(PM04) Wars of the Roses Cavalry - Part 2

Step Four. I painted a base coat on all the saddles and horse equipment. I used four different colors, two shades of brown, red, and blue.

Step Four: 32 min.
Total: 78 min.



Step Five. Highlights and/or washes added to the saddles and equipment.

Step Five: 16 min.
Total: 94 min.





Step Six. Due to poor planning, I should have painted the belts, scabbards, etc. on the knights before washing the entire figure with black. So now I went back and painted those portions brown, then washed them with black as a separate step. The wash was only a couple minutes, but that was a redundant couple of minutes.

Step Six: 10 min.
Total: 104 min.




Step Seven. This is several steps rolled into one. First I went back and put another layer of black wash on all of the horses lower legs, tails, manes, and around the mouth area on some of them.

Then I added the dappled spots to the grey horses. I did this with quick & irregular spots of thinned out grey paint. I sometimes put a few spots down, then lightly push my finger onto the paint if it's a bit to heavy and/or too "contrasty." My goal is usually to try to make the dappled spots look subtle. I do usually go back and add a few heavier (more opaque) spots with un-thinned paint, for variety.

Finally I added some "socks" to some of the brown horses using first antique white, then a straight white.


Step Seven: 12 min.
Total: 116 min.





Step Eight. Final step was all the gold and/or brass bits. Instead of using a base + wash + highlight like I frequently do, I just did a base of GW "Tin Bits" followed by a highlight of gold. I don't think it looks as good as the usual method, but the areas I was painting were so small they're hard to even notice in the first place. So the shortcut had little (if any) visual effect.

Step Eight: 10 min.
Total: 126 min.



So that's the final total. 126 minutes, divided by 10 figures is about 12.6 minutes per figure. Not bad, though I've got to admit they're not the best figures I've done. But they're OK. I think I took a few too many shortcuts.

(PM04) Wars of the Roses Cavalry - Part 1

I had to take a bit of a break from the Paint Machine for a bit. I was trying to get more Romans & Germans done for my demo events. In addition to not having the extra time required to photograph and post to the blog, I've already done one project on Romans and didn't feel the need to repeat. ;)

While I was at Cold Wars I picked up a number of new things, in addition to the backlog of unpainted stuff I've already got. One thing caught my attention as a possible good subject for a quick project.

I'm not normally a fan of Old Glory's cavalry. I've had their figure from various ranges (Huns, Italian Wars gendarmes and mounted crossbowmen, Goths, etc.) and haven't been terribly impressed. Their Sarmation cataphracts were OK. I just don't normally care for their horses, which tend to be a bit smaller and thinner than other ranges.

But last weekend I was looking at packs from the Wars of the Roses range (still labeled as Revenge miniatures) and was impressed enough to pick up a couple bags, both on unarmoured horses. I don't know if the entire range is of similar quality, I'd like to see the armoured/barded horses to compare. Tin can riders on horses should be a quick paint-up, right?



Step One: Easy enough. Paint all the riders completely with GW Chainmail paint (or other suitable silver color.)

Step One: 14 min.
Total: 14 min.



Step Two. I painted the horses in four different base colors. Two were different browns (Ral Partha African and GW Dark Flesh), Americana Slate Grey, and then one horse was painted using the Slate Grey with some black mixed in. (This last one will become a subtly highlighted black colored horse, after the wash in the next step.)


Step Two: 22 min.
Total: 36 min.




Step Three. It was probably a bit soon for this step. I should have painted some of the details (leather, etc.) first. I was just anxious to get some highlights & shading on the figures and jumped ahead to quickly.

On 9 of the figures I slapped a healthy wash of GW Badab Black wash over the entire figure. As an experiment, I used my own mix of black paint, Future floor polish, water, and Vallejo matte medium on one figure (the back row, rightmost figure.)

My wash is still very glossy and much thinner. I will work on this a bit. Maybe some thicker matte medium would help. I may look into that at the art supply store.

Step Three: 12 min.
Total: 46 min.