A few notes on painting 2mm blocks.

I'll be back painting the big guys tomorrow for Old John, but I have spent an enjoyable couple of days working on more 2mm ECW bases. So far I have completed 12 bases of horse and 7 bases of foot with just 6 more left to do. I have another order in for artillery, dragoons both mounted and dismounted and more foot which will about complete the two armies that I have in mind. I dug out my cope of One Hour Wargames yesterday and even felt a tinge of excitement at the prospect of having a small game!

I'm surprised at the level of detail these blocks have and the way to approach them for me at least is very much the same way I used on the 6mm stuff I have painted, that is to say a nice flat black undercoat then dotting and dashing with a 000 brush. Leaving some black showing gives a bit of depth. I try to add a tiny dot of flesh to the faces as it seems to jump out, and I'm finding that a tiny dot of silver on the top of the helmets also has the same effect. For the horse blocks I have tried to get the impression of that blackened armour/buff coat look, my trusty Japanese WW2 uniform is the base coat for the buff touched with a pure buff highlight. For the horses I'm using Flat Brown, Flat Earth, Cavalry Brown and again the Jap. Uniform, all of which are very paste like  with excellent coverage over black. A fine line down the front of the horses heads adds to the look as a finishing touch.

Thanks to a tip from 'Jacksarge' I'm going to add some texture to the bases using Tilers Grout, I'm not going to completely cover the bases, just add a little of the grout here and there before painting in the same colours. I did get a lot of compliments on the basing on the FB 2mm wargamers group so was tempted to leave it as is, but I hope my plan with the grout will enhance them slightly.

So, here are three bases of Roundhead horse painted in a single session yesterday (I actually painted two more in the afternoon! I plan to use a colour coded dot system on the rear edge only to show unit quality, training etc as I'm keen to avoid labels in this scale.