Project: One Week - One Army. Part 3

To confess a defeat is never easy, but sometimes inevitable. The weekend was filled with work, not just painting, but also making scenery (not for me, so I unfortunately forgot to make some pictures).

At the beginning everything looked good. I deflashed my miniatures and made some minor conversions. Note the red spears of the cavalry and triairii. They are made of brooms and are much more durable than the soft plastic spears. The legionaries kept their pilum, because it's much shorter and is very detailed.

The next step was priming. I primed my miniatures in GW skull white, as one should always work with bright colours when using the army painter dip. The horsemen are missing on that picture.

I decided to start with the main bunch of the army, the legionaries. This meant painting 24 similar miniatures. Although I saved time by working on so many figures at once it was also very exhausting and sometimes frustrating. It took me all saturday and sunday to complete them. The picture on the left shows them in WIP status.

Even though I had a plan, I did not so much on miniatures monday and tuesday. Yesterday evening I applied the dip at last. They need to dry today. After that I'll white their shealds and put on the decal. Then they need to be varnished and based.

I failed my project. It started good, but I underestimated the work and my very own motivation and working speed. I didn't even finished 24 miniatures, not to speak of the whole army. This is of course a bit disappointing.

But I'm an optimist and always look on the positive things in life. The legionaries are nearly finished, the most work is done. I have never painted so many miniatures in such a short amount of time. The army as a whole is pushed a big step forward. And I'm motivated to get the rest done. So, in the end, not everything failed.

Project: One Week - One Army. Part 2

I'm very busy with my project and don't even find any time to write on my blog! So here's a short update:

I removed the paint on some miniatures using oven cleaner. It works well with badly primed soft plastic miniatures, but took some time too.

 

 

 

No paint left

Working space. I sit on the left, my friend on the right.

Cleaning the miniatures after deflashing.

I'll report more later!

Project: One Week - One Army. Part 1

Hello and welcome on my blog!

This time I want to start a project and share it with you. The title is, as you may have seen, 'one week - one army'. To be more precise: I want to paint a polybian Roman army for DBA in one week, starting today the 24th of January 2013. I'll show the whole way, from deflashing, priming, painting, dipping, finishing and basing. First I have to admit that I already cheated because I have done two elements of skirmishers (called psiloi in DBA) in November. 

The background of my project is the following: a friend and I want to present a participation game on a wargames convention (the Do or Dice in northern Germany, 14th April 2013). Our theme will be the (first) battle of Ausculum 279 BC, which was fought between Pyrrhos of Epiros and the Roman republic. We have enough Greeks and Macedonians, but no Roman army! So my will hopefully visit me one the weekend and we both will only do one thing - painting (and probably some other hobby stuff as well).

Romans of the Pyrrhic wars. Picture from Johnny Shumate.

1. The beginning

I want to start with the DBA army list for polybian Romans. It requires: 1 cavalry (general), 1 cavalry, 6 blades (principes and hastati), 2 spears (triairii), 2 psiloi (velites), 1 camp. This means in miniatures: 6 horses, 6 horsemen, 24 legionaries, 8 spearmen, 4 skirmisher and the camp which will be made of 3 tents and 4-8 miniatures (civilians etc.).

My manufacturer of choice is Zvezda because they have everything I need and look very good. For the infantry I take this set. The cavalry is taken from this set. Civilians in the camp are taken from here. I maybe also add some miniatures from this HäT set to the scene. The tents are made from Rusus. I bought them on the Tactica last year (hey are missing in his shop).

The first step will be deflashing. After that I'll remove the paint, as some miniatures were painted before, and wash all of them properly. Then I'll prime them all with GW skull white.

Workbench: North African Village

My gaming group and I decided last year to start a project - the war in North Africa. I took the Italians, my friends the Afrika Korps and the British. After all this time we got a date to finally play - on this sunday. We've got everything - painted troops, a table... but something was missing: proper scenery. To be more precise: a North African village. So I decided to build one! Of course, my deadline was today, so was in a hurry. I started on last saturday. I wanted to use old stuff, so I could reduce my inventory and get new scenery without spending money on it. So here's what I got:

Some hobby plastic card, rests of foambord, balsa wood, etc.

I even glued some bases togehter, so I didn't had to cut out new ones (you see, I'm very economical):

I've got a problem: normally, I'm a total control freak. Before I can build something, I plan it for weeks - how big should it be, how high and big should be the windows etc. When I come to the building process, I want to work very accurate and clear. In the end my scenery looks a big artificial - of course, because I wanted to control every detail. I took this project as an incitation to change myself!

I only used rest pieces of foamboard and tried to avoid right angles - it should look awry and more natural. I also cut the windows and doors just the way I wanted and used no ruler of something like that. Everything was cut free hand.

The first sight of the buildings (ignore the rest)

Doors are made out of balsa wood, engraved with a pen.

The buildings themselves were ready, now they needed a proper texture. First I used adhesive tape to close the gaps in the walls. This was much quicker than using putty. After doing so, I applied diluted wood glue and dispersed fine sand on the buildings. I did this twice, so adding a thick layer of sand. In the end I again coated the buildings with the diluted glue, which, after drying, hardened the sand and will protect it from abrasion.

The last step was, of course, panting. I tried some different approaches. In the end I used a washing and drybrushing method. First, I primed the buildings white. Then I washed them twice with bright brown, which I mixed out of my sceney colours. After drying I drybrushed the building with pure white, using a large brush. That highlighted some areas. After this I drybrushed the base and painted the doors. Done!

Some Italians occupying the new building.

Testing the Army Painter quickshade

Hi there,

as you may have noticed, my blog's name is "An Average Wargamer". My thoughts behind this choice are quite obvious. I believe it's necessary to know your own strengths and weaknesses. I know my weaknesses: I like big battles with many miniatures, but I'm also a slow painter - a classical gap between claim and reality, which often results in frustration.

Possible reliefs are fast painting methods. The most popular was and is the so called dipping technique. I watched the evolution of dipping from its very early stages, the times when people used wood glaze to shade their miniatures. Today the Army Painter quickshade is very popular, because it produces a much more predictable result than the earlier experimental glazes. Although I observed this development, I never took the last step to try this method myself.

Some weeks ago, while I was writing a paper, I saw the pictures of a Thirty Years War army in 15mm. Thomas (and his brother), who I got to know on TACTICA, where they presented a great table, showed it on his blog. He painted his TYW army in a short amount of time and produced a fine result. This got me again into dipping. I decided to finally try it by the time I finished my work for my studies.

So I did and I will show you what I made. I chose a very systematic approach to see how the Army Painter quickshade (I employ the strong tone) affects different colours.


1. I took 11 staff slingers from this box, based them on coins, applied a white basecoat (GW primer) and added numbers, so I can see exactly what colours I used on which miniature (I of course also listed the paints used). I didn't deflash them, because I won't use them for gaming and therefore saved some time.

2. Now I painted them in bright colours. I only did the basics, just plain paint.

3. In the next step I applied the quickshade. I used an old brush to do so, because real dipping wastes much of the quickshade for nothing (as you can see here). Additionally, a brush gives much more control. I let them dry for some minutes and then took away the excess quickshade - less can be more. You can see the typical gloss of the quickshade. Then I left the miniatures to dry. I read several different time spans, from 12, 24 to 36 hours - I had between 12 and 24 hours. They dried over night on my balcony and the cold temperatures didn't harm the paint at all!

4. The last step was matt varnish, I use the one from vallejo. Now the miniatures loose their glossy shine and are therefore finished.

Conclusions: The Army Painter quickshade is also suitable for 1/72 miniatures. It produces good results in a very short amount of time. Especially brown and skin tones benefit from the quickshade. Also other colours look good after shading, but they appear brownish. Another advantage is that the quickshade adds a layer of protectice varnish, which is very good in connection with the soft plastic of 1/72 miniatures. Even though I like my normal painting results better, the quickshade is much faster and the results are comparable to my normal ones. I believe that the quickshade and the 1/72 scale are natural allies - cheap miniatures, fast painted! I wouldn't quickshade an expansive 28mm mini in that way, but for masses it is very suitable. Perfect for my demands.

I'm very satisfied with the quickshade and I decided to use it to increase my output. I'll now tackle the stuff that lay around for years. Some Greeks are on my table, waiting for paint, and also the Red Army will get a push. Stay tuned!

Falling leaves... or not?

Hi there,

today I added static grass to the bases of my trees which I have shown earlier. As gras only would be a bit boring I tried something new. I read the hint to use oregano as dead leaves on the ground and so I tried that on one base. Here's the result (the pictures aren't the best, sorry for that):

So what do you mean: should I add oregano to all bases or should I stay with gras only?

Results of a weekend

I had high ambitions and I soon realized that they were too high to reach them. Let's have a look:

• finish all my wip Wehrmacht vehicles (3 tanks, 2 trucks + 4 tanks and 2 halftracks with minor workload) - only the 4 tanks and 2 halftracks are finished, but the rest is on the way
• finish my Italian Autoblinda 41 (a recon vehicle) - not finished, but almost

A workbench filled with work...

• finish the bases of my trees (that means drybrushing and flocking) - only the flock is missing now, but for a reason: I want to test oregano as leaves on the ground

• start my Ukrainian village - nothing here
• at least prime my Italian infantry - also not yet done
• base the rest of my Wehrmacht infantry - nope
• finish the boxes for my tanks - done! Only some foam is missing, good, that doesn't count as I still have to buy it

Raw material...

...only glue to come...

...some pressure...

...done!

 

Time for a  review. I'm of course a bit disappointed because I only achieved one goal on my list, but there is also something positive. I could push many things on the list much further so it is foreseaable that I can complete them this week. The aims were always in my head while working which motivated me to continue, although I was sometimes halfhearted. As a result, I'm convinced that I accomplished more than I would have without the pressure of my public plan. So, my personal conclusion is that my blog motivated me, but I have to lower my expectations then it comes to plans.

Love and hate - often closely connected

Yesterday, after I wrote my second post here, I returned to my work station to finish my Panzer III (I showed it in my first post). I wanted to try matt varnish on it, so it would be protected from sticky fingers and other things which rub off paint. A friend of mine also used it on his tanks and was satisfied. So I was optimistic and started to apply the varnish. It looked a bit wet even after drying, so I waited a little more. But the wet effect stayed. Now I'm disappointed, because the tank looks darker than before and the dirt I painted lost it's nice dusty look. It's not really a big deal, but if you paint such nice models and they are just the way you wanted them - and than something changes, it can daunt you. In my case it did. 

Before

After

Compared to a similar tank. Note the shiny, wet looking dirt and the slighty darker grey on the left tank

.

So, I decided not to varnish my tanks. Only the decals will get some, so they loose their gloss. My poor Panzer will get some new dirt but not more

But that wasn't all I did. I also finished some markers for Disposables Heroes. Just small stones on a one €-cent coin, painted and varnished. Not much, but necessary for a game and they look good on the table.

Last but not least my trees, or, to be specific, their bases:

I was told to make the bases brighter then I normally do and so i did. I like the result (thanks again Björn!). But that lead me to another decision: I have to pimp my table. 

I built it three years ago and I made a mistake, because I painted it very dark by using a black primer and a dark brown as base colour. I liked it in the beginning and so painted all my scenery bases in the same scheme. Today, I regret my decision, but I was too lazy to change all my stuff. However, I will tackle that in the following months, as I am very optimistic at the moment. I will of course show that project to you!