After some rather grownup and non-wargaming postings it is about time to get back to the normal subject of the blog.
I acquired a large number of Hat plastics last month as a birthday present from me to me. A lot of them are Alexander period Indians, which I thought I would start on now just in case the Society of Ancients chooses Hydaspes as the subject for its battleday in 2015.
I've finished the first few "test" units. These often have a slightly different painting style to those that follow as I work out what looks best and, just as importantly, what is the simplest/quickest to do. Quite pleased with the results so far, although the plastic is a bit soft. All of the various bits that required assembly went together well and the detail is good and clear to pick out. Not a lot of pose choices for the infantry, but I quite like that.
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| A Heavy Archer unit |
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| An Indian elephant. Well, obviously. |
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| Some cavalry, complete with standard. |
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| All lined up and ready to go |
The figures are painted in acrylics, as usual, with a coat of Ronseal Quick Drying Antique Pine Wood Varnish. This has worked really nicely on the fabric folds, I'm sure you'll agree.
There's a chariot and two units of light infantry on the painting desk awaiting further attention, but over the last day or so I've been working on some more Sumerians. Once these are done I have to decide whether to press on and just plough through the Indians or alternate units with the Assyrians I bought at the same time. Whatever I decide its important to have a plan that delivers completed armies rather than leaves me with piles of unpainted figures.
Nice job. Wish I had your 'just get started' attitude. I tend to fuss and worry about primers/colours/what other figures I might need for six months before I even think about laying a brush on anything!
ReplyDeleteWell, I do the planning as well. If you go back to my very early postings I wrote about the painting technique I use. That may help.
DeleteI did a lot of project work when I was working. That means I'm goal focussed, and the goal is "put an army on the table", not "paint toy soldiers". I once wrote on a TMP discussion where people discussed what they most liked about painting figures "finishing them".
If it would help I could do a blog post about how I plan and organise a project before I start painting.
If you get the chance to do a post on this I'd certainly be very keen to see how you go about planning your armies. It's always good to get some insight into how prolific people do things!
DeleteOh my gawd! All of a sudden I'm prolific!
DeleteThose figures look very nice. I agree with you on the poses. Sealing plastics painted with acrylics via varnish holds up well. Over here I use MinWax polyurethane.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to more of your progress.
Thanks. The key thing with the Ronseal is that it is dry enough to handle in 20 minutes so you don't have to wait until the next day before you start basing. I reckon the equivalent is Miniwax Polycryllic.
DeleteWhat rules other than AMW do you have in mind for these?
ReplyDelete"Other than AMW"????
DeleteThe figures have been bought and configured to give me the full rage of options from the Armati 2 rule book.
And DBA, of course.