Tonight I worked on getting the painting finished on the elves… I think I actually succeeded!
I still need to get the bases covered, but I am happy so far.
So first up are the two irregulars…
The three line, well two line and one light…
And finally the two Grenadiers…
I still have two grenadiers and at least two line troops to paint. Methinks I will do them in different facings to denote different units. I did see a picture of the grenadier types in a blue jacket.
Don’t ask me why I went and bought so many as I haven’t got a clue. Obviously I had a plan when I ordered them, but sadly I have no idea now.
Anyway a bit more local news – remember this chap…
He has been herded out of the Voe and was last seen diving deep off the island of Vementry. Hopefully that is him back where he belongs safe and sound. He was evidently around 14 metres (45 feet) long and weighed around 50 tons. Luckily he managed to escape with a little help from his well wishers.
And finally the flipping white stuff has arrived again!
Thus evening I noticed an issue with one of my back tyres, so when I got home I got ready to change it, everything ready to get the spare out… okay first off, the boot won’t open from the outside, but never mind a climb over the back seat and the boot was popped…
I removed the crap out of the boot and opened the lid to reveal the spare, my nice new spare… sadly the screw down plastic turnscrew thing was not playing. An hour and 45 minutes later with the aid of an angle grinder I got the spare out, and 10 minutes after that had the wheel changed…
Needless to say my evening’s painting was somewhat curtailed, but I managed to do a smidge on the Spanish Elves…
The one thing I noticed tonight was that the big strapping grenadier on the right is the smallest miniature in the whole set…
This evening I managed to make a bit more progress with the Spanish, or rather Catalucian Elves.
Two grenadiers, two irregulars, two line and a light infantryman. Obviously these are elves, but I have tried to use 1808 Spanish uniforms for ideas… as an example the grenadiers and regulars should have white cross belts, but as they are fantasy, then mine have black.
I actually used Speedpaints for the purple, but as you can imagine I was super careful to make sure it only went where it should go, especially when the uniform was white. Obviously I could have chosen a whole host of facing colours, but I fancied purple.
I still have to work on the white on the uniforms, as can be seen on the grayish leg on one of the regulars.
Out of interest, Shetland had a bit of an unusual visitor in one of the voes near to where I live…
The above is a sperms whale and it is bloody huge, sadly, as it is huge, it shouldn’t be there. I took some better photos with my camera. I will share them on the Shetland blog when I get them off.
Well as, I undercoated the miniatures yesterday I thought it would be rude not to make a start on them this evening…
I spent most of the time on the two irregulars (not that it isn’t isn’t bit obvious). I did however reundercoat the three others before adding the White Conrradt paint onto them. You can sort of see the white grey on the uniforms. I intend to dry brush white over the top to act as a highlight and then give them a glaze to stop any powderyness.
Hopefully I will get the irregulars finished tomorrow and make a good old start on the others.
I will probably do them as all from the same unit, even though I intend to use them for the Silver Bayonet, where soldiers are taken from different units. I think it would look weird if the three of them have different facings and turnbacks.
This evening I ended up late in, but wanted to do something hobby wise, in the end I decided to put some Flintloque miniatures onto some 2p coins and get them sprayed.
It might actually kickstart me into finishing the two officers, last seen in this state….
To be honest I am not looking forwards to the white uniforms on some of them. I am hoping the white Contrast paint will help.
I am going to get back into a kayak tomorrow evening at a pool session with the Shetland Kayak club, so the above miniatures will probably be started on Friday.
It wasn’t a bad evening on the way to do the horse…
Well this was a very long time coming, but I think, and hope, that I have finished the 6mm Italian wars troops…
This is the final twelve bases worth painted and covered in sand. I have eighteen other ones in this state that will need the bases painting.
I reckon the empty filament spool landing on the pikes really put a dent in my enjoyment of the project. I checked back through my blog posts and began printing in July at the very least. In September I began painting after my Irregular Miniatures arrived, to be fair it hasn’t been a constant run of painting as I lost heart after the splat of doom occurred.
Anyway I will paint up the bases tomorrow and put everything out together to see what it looks like. In all honesty most of them have sat in a box since they were painted.
You may remember that I halved the number of pike bases jn a unit. I hope it is going to look okay in the final army. Only time will tell to be honest.
Not sure why but today I came out of work in a foul mood… but that was nothing compared to the absolute pillock I managed to make myself look when I went to do the horse.
The stables are at a farm, a working farm, so I met Linda whose stables we share, she works and lives on the farm. So, me being me, having watched a YouTube channel on a guy who trims cows hooves asked her if she has any cows on the farm… its an effing dairy farm, what else do they have there …Llamas. Funnily enough it actually cheered me up watching the complete incredulity on Linda’s face.
Anyway tonight I did a bit of finishing off… first of were the two Rohirrim..
Actually looking at her face I think I need another repaint, not sure why it has gone grey!
I also decided to do a bit in the slugs and get them based up…
Slithering to a Battlefield near you…
I will probably try and get the last remaining 6mm Italian Wars stuff done next.
I took a little bit of time this evening to get the bases covered in Geek Gaming Base ready stuff… and because I am a total pillock I forgot to get some brown paint onto the white tops. Needless to say, if any of the flock drops off then the white will stick out like a diamond in a sweeps ear hole.
But anyway here are the six of them… there are bits of white visible, but I will add a bit more flock or tufts over the top before I get them sealed down…
I also got something today that I had forgotten that I ordered…
Not the world’s best photo, but it was purchased to support Ukrainian charities. I love Jon’s artwork and was a bit chuffed to get a signed one, okay it is not an original piece of artwork, but I reckon the statement at the bottom pretty much sums up what is going onnjn Ukraine.
Oh and according to my wife and daughter I am being a bit of a fan girl about getting this 🤣.
Today I got both remaining Ogre Doppelsoldners finished. Tomorrow I will base them all up… but here are the last three done.
As you can see, I went for bronze armour for the last of them. So that is all of them done. One in Speedpaints and the rest in Contrast. The straps on the best plates were a sod to do carefully so a bit of re-undercoating took place. Luckily it was Contrast so there was no issue.
Interestingly Dana Howl has done a video comparing both ranges and in this she says that Army painters are not for beginners which is interesting in itself. Dana’s video . Are we going to see lots more people doing something similar now. I have noticed a few YouTube channels that are mentioning problems more openly.
Dana did say that the longer drying time of the Speedpaints allowed for good blending among other things.
Well yesterday I threw some enamel matt white over four of the slugs I had repainted. The colours I chose were still bleeding through after four layers of white acrylic.
I gave them a blast with the hairdryer then shoved them in the porch to cure for about eighteen hours.
I got the pallid bone colour to go over the four with the oil based paint. Here are the results…
They are pretty much all the same colour apart from the green one.
So what do I think in general.
If you use enamels then you can cover over errors or overpainting on your miniatures. This does take a long time to cure and as such makes a mockery of the term Speedpaints.
They are nice colours, but due to their low viscosity they can bleed into other areas. This can cause problems further down the line. Now I may not have shaken them enough, but I don’t think so.
The reactivation is a total pain. Although, thanks to John, I can recover from a mess up, it just won’t be fast any more… leading to Slowpaints.., yeah I can just not mess up, but with the best will in the world, some paint will end up where it shouldn’t.
Price is a positive. They are cheaper than Contrast paint, plus you cannot spill them everywhere whilst in a dropper bottle.
One thing I have heard, but haven’t tried is don’t use them on a wet palette.
I would like to think that I have given these paints an honest and more importantly, a fair review . It was never my intention to stop anyone buying these, I am no fan boy of any one company. At the minute you can only buy the starter set and not individual bottles. This means you have to drop £34 on a set of paints that might not to be your liking, or at very least aren’t like you expected them to be. It wouldn’t be so bad if one could pick up an individual bottle to try out. I did reach out to AP to ask to buy a couple of bottles, but they weren’t able to help me out. My little blog was in no way big enough to warrant the expenditure of time and effort… I say this with absolutely no malice at all. It is a statement of fact.
Hopefully my little journey with the Speedpaints has been useful , or at least entertaining.
So a while ago I posed the question … Contrast or Speedpaints… we’ll I have come to a decision… I am going to be sticking with my Contrast paint that have done me well for two years at least. I know they Cost more, but they do what I want of them and I can get them locally.
Sorry Army Painter, your Speedpaints, like your metallics are destined to sit on the shelf.
