Sunday 13 August 2017

Hinchliffe Roman test paint & Hairy Britons!

My first Hinchliffe 'Ancients' order arrived on Friday from Ian Hinds, even before I had received the invoice such is the service, and I wasted no time in getting the first 8 Roman infantry undercoated in Vallejo black primer. Barely a sign of any flash, and the castings are crisp and clean, this range having been completely remoulded only recently by Ian. I ordered a mix of both Roman and Briton codes, in addition to two chariots that are to follow. All are a delight, being true 25mm scale with the kind of animation I have come to expect.

The first to receive a lick of paint was AR1 Legionary with pilum, these I found very easy to paint, starting with Flat Red over the black (this is a nice solid red that covers well), highlighted with Amaranth Red which is quite an orange/red. Next went the flesh, Light Brown base followed by Flat Flesh highlights as usual, possibly I could have gone for a more Mediterranean tone, but these guys are serving in Britain so those tans must have faded somewhat! Then the armour received a dry brush of Natural Steel followed by a highlight of 50/50 Natural Steel and Silver. Belts were then painted in Red Leather and sandals and pilum shaft in Citadel Mournfang brown, my favourite brown and the only non Vallejo shade I use these days. having checked references I painted the edges of the shield in  a Khaki shade. The shields will of course be finished off with transfers from Veni Vidi Vici once I can establish what size to order, these shields being smaller than for example Warlord one's, my thinking is that the HaT transfers for their 20mm plastic Romans may be closer to size but I need to check. There is no doubting the shield transfers are a great finishing touch though, yellow on red. Finally I went back and painted toes, and even though I only managed three per foot it did improve the final look.





I took a few pics of some of the other Roman Codes I ordered, I'll paint another 8 Legionaries first before doing some Auxiliaries. After that I'll do some of the wild hairy Britons that you seen below, again lovely castings with variations in poses. All will be based for DBA, the Romans being 4 x 'Blades' the Britons being 4 x 'warbands'. DBA of course utilises just 12 elements per army. I continue to paint ECW's on the other blog, Dragoons both foot and mounted being required to finish things off there.



Hairy Britons, just look at those faces, complete with 'Jason King' style moustaches!






6 comments:

  1. They do look good Lee - looking forward to seeing the Jason King Britons!

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    1. Hi Ian,
      The first 8 hairy Brits are undercoated. Slight issue with the Legionary code AR1 though as painted above - they are far too chunky compared to all the other codes. Did not become apparent until I painted some Asiatic archers and light infantry which look far smaller with much smaller heads! The Brits all scale up well with the Romans other than AR1. I'm ordering some samples of other early Roman codes which look better on the Hinds web site. I'm guessing when AR1 was remoulded they used a different master because it's very noticeable that the head is very large and the shield bigger than other codes.

      As for the 'Jason King' reference I wondered how many would get it, those of us of a certain age I guess:)

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  2. Extremely handsome figures. . . Even the unpainted castings!

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    Replies
    1. Hi Stokes,

      This range is dated 1981 on the bases - although Ian has remoulded them recently - the animation is what strikes me, the Brits really look as though they are in a wild charge with hair blowing in the wind.

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  3. Lee - parcel arrived yesterday - not had time to more than cast a quick glance over the contents but I'm looking forward to a good look later - overwhelmed by your generosity though - was only expecting a few, not a mucking great box full!! :o)) Thanks very much....

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    Replies
    1. Steve - hope you find the samples useful, fingers crossed you can use them alongside the ECW's you have already painted.

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