Winter War table part 2

We got some additional work done on the winter war table on wednesday. Fairly quick job of just covering the whole surface with filler. Now all the hills and crevases are smoothed out and hopefully seamless, and the surface has a bit of texture added to make it look more natural.

Real "hand-made" feel as the surface was made by basically pressing it with our palms. Forgetting paint rollers at home didn't matter that much after all.

In the other room there was also a great looking Muskets & Tomahawks terrain set up for a scenario where a group of British regulars are ambushed on their way back to their fortifications.

Painting Challenge entry 9: Finnish automatic rifle squad and platoon command

Next up another squad of Baker Companys Winter War Finns. This time an automatic rifle team with a captured Russian DP-28 'Emma' light machinegun. I also painted up the platoon leader and an NCO figure to act as the command team.

I simplified the paintscheme a bit by removing the darkest shadows that were barely visible and skipped the final highlight of pure white. Speeds up the process a bit and at least I can't really spot the difference especially with the added mud. I'm now halfway through the pile of Finns and should hopefully have them all done within a few weeks so I can get started on the Ruskies (and all the other darn half finished projects).

The officer is actually quite a nice mini with surprisingly good proportions! His gear is maybe a bit too nice for a lowly 2nd Lieutenant, but I guess he can easily stand for a company commander while the guy on the left could be used for a platoon leader.

I was quite surprised how much faster the painting was with the new brushes too. I used to have an issue with my older synthetic brushes with paint drying really fast on the brush. With the same paint mixtures I can paint the whole snow suit with one color for even 2-3 minis without having to "refill" the brush. I guess the amount of paint the brush is holding helps keep it all moist and working. And the nice sharp tip and the good spring of the brush really helps in having better control.

The poses are pretty good here too. The guy on the left is missing the clip and trigger are of his gun. I don't know if this was a miscast or something that was forgotten during sculpting.

I did the dirt by first stipling a light brown colour on the knees, elbows and helm of the jacket followed by a darker brown on the areas which would touch the ground most to simulate more recent dirt or mud accumulating there. Loosely copied from Burkhard at his great blog, but I just switched the colours around. Have to try his way sometime to see if it yields any better results. These were pretty much the first minies that I "muddied" up outside armor so there's still some learning left to do.

 

The 'Emma' gunner has a slightly Elvish look to him

 Mr. Monkeyface has an identical brother joining him at the frontlines.

 These poses are also quite nice. The face on the prone guy is horribly malformed, but luckily it isn't very visible.

Paint table and Loki's giveaway!

After finishing a bunch of Winter War Finns during the weekend I based and primed the next set of minis for the Painting Challenge. I've got a set of Lead Adventures VSF Ottoman's to use as a Janissary Company in In Her Majesty's Name. I'd been eyeing these guys since I first saw last spring and of course I had to get them after spending the summer in Turkey. I've only got their faces started. Slightly darker base than I normally use for skin colors. I'm probably gonna vary the skin color a bit more along the group than normal to show the huge variety of ethnical backgrounds in the Ottoman empire. Still not 100% decided on the final paint scheme yet, but I guess I'm gonna go with the 1850's Janissary look with red pants and blue jackets.

I also got started on the next fortnight challenge with this weeks theme being "hero". I'm still waiting for the minis I originally wanted to paint for this, but apparently a month isn't always enough for Royal Fail/Mail to deliver abroad. Luckily I had the Forgotten & Glorious free sample WWI Frenchie that goes on nicely to the theme that I originally wanted to portray. I've finished the face and got started on his helmet and uniform.

On another note I've been loving the Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes. Used them on the Finns and now on the lone Poilu. The amount of control they allow is just unbelievable. The only thing I'm regretting is not buying them before this!

And finally Loki over at Loki's Great Hall is having a giveaway to celebrate 100,000 hits. Be sure to go check his blog for great posts and a chance to win something. It's definately been one of my must reads lately (even without the nice female specimen he likes to post occasionally).

Painting Challenge entry 8: More Norse-Gaels

Next up is the second half of the Gripping Beast Norse Gael starter box with an extra dane axe wielding warlord. I've now got 7 points done with the plastic models so I shouldn't have to resort to borrowing stuff anymore :) I actually finished these guys last thursday already, but didn't want to put them here before Curt had time to put them up on his blog.

I used some Battle Flag shield decals on these guys. They look great, but I had some minor problems. These are meant for the plastic Vikings which apparently have different sized shields so I had to cut them up a bit to make them fit. They are also quite thick to make the colors vibrant, but it does have a downside that they don't work well with curved shields. Ended up using them on the straight ones and just hand painted some basic shapes onto the curved shields.

These guys seem far more peaceful than their Dane Axe weilding brethren, but I guess that comes from the fact that they've managed to keep their shoes and haven't had to resort to selling them to get better weapons. I added a Warlord Games Celt casualty on the warlords base to spice it up a bit. Blood effect with GW's "Blood for the Blood God" paint.

Looking at the images now I've noticed that there's a bit of the white undercoat of the warlord shield showing from next to the shield boss, so I'll still have to fix that up. Damn close ups...

The Ostmen

8 Bonnachts with various weapons (counts as Javelins)