Painting Boom

Well, for me it's been a painting boom. I'm in one of my energetic painting phases and over the last two weeks I've finished some new Carlist Wars figures and something for my new 15mm SYW project. First up, the FCW. I've added another cavalry unit to my Isabellino (or government) army. I chose the later Christmas version of the light cavalry uniform, red and green. All of the government cavalry had been equipped with lances by 1835 but because I already have a heavy cavalry unit with lances, I decided to use the sword-armed light cavalry variants offered by the Perry brothers. This will hopefully provide a bit more variety in our games. You'll notice that the standard bearer has no standard. I'm in the process of ordering the flag from the brilliant Adolfo Ramos range.

Isabellino light cavalry.
Perry Miniatures.


Light cavalry with their 'heavy' brethren backing them up.

Second up are the first 15mm figures I've painted in at least ten years. I was once a fervent supporter of 15mm as the scale of choice for all gaming. I had an extensive (and I mean extensive) 15mm Napoleonic collection as well as a more modest Seven Years War project. But those were sold off years ago when I decided to move to the one true scale, 28mm. Recently, I've been persuaded to venture back into 15mm SYW to contribute to an ongoing club venture (see my previous post here). I ordered and received some Old Glory 15mm SYW French figures and promptly started experimenting with painting techniques. My over-riding objective here (besides creating an army, duh) was to find a satisfactory speed-painting technique. Ideally, this would allow me to pump out units at a fast rate with, at the very least, a moderate wargaming quality paint job. My first experiments were with white primer and a variety of washes. The majority of the uniforms in my French army will be white so this seemed a sensible beginning. After trying several different washes (including GW washes, watered down inks etc.), I found the best result was from Tamiya smoke, watered down 50-50. I've been using this mixture for years on my 28s for various purposes and it seemed to give a good effect on the 15mm white uniforms. Unfortunately, I found that when I began blocking in the other main colours (equipment, facing colours, etc) the white primer was not so conducive to my goal of speed-painting. I found that bocking in the colours with normal GW paint was quite time-consuming compared to my usual medium of choice, inks. I prefer to use inks whenever possible for two reasons. They tend to flow better than regular paints (such as GW or Vallejo) and they provide an illusion of depth to their finish that paints don't provide. Of course, I should point out that normally with a 28mm figure I do more than just slap on the inks:

1. black prime
2. dry-brush entire figure with medium grey
3. dry-brush entire figure with white
4. apply inks or washes

Now this is a simplified version but sets out the basics. The dry-brushing creates a ghost figure. When the inks or washes are applied over the dry-brushing, shading and depth are the result (if I'm ambitious, I'll post a series of photos laying out this technique). This sounds simple but in fact has taken several years to get a good handle on. Anyway, this is the technique I wanted to use with the 15mm SYW and a white primer just wasn't doing it for me. The reason I found was that over a white primer, inks tend not to cover properly and bubble and pool. Over a dry-brushed surface, they flow evenly and settle in the creases as expected. So, I switched to a black primer and the ghost technique and you can see the results below. Although they definitely aren't of museum quality, they meet my goals of a moderately good wargaming standard paint job. And the painting speed was up to snuff as well. Once I had figured out how I was going to do it, these 48 figures took only two evenings of 3 hours each to finish. And that included the basing!

Regiment du Roi in the foreground, Regiment Navarre to the rear.
Old Glory figures.

28mm Napoleonics and new project

It's been a while since my last post and I've been far from idle. Other than working on some French Foreign Legion for my Carlist Wars project, I've been able to finish up a few new units for my 28mm Napoleonic collection. First up are two long-awaited artillery batteries for my Wurttemberg brigade.

Wurttemberg infantry and artillery during a recent game.

These are Old Glory figures with the incomparable Sash & Saber 6lb guns. The Old Glory artillerists are definitely not the best sculpts in the Napoleonic range but they will serve well. The uniforms are also quite plain but they are a nice contrast to another newly-finished unit, also for the French army.

French horse artillery.

The sculpts on these Front Rank French horse artillerists are quite lovely and make painting so much easier with their raised detail and crisp casting. They will make a helpful addition to my French cavalry forces which have soldiered on for many a game without any mobile artillery support.

Other than painting, I've also delved into a new project: Seven Years War. I have for a number of years talked about doing this period again. I once had a size-able SYW collection in 15mm but I sold it quite a few years ago. My thought had been to start over in 28mm with some of the lovely figures available from Front Rank and Crusader and this remained a long-range goal until recently. Some folks at MIGS have begun playing SYW battles with Age of Reason rules using their new and growing 15mm collections. While I know I've espoused the "one true scale" of 28mm for many years now, I have fallen into the trap of 15mm again. I've ordered (and now received) some 15mm Old Glory French figures for some test painting and just this week, Vidal gave me a couple of hundred Prussian and Austrian Old Glory infantry figures as well. My initial plan is (was?) to field just a couple of brigades to contribute to the games at the club. I should know myself better by now and accept the fact that this will probably be another project with no end, much like my 28mm Napoleonics. But why 15mm? There are a few reasonable excuses: 1) it's the scale of choice for the guys at the club and if I did it in 28mm I may be on my own with collecting; 2) 15mm is definitely less expensive; 3) we can get so much more bang for the buck in terms of table space with 15s; 4) the 15mm figures from Old Glory, besides being quite inexpensive compared to 28s, are really very nice sculpts.

As I start this new project, I've broken down the process into recognizable steps:

1) Research: This includes looking at various manufacturers of figures. I've settled on Old Glory because of the price and the attractive sculpts (which, of course, is quite a subjective criterion). Research also includes uniforms, battles etc. I was surprised to discover that in my rather large library of military history books I had few SYW history or uniform references. So off to the interwebs and a testing of my google-fu. It's amazing what you can find in the ether and you should always believe everything you read on the interweb! The best reference I've found so far is this gem: click here. This site is a gold-mine for uniform, unit, commander, campaign and battle information like the images here.

2) Rules: The guys at the club have been using Age of Reason, an excellent set of rules. When I had my former 15mm SYW collection, I used AoR extensively but I had "played it to death." Over the course of a few years I estimate I played these rules at least 100 times. And this was almost always with the same opponent using the same armies. It isn't a knock on the rules to say that the games became too predictable and were really just an excuse to drink and smoke and talk wargaming. With new opponents and new armies, I'm sure this won't happen this time around. (I'll soon post some amendments that we used all those years ago)

3) Painting: I haven't started this yet but I'm contemplating a number of different strategies. First up is my normal black primer and dry-brushing up the almost completely white French uniforms with successive layers from grey to white. Another option is to prime the figures white, block in any other colours and use a wash such as Army Painter. This latter technique looks to hold some promise and I'm going to get my hands on some of this popular wash and try it out on some test figures.

4) Basing: I will probably go with Litko bases here. They carry most of the popular base sizes and even if I need something unusual, they can custom cut the bases for a small extra fee. I can also have magnet bases cut to fit as well. This has become a particular favourite option for me of late. For a small extra fee I can feel secure when transporting my collection. I only wish I had done this when I started my Napoleonic collection. I could of course retro-fit the entire collection if I won the lottery and had a basing slave to do it for me.

I'm off to re-discover the intricacies of painting 15mm figures...good thing I have my new prescription glasses!