Well after a bit of a wobbly few weeks, the printer seems to behaving itself (I know I have just doomed myself there). I relevelled yesterday and cranked the bottom layers to 7 in the hope that the model would adhere to the build plate and not the plastic… fingers crossed it is working. So far I am nine for nine on the success front. Here they are, they are going to be two separate units in the end. One unit of twelve pile and one of twelve halberdiers.

I am printing the same three pike at the minute to be the front rank. The second rank will be at attention. I will print another six random halberdiers too. Now I was having a look at Lion Rampant and this lot aren’t I. It as it seems to stop at the Wars of the Roses. I will have to have a mooch at some home brew ideas for the late Renaissance.

Now today Dave over on The Imperfect modeller had painted a very nice miniature with a Lion Rampant on the shield… I had mentioned how we see things today and how they were represented in the past… this is what I was talking about… here we see a modern representation of the flag of the Holy Roman Empire from around 1515 (I think)…

A rather funky two headed eagle, however this is an original painting from 1515… spot the difference…

Now a lad I knew from the re-enactment day’s was well into costume and has written a number of books about uniforms… he went to various museums and saw original kit from the early 19th century and made accurate representations of what he had found… no-one would buy it or was interested in it as It didn’t look good… Going back to the painting of the shield designs, I reckon not everyone was an artist… I rest my case… Lion Rampant on a shield!

One of my favourite ‘reference’ material is the ‘Morgan’ Bible here we see another Lion Rampant.

Tonight I managed to get some more done on the Arbites, it was another late night getting in, but I did a bit and got them closer to being finished. All white has now hopefully disappeared!

The yellow on the shields still needs some work. I decided on a colour change so used brush on white paint… not the best look. I will add a glaze and see if that helps. I am considering black and yellow stripes on them, but I am still at the ‘hmmmm’ stage about it. It would be striking, but also a total pain in the backside to get right.

Metallic still to go, but definitely looking better now.

Tonight I headed off to visit my mate and we got to drink tea and discuss our upcoming games, both my Alien RPG and the new one I have bought for my eldest…New RPG

I got back quite late but managed to slap a bit of paint about…

Slowly moving towards a finish line. To be honest I decided to just paint the grenades black, with the idea to repaint them white later to allow some red to be added. Really just the hands and weapons to do with the Contrast paint and then onto the metallics.

Hopefully I will get some more done on these tomorrow. I am deliberately leaving the printers switched off as it is getting a bit stressful constantly adding to the painting pile… my plan is finish the Arbites, Flintloque and the undercoated 6mm Samurai (oh and get some basing material onto the 15mm Samurai) then take stock of where I am.

Sadly the undercoated samurai are about a third (maybe a half) of the whole army. I am honestly not sure whether to just get them all done in one go or not…it might be a bit soul destroying, which is why I am dithering.

I have decided to start offloading stuff I am never going to get finished, or in some cases, started! Number one of these are the 15mm Black Hat Aztecs. I got a whole armies worth and decided on the Tin soldier ones instead. I really just couldn’t be hassled with separate shields and hands on something in 15mm, plus everyone had a similar shield, even troops that wouldn’t use that kind. I know that I will never, ever get them done so I might as well get them on Ebay or similar and get a bit of cash to spend on new paint or brushes.

What I am trying to say is my pile of shame is a bit on the large side and needs reducing by at least half, I mean I am sitting on GW blister packs from the 90’s… They are so old that the plastic is actually falling to bits. I will never get round to painting them… I suppose the bottom line is that I need the space, my 6×8 shed is packed, my cupboard in the big shed is packed, the bit in the passage above me books (which are packed in) is stuffed full. It’s a pity I don’t have a van and an easy way to get to some Wargames conventions as I reckon it would be quite cathartic .

Right I am going to stop rambling now and go to bed… I will catch you all tomorrow.

This evening was, in the words of the Rolling Stones, a definite case of paint it black…

I made a start on the boots and upper torso armour, once this is dry I will move onto the arms and belts. I also repainted the white on the Sister Superior. This will end up red for the robes and will remain white for her wimple (or whatever it is called).

I added a teeny bit more to these few too…