Well I made it home at 08.00 this morning. Managed about three hours sleep last night. The seats in the bar aren’t exactly the most comfortable, but at least I could lie down… certainly beats the floor.
So this afternoon I managed a smidge of painting.
I redid the green on the bows and still missed a bit as seen by the photo. This has brow been rectified! I also gave their bellies a lighter green and then painted the flights on the arrows white then used a red on them. The red will be the common colour for all units.
The swords at the back were given a coat of grey contrast paint. Obviously they came out of a different spawning pool to the bows, these have got shields to attach to the arm. When I am ready to attach 5he shields I will scrape away the paint where the shield will go, this will ensure a metal to metal bond. The shields and or loin cloths will be where the red goes on these.
These still need a bit of work – first being to find all the bits I missed with the green paint. No matter how many times I look, I still spot things on the photo that were not painted. I think it might be that as the pain is wet it glistens, causing me to think the white bits are wet paint. I have just had another really close look and I am spotting more and more.
After a repaint of the green (it would seem), I need to paint the arrows in the quivers and then do some claws. A bit of highlighting wouldn’t go amiss on the bows. Then I can start on the swordsmen.
The other thing I did was darken down the fur on the big beastie. The chain and shield rims are now not blending in. I really need to tidy up the gold at the 11 o’clock on the shield though… I keep forgetting!
Am bit of highlighting on the general’s shield rim would help too. This is really where Contrast paint doesn’t work. Flat areas basically are a waste of time going for the ‘shove some paint on and voila – done’ approach.
Tomorrow I will try and get this lot finished and then at least make a start on the sword armed ones.
So I managed to get some work done on the big beastie or Juggernex as it is called on the website 😁.
I am happy with the mottling on the skin, but less so with the rest. The contrast paint didn’t work so well on the shield. I will have to highlight them both. Not to mention the gold. The gold looks better in real life, the photo has almost blended it into the skin tone.
I will need to get it flocked up, but need to decide on what and how to do it with.
Once I get these ones painted then I think I will get the cavalry… half with bows and half with spears.
Luckily the UK distributor lives on Shetland.
I have a couple of evenings left before the hols, so hopefully I will get some more painted before I head off.
Okay yesterday, I foolishly said it was warm, but not South temperature… foolish me!
Taken in the garden at 11.00 this morning.
it was still 26 degrees at 18.00 this evening… anyway onto the elves…
They are pretty much done apart from the bases, so I did indeed manage to get them finished by the end of the weekend.
I am honestly not sure how I am going to base them…I might stick some of my home made flock into the coffee grinder and get it a lot finer. I will have to have a think.
So, apart from the shields, hair and the metallics, these were painted in contrast paint. I do quite like it for this scale, I am still a little ambivalent about it in 28mm. Tomorrow I think I will make a start on some 15mm Lizardmen. I have just remembered that I have a ‘Tin Soldier’ 15mm Aztec DBA army sitting there too. They would make a nice opposing force to the Scalians.
Shortly after taking the photo above – this happened…
These lucky ones hit the table, the unlucky ones hit the floor. I think they all survived.
Tomorrow I am helping my in laws dismantle a lean to and put another one up in it’s place. Wish me luck, if the temperature is anything like today I am not going to be a happy bunny. I have become acclimatised to a Shetland Summer.
Today has been a warm one, nothing like the silly temperatures down South, but still warm enough for us. So this afternoon, as promised, we went of for a game of hide and seek in one of our few woods up here. I am pleased to report that my Ninja skills have not left me.
Anyway…Elves. I blasted on with these again tonight and managed to get them to the nearly finished stage. Basically weapons, metalwork, hair and hands to do and that’s them finished.
Looking closely at the actual bases, I have noticed that some have bi coloured trousers that need rectifying.
Hopefully I will get these finished tomorrow, then potentially move onto some 15mm Lizardmen (Battle Valour- Scalians) that I won at the HOTT tournament earlier this year.
Woah, three days of painting in a row, looks like I might be getting going again.
Okay to be honest I tried out some more Contrast paint on the Proxy MI.
And to be even more brutally honest… I painted their boots and faces with contrast paint… not exactly the height of achievement, but at least it is something 😱. I do quite like the blue-grey on the body armour. The green on the radio op and engineer works quite well too. The flesh wash is ok, but I went over my flesh wash so that might have made a difference.
What I really want is a black (but they didn’t have any) – I have 25 odd arachnid warriors to paint up and I reckon that the Contrast paint would speed them up a fair bit.
I will see what I can get done tomorrow. I would like the elves finished. I think this is the last of them, but knowing my luck there will be another 60 hidden somewhere.
Well, I managed to get some painting done over the last couple of days…
I decided to have a bash at the 10mm elves. As I had some contrast paint knocking about I decided to give it a go on a smaller scale.
Now if you remember, the last lot of these that I painted really ground me down (https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/back-to-the-elves/ ). Now I don’t know if it was the different paint, my state of mind or a combination of both, but basically I enjoyed painting these. The contrast paint really worked on them. As I only had three pots of it I painted with washes as well just to keep the momentum up. They have come along a bit since this photo was taken this evening. All that is left now is the metalwork, washes on the hair and then the bases painting.
I decided to get some new contrast paint ( the eagle eyed mathematicians amongst you would have realised that I had more than three pots in the photo above)..this was used on the 10mm stuff as well as the 28mm MI. Now to be fair I am still getting to grips with this paint, but, it does definitely seem to be helping speed things up a bit. Some of it seems to work better than others, but it could be that I haven’t shaken it up enough, or that perhaps a grey undercoat (in the case of the MI) isn’t the best.🤔
We have had a house guest since last Friday, today was his last day and he really, really wanted to see some Puffins… he had been to Sumburgh the day he arrived, but they were all out at sea. Today was a nice sunny day… 22.5 degrees which was a bit warm for us hardy northerners 😂. We took him down to see if the blasted birds had come back, luckily a good dozen or so made an appearance.
I forgot the camera so had to make do with my IPad. Here we have a phot of a pair, the one on the right is flaring into land. Then something amazing happened…
A chick (puffing) appeared, this is a lot more rare than one might expect. Bonxies (Shetland name for the Great Skua) would have him in a flash so they normally appear at night to have a bit of a wing flap (you can just see him at the entrance to his burrow).
As for the radar… Fitful head had a radar station set up during WW2. This helped foil a Luftwaffe raid on Scapa flow in Orkney. They picked up the raid and gave the AA gunners in Orkney a heads up as to direction and speed.
Being a bit exposed on the Southern point of Shetland, sometimes grumpy German gunners would vent their spleen as they flew past…. you can see the effect here…
So that is a little bit more on the out and about on Shetland Blog 🤣.
‘Twas a long day today, but I did manage to get some painting done.
I redid the feet, tail spike and mandibles in white then added a flesh wash to the feet and tail and red to the mandibles… I am calling these done.
Yes I could spend a few more hours highlighting etc, but to be honest these will do. Once they are varnished they will do the job on the table.
As a total aside, my Facebook feed popped up with a post from ages ago, this is the forerunner of the Algy Lacy comics using our Pulp RPG and Lego miniatures.
Tomorrow I will make a start on more Proxy mobile Infantry…I think!
This is them after their initial green wash, I wasn’t sure before I started, but to be honest, I like the way they are looking. Various spot colours to add, but to keep them muted I might actually redcoat parts in white and then use the washes to add the extra colours.
These were undercoated white and painted with Army Painter green wash.
When I have painted with washes in the past I have used a darker colour for an undercoat and then give them a light coloured dry brush, then paint with the washes.
This time I wanted a quick effect hence the wash straight over the white.
I will try and crack on with these tomorrow night.
