Back and rested after the tournament so it's time for blogging again. Last week I managed two entries to the challenge, though it was slightly aided by the fact that I forgot to post the Guard the previous week :)
First up 3 battalions of Middle Guard for Waterloo. The miniatures are from Victrix and the flags from GMB designs. I'm still a bit unsure whether I like the Victrix plastics or not. The detail is sometimes quite soft and the bayonets snap easily. The poses are also somewhat limited or at least could have included a bit more variety especially on the bodies and things like facial detail are over exaggerated. Still they are extremely cheap with 60 figures costing only 23 pounds and I've been buying them from sales at about 20 euros a box.
The paintjob was fairly simple with the minis basecoated blue with my airbrush and then all the details being block painted. I did add some variety by painting most of the backpacks differently and added some detail by highlighting the face as I find most people always focus first on facial features so a bit of extra effort there helps lift up the quality of the rest. After a basic paintjob I applied a dark brown wash to add shade. Final touch was painting mud by stippling two different shades of brown. It's another quick thing to do with a battalion taking maximum 15 minutes to muddy up and really lifts the impression of quality a lot higher.
My second entry was a Flames of War objective marker from Kerr & King. No figures on it though so no points for me from this. However I needed it for the tournament and it was a nice little appetizer before my next larger paint job so doesn't really matter. Not the best quality resin, but luckily small air bubbles etc. don't really matter in a subject like this so clean up was a breeze. Basecoated dark brown and then drybrushed with various different colours trying to leave the paintjob on things like the brick wall different shade in different areas. As a final touch I added some chipping with a sponge.
I'm back ahead of schedule with 658 points now all together. 342 to go until my target of 1000. As with all plans my original plans of painting have changed with my whims and things like the Chimera have been skipped. I won't be able to finish my Great Spined Dragon in time for the "Hot" challenge either, but I have a feeling we'll still be seeing him done during the challenge anyways.
Great looking unit (beautiful blue and nice mud effects!) and great objective as well!
VastaaPoistaThank you Phil!
PoistaNice Quard unit you have there, and well done mud, it brings realims into unit!
VastaaPoistaThanks Juha!
PoistaNice work! You're keeping up a good pace with the painting, I have no doubt you'll smash through your challenge target :-)
VastaaPoistaYeah I guess it should be quite easily beaten! However a lot will stay unpainted that I planned to paint. But that's how it always is with my painting plans :) I'm never really able to stick to any
PoistaI love a good spreadsheet, especially one that's ahead of schedule!
VastaaPoistaAt least it looks like things are good :)
PoistaAs I said on the Challenge blog, I really liked this unit. I'm curious what make and type of blue paint you used for the Guard?
VastaaPoistaThanks Michael! It's Vallejo Model Air French Blue. I figured that it's close enough to the Guard colour :)
PoistaLovely painting Samuli! I'm quite impressed by your take on the blue uniforms. I can't imagine it's just base colour wash and dirt.
VastaaPoistaThank you!
PoistaIt's helped by the fact that I normally first basecoat grey and then add a quick spray of white straight from above. That VMA French Blue is also very translucent and has a small tendency to act a bit like a wash with pigment generally going away from raised areas into recesses. So basically it almost highlights itself slightly by leaving raised areas showing the base colour (in this case grey/white) through more. It's a difficult paint to get an even flat coat from, but with these minis it's actually just a good thing.