A wet and windy weekend gave me an excuse to hide inside and finish off another unit of Assyrian Guardsmen.
Unlike the previous batch these are all shield carriers, although I'm expecting to paint enough bowmen to sub them into the unit if required.
The shield pattern is just a geometric design, with concentric circles and zig-zags between the various edges. They've come out okay, although not all of the circles were concentric or even circular. As with the last set of Guards I painted the shields separately before attaching them.
The figures are varnished with my normal Ronseal, with the exception of the shields, which were given a diluted coat of Tamiya gloss varnish. It's diluted because it was nearly dried out, and I only found out on Sunday afternoon. I'll give them another coat when I get some more.
Interestingly in December's MWBG there's a really good article on varnish, written by someone who understands the actual chemistry behind it all. It brought back a few memories as my father was a paint chemist for most of his working life, and some of what was said I recognised. The article is mainly aimed at those painting metal figures which are going to get a lot of handling. Frankly, it was too much for me. I've always combined priming and undercoating, and never really had much in the way of problems. I lose more paint through stuff being bent that handling. He also lost me a bit when he talked about adding talculm powder to the paint.....life, I'm afraid, is way too short as it is.
Unlike the previous batch these are all shield carriers, although I'm expecting to paint enough bowmen to sub them into the unit if required.
The figures are varnished with my normal Ronseal, with the exception of the shields, which were given a diluted coat of Tamiya gloss varnish. It's diluted because it was nearly dried out, and I only found out on Sunday afternoon. I'll give them another coat when I get some more.
Interestingly in December's MWBG there's a really good article on varnish, written by someone who understands the actual chemistry behind it all. It brought back a few memories as my father was a paint chemist for most of his working life, and some of what was said I recognised. The article is mainly aimed at those painting metal figures which are going to get a lot of handling. Frankly, it was too much for me. I've always combined priming and undercoating, and never really had much in the way of problems. I lose more paint through stuff being bent that handling. He also lost me a bit when he talked about adding talculm powder to the paint.....life, I'm afraid, is way too short as it is.
Glad you liked the article.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, it brought back some memories. It was good to read something backed by proper research and understanding in a wargames magazine.
DeleteWow! Your shields are a kaleidoscope of colors! Cool!
ReplyDeleteVery colorfoul indeed.
ReplyDeleteFabulous shield painting!
ReplyDeleteOh ! like the shields !
ReplyDeleteYes, the shields are very special!
ReplyDeleteGood to see you all like the shields. They were fiddly to do, but worth it. They're not actually as good as they look in the photographs, if truth be told. Some of the zig zags have more zig than zag, for example.
ReplyDeleteEssentially each concentric ring is marked with evenly spaced dots, starting with 4 near the shield boss, and then doubling as you move out. The dots are then linked by zig zagging back and forth, missing alternate dots on the outer ring.
Until I lose track and just zig-zag and hope for the best.
I like the shields a lot. Looks like some good games have been played as well. Hope you're staying dry.
ReplyDeleteSean,
DeleteHi there! Good to see you've caught up with us. Shedquarters has been a worthwhile investment and, I think, improved our gaming. We seem to have survived the worst of the weather and are drying out.
Was a bit windy last night, however!
Trebian
Trebian I find your plastic 20mm armies very inspiring. So inspiring that I have ordered some Hat El CID infantry to paint up. We will see how it goes! By the way what colour paint do you use on your bases? I like the simplistic effect. Any particular manufacturer?
ReplyDeleteThe bases are painted with Dulux.If you go into a Homebase or DIY store where they mix paint the code is 10GY12225. I buy it in 250ml tester pots. My wargames table is painted the same colour to make them blend in.
DeleteI'l be interested in the El Cid project. I'm quite tempted by them - after I've done the Assyrians, Babylonians and Early Achaemenid Persians....
Thanks Trebian. I finished a Zvezda Hoplie the other day and was very pleased. Waiting now for some boxes of cavalry from eModels. I am also thinking of starting my own blog to stimulate progress!
ReplyDeleteThe Zvezda stuff is great, - sometimes they over do it with multi-part bits, but when they get it right they are very fine figures.
DeleteBlog if you want to, - but I recommend you read this first: http://wargaming4grownups.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/how-to-finish-wargames-project.html
Very nice shields. I am sure they took ages to do. I have done some shields that were a little complex too, on my Carthaginians, but this beats my best attempts, I would say.
ReplyDeleteThe shields are simple than they appear. There are a number of concentric circles, each one then has a number of dots evenly spaced round on them, Double the number of dots as you got outwards, then zig-zag between them.
Delete