a series of basecoated figures, from left to right... a night watchman from the Blue Moon set, a Revell 1/72 WW2 British Infantry officer, a Minden Miniatures SYW Prussian musketeer, an RSM95 SYW Prussian Grenadier, a Spencer Smith metal SYW officer, a Spencer Smith metal SYW grenadier, and a vintage Spencer Smith plastic SYW grenadier (the latter with linen pants painted experimentally). Oh, and on the far left, one of the old white gesso RSMs with a little excess purple painted onto one sleeve to test how it colors over white. I'm strongly considering stripping all my old white gesso-coated RSMs and redoing them in the black, not so much for coloration as because I made the white gesso too gloopy and covered detail on several.

Photos coming...

I've had a sudden burst of painting and basecoating today. No photos yet, as I may get more done before the day is out. But photos are planned.

At present, among other things, my 6-man pioneer company has acquired leather breaches and purple coat. A sample RSM95 Prussian Musketeer has been given a purple coat to test its appearance, as well, for my idea of going with purple coats instead of gray. I wiped a little excess purple on one of the older white basecoated RSM95s as well, just on a sleeve to see what I thought of it. I'm seriously considering stripping the white-coated ones and redoing the basecoat in black. This is partly because I made the white too thick, and it obscures lines on some of the RSM95s in unpleasant ways for finding what to paint which color.

Also acquiring a purple coat is my Blue Moon figure that I've chosen to represent Furst Gunter Blauerwolf. And I also intend to include a picture of the Cavenderian diplomat whose arrival I mentioned earlier.

Changes and Updates...

....some of which I blame on Beerstein.

The Reich Duchy of Beerstein just put out a new selection of gorgeous uniforms and flags, and these have only served to increase my pondering regarding changing both my uniforms and my flags.

Originally, the gray color was chosen for two reasons. One was to be different than the usual historical red, blues, and whites. The other was because I had a limited set of Vallejo paints from which to work. But since then, some of the Vallejo paints appear to have broken down (I suspect due to freezing and then thawing during delivery in a cold snap) and I've added a large number of craft paints which have been mentioned on this blog previously.

So, having seen the snazzy new uniforms, it's once again prompted me to consider changing colors while I still have only a few painted gray. I'm strongly considering a nice purple/violet for the uniform coat. I might keep the gray trousers even. Not sure about that. I might do a some gray, some buff sort of a thing. I've not been quite satisfied with my flags for a while now, so I'm seriously thinking I might redo them as well. I'd love to tinker around and come up with a coat of arms that I liked better than just the simple blue wolf, but maintaining the wolf as a strong element.

Yesterday's mail also brought the civilian figures I alluded to in the previous post, and it turned out they are indeed as I suspected the Blue Moon "Duelists" box. There is one figure with a couple of what appear to be casting flaws: a pinhole in his eye only visible from a certain direction, and a missing barrel on his pistol. The end of the missing barrel is smooth, which is why I conclude it may be a casting error rather than something broken off? Other than that slight issue, these are absolutely gorgeous figures. I've picked out my Furst and Furstin, and possibles for their son and daughter. Since I have only two females, I haven't decided if I want to use the second as daughter Gertrude or set her aside for some other family. The idea of using her as Gertrude and painting her up in a pink dress to match her regiment is extremely tempting.

A little bit of progress

It's hardly anything impressive, but I did manage a tiny bit of progress this weekend. Sadly, nothing from Stokes, but hopefully this week time shall be found to go forward.

Meanwhile, I managed to paint hair on 3 of the Revell Austrian Pioneers and paint an experimental brown on two axe handles of the same. My trouble with painting is that I'm perfectionistic enough to hate my mistakes, and too unskilled as of yet to not make them. So I get frustrated by my inability to control where the paint ends up to my liking.

I also painted 3 blanket rolls on the long-neglected 10mm ACW figures to use up more of the brown paint I'd put out.

And lastly, I took my Christmas present styrofoam cutter out of the package and tried it out for the first time. It works pretty nicely. It cuts quickly, though at first the fumes were a bit heady, that seemed to clear up after a few moments. Possibly once it got a coating of melted styrofoam that may have cut down on the scent.

A January Start

The game with Stokes is on hold till the middle of next week while he and the Grand Duchess enjoy some skiing. So expect more on the Stollen blog the latter part of next week regarding the game.

Yesterday's mail brought me the ordered black gesso, and today I opened the bottle and gave it its first run. I've coated a company of 9 RSM Prussians and a pioneer company of 6 Revell Austrian figures with it this afternoon, and am waiting for them to dry. I've also glued the rest of the company of Minden figures on their bases, with an eye to possibly doing a bit of painting on them as well.

I'm torn, where the Mindens are concerned. On the one hand, they offer the chance of completing something small as I only have 9 of the figures. On the other, their detail is intimidating as one feels the need to do the beautiful figures justice. I suspect that I am going to end up aiming to do the Pioneers fairly early on, and see how things go from there.

My puzzle on the Pioneers is what to paint them as. I've been figuring on the Revells mostly forming units for Ober-Schweinsberg combatants, but I'm tempted to do a company of pioneers for Hesse-Engelburg, because they're such an interesting figure.

On the Workbench

If you check my main wargaming blog, http://snickeringcorpses.blogspot.com, you can see what I've currently got on the painting and assembly workbench.

AWI Eye Candy

Stokes, you must check out this first one if you've not seen it recently. :)

Will's rules for the American War of Independence - Recent postings (look for August 2008 and scroll back) have bunches of lovely eye candy using 1/72 plastic figures, including some very nice conversions. He does some interesting things with the ever over-abundant Airfix British Grenadiers involving mostly shaving down the bearskin to other forms of hat to create new troop types. If you haven't thought plastic figures could look good enough, take a look. He might surprise you.

Tarleton's Quarter - Here, the eye candy is 25-30mm metal instead, but also gorgeous. Most units are organized for the British Grenadier rules (the AWI version of General de Brigade). Beautifully painted and lots of different units to admire. He's especially fond of Perry sculpts, though other manufacturers turn up here and there as well.

Skinning the Minden

I managed to get in about 10 minutes with paints again, and you'll find on all three of my blogs (here, Snickering Corpses, and Ober-Schweinsberg) the fruits of my labors. Below is the first skin-colored paint on a Minden Miniatures Prussian musketeer. As usual, clicking on the photo will zoom in. While I won't claim any of my painting attempts to be easy, I do have to say that this first bit of paint was easier than I expected on this figure. It's far from perfect, but I'm reasonably pleased with it so far.

In Progress Photo

A couple of you had requested pictures of my latest project. If you'll click on over to the Landgraviate of Ober-Schweinsberg blog, I've posted 3 views of my first test figure with the SSM plastic grenadier.

http://ober-schweinsberg.blogspot.com/

Tiny Progress

There is now a single Spencer Smith plastic grenadier with a coat of white gesso base, and a yellow coat and vague resemblance of the bag of his cap in the same color. Also, a brown musket.

Now, I realize this is painting him totally out of keeping with general consensus of working from the skin out, but I wanted to see how the yellow would cover, as it's a different yellow than the one that failed so badly on the Lintzer cuffs and lapels. This one's Delta Ceramcoat, and it did very well on this initial test.

Given the rough nature of the Spencer Smith casts, one has to kind of guess at where some things should go, so I suspect I may continue painting out of order, touching things up until it looks right to me. Next up is probably the black facings and black of the bearskin and boots. I'm still debating trouser color.

Oh yes, it occurs to me I've not identified which unit, for which Jean-Louis will surely be agitated. Much as I hate to give such venerable figures to the enemy, I have decided to use the Spencer Smith grenadiers for the Gebuhren Eber Grenadiers of the Bad Nachtschwein League. Since my Hesse-Engelburg grenadiers are not in bearskins, they wouldn't really be useful there, so I gave them to the BNL so they can get onto the table against my H-E troops in time. Rest assured, dear reader, that the venerable Spencer Smiths are not unrepresented on the Hesse-Engelburg side, since the painted regiment of marching musketeers photographed a few months ago are going to be the Hesse-Engelburg marines. Which means, yes, that the current rumors of war may result in Spencer Smith vs Spencer Smith upon my table at some point.

Actual Painting!

Amazingly enough, I actually did a minor bit of painting this weekend, and the universe failed to explode.

Saturday, I spent a few minutes priming one of the two buildings of the JR Miniatures 15mm #1663 Worker's Quarters set, one of Frank's Minden Miniatures Prussians (directly behind the painted building), and one Revell WW2 British Infantry all with white artist's gesso (front right).

The first RSM95s I primed, which you can see in the background, I slapped this on a bit too thick on some, making them more blobbish. So I went a little thinner on it this time, and used the brush to keep excess from pooling.

Sunday, I put a first coat of paint on the Revell figure and did a trial of a pink coat on one of the old RSMs (slightly left of center). But the main focus was painting the building, which you can see in the middle of the photo, next to the unprimed second building from the same set. I still need to do a little more on it, but I was surprised at how well it came out with simply an undercoat and three colors of paint. I need to touch up a few spots of missing paint and add a few more details, but it's quite usable even in this state, which amazed me.

(click for larger photo)


All of them were primed with Liquitex white acrylic gesso. The pink uniform is Delta Ceramcoat Painted Desert. The WW2 Tommy is wearing Delta Ceramcoat Autumn Brown. Paints used on the building were Vallejo Basalt Gray for the walls, Delta Ceramcoat Autumn Brown for the door, and Delta Ceramcoat Golden Brown for the thatched roof.

The box in which they rest was originally put together for my trials of the Plasti-Dip spray rubber as a primer. I've abandoned the Plasti-Dip for the gesso, but the box serves as a very nice portable paint booth, as it were, since I have no permanent space for them right now. It's hoped that as we finish re-arranging the basement, there will be an available work surface as well as an available gaming surface.

Lintzer Musketeers with purple facings

Here's a belated set of photos of a couple of the Lintzer musketeers in progress, switched to purple facings from yellow.

Small Progress

I finally made the decision to change the facings of the Lintzer Musketeers to purple rather than yellow, as the yellow I have is just not up to the task. So, I painted facings and turnbacks and collars on a handful of my in progress figures, and I'm rather pleased with the color. Not as pleased with the inconsistency of my painting. In particular, I'm not consistent in deciding which parts of the RSM figure should be the facings on the coat in front. :>

I'm also considering altering my organization slightly, so that instead of companies of six musketeers and one officer with spontoon, it's six figures total, with five musketeers and one officer with spontoon. Still debating, if I did that, what to do about senior officers, standard bearers, and musicians.

Digression - Figure Quality

You know, one of the things that is slightly odd to me, though I suppose with the mold process it makes some sense....in a number of cases, the best of the plastic figures seem to be more finely detailed and carefully molded than the metal ones. In many cases, this is actually a blessing with the metal figures, as you don't have to paint every last little raised button on a tunic. But sometimes, it becomes a little odd in places where different items meet, and aren't clearly defined. Like figuring out where to separate the musket, shoulder, and neck of some marching figures, for instance, so you can paint each part properly.

Slight Painting Progress

I got a little bit of time to paint again yesterday, and managed to complete the faces and hands on 9 musketeers, the face on the company officer, and repainted the cuffs, turnbacks, and lapels of my first figure white to allow for another try at the yellow facing color.

I've also started work on a map for Ober-Schweinsberg.

Painting - Baby Steps

I admit, it doesn't feel like I'm getting very far with my first painting attempt. But I remind myself it's a learning endeavor. My workspace has been taken over at the moment by a family computer that died earlier this week, so that's been an inhibitor to further progress. But below you'll find pictures of the first company of the von Lintzer Musketeers (6 musketeers, 1 officer with spontoon) plus the 4 spare figures from the bag, all coated with gesso.

My first test figure now has some skin color, a sloppy coat of gray paint, and an attempt at getting the yellow applied. Unfortunately, the yellow seems to have separated too much to cover areas of gray, so I need to either get it to mix more thoroughly or switch colors. We'll see which. It's possible, given the time of late fall that the paint was delivered, that the paint could have frozen and separated somewhere along the way. I hope it's just settled and I need to shake it more.

Colors used:

1. Vallejo 70815 Basic Skintone - the lighter color which can be seen where the head and rifle meet. I wasn't satisfied with it, so I painted over it.
   
2. Vallejo 70860 Medium Fleshtone - the current flesh color in use. I'm happier with it, though I may try to learn how to put a little highlight in with the former.
   
3. Vallejo 70869 Basalt Grey - The basic color for coats and trousers of Hesse-Engelburg regulars. I expect to use a lot of it.
   
4. Vallejo 70953 Flat Yellow - The yellow that didn't cover well the first attempt at all, being liquid thin in places. We'll try shaking it up more, and applying a second coat.
   

I'm open to suggestions on better ways to handle that yellow. Worst case scenario, I may switch to violet facings perhaps.

And now the pictures: