Game board for 3mm DBA and Old John's Poles finished!

 I have just finished off Old Johns latest box of Poles and very pleased with them I am too (as is OJ of course which is what matters). Once again the satin varnish does it's magic in lifting the colours and especially the horses. Photos are below.

Meantime I have been quietly working on producing a playing board for my DBA games in 3mm scale and finally have some results to share here. I wanted to find a way of producing a truly portable game system, it began with the neat magnetised wooden storage boxes and I wanted a way of making a board that packed down to about the same size! A lot of thinking time went into this idea and I finally came up with using a second hand folding boardgame, the kind that z folds down in 6 or (in this case) 8 sections to fit in a box (or in this case a plastic ziplock bag). I started by covering it with a thin coat of Vallejo Diorama FX lightly textured Earth shade ensuring that it would still fold down when dry which it did. I had then intended to use paint to build up a drybrush finish, but when I did it looked pretty awful so decided to use javis fine grass flock and go for a basic green surface thinking that with wear and tear and a bit of shredding of the surface flock the earth texture would begin to show through here and there. However, the PVA coating seems to have made a very good job of holding the flock and there is very little to shed! I'm not worried at this stage, it's green and that's OK, we shall see how it goes, but bottom line is that I have a nice little board 30" x 20" that I can play some solo games on and fits the truly portable concept that I was so keen to produce. More terrain pieces will follow, maybe lay on fields to break up the greenery and some river sections etc. I'm happy so far!

Here you see a few stages of development and the newly enlarged Macedonian army deployed for action to show scale of everything. I'm starting the Indian army of King Porus next, elephants, 4 horse chariots, cavalry and bow armed infantry. I stumbled across this clip (bottom) on YouTube and like many a war movie it's an inspiring clip of the elephants emerging from the trees to attack the Macedonian phalanx, bit on the gory side though!

Below: Old John's completed Poles!

                                           

All change! More 3mm ancients and 1/72nd Winged Hussars.

With batch 1 of the Pony Wars commission all safely stored away it's straight back to painting a box for Old John who has been waiting patiently for me to clear the decks of the Epic projects. A new painter has been found who will continue the Waterloo project for Tony2 and everything will be shipped off to him on Tuesday and as you can see from the photo there is a lot of it!

Speaking of the Pony Wars project a lovely surprise arrived on Friday from the local Dickens House Wine Emporium, Rochester, 6 bottles of rather fine wine with a note which read ' To celebrate the first 68'. I still can't quite get over it but suffice to say that my wife and I shared a very nice bottle of Pinot Noir with dinner on Saturday, Thank you Mark, you really shouldn't have but it's much appreciated!

So I'm now painting through Johns Box starting with 16 plastic Zvedza Winged Hussars which are coming up a treat I must say. I have four left to paint later today but could not resist sending John a  few photos yesterday. 

After this box is completed I'll be painting more 2mm DBA armies for Geoff, as usual all neatly labelled and prepared ready for painting.

I continue to be fascinated by the 3mm ancient ranges by Magister Militum and am just about to begin DBA number 8 which will be Classical Indian, lots of Elephants, loads of bow armed infantry and good quality cavalry. All armies are now fully magnetised and stored two per neat little wooden box with the latest being Parthians, 4 bases of heavy cataphracts and 8 of light horse archers, the latter based in a swirling loose formation trying to represent them riding forward to discharge their arrows  then retiring. There are 112 of them on the 8 bases which I think gives a nice mass effect. A few shots of everything neatly stored in the boxes are below. 

Room for one more army!

Macedonians.

Gallic Warbands!

And a shot of the Epic Napoleonics heading off to the new painter Daniel on Tuesday, should keep him busy for a while!

Box 1 completed, 68 plains Indians.

With the first batch painted and varnished I thought I would try to get a few shots in natural light to show the effect of the satin finish. Not sure how good the photos are but you get the idea I hope overall effect. Rob, I'm working on my pie and skewbalds! I still have around 330 more mounted Indians to paint (plus 100 on foot) so I'm sure I'll get better at them and I want to capture some of those 'fleshy' muzzles going forward. Overall I have to say I'm very happy with them and I know that Mark is too :)

Day off then prepping up a box of 1/72nd scale Polish Winged Hussars for Old John.

Box 1 completed.

A varnishing session today and horse flesh tips!

I'll be finishing off the first batch of Plains Indians this week, with 56 painted just 12 to go, but today I'm going to have a varnishing session on those already painted as I'm really keen to see how the satin varnish will bring out the colours which currently look rather flat. As followers will know I have long favoured the Vallejo Satin for all my own figures. I'm only painted in daily batches of six, trying to vary the horse colours between each batch including two of piebalds that I approached with some trepidation but I think tuned out rather well on the whole. I have been trying to keep the coats fairly light after the initial darker browns and will be able to work in more variation as the project progresses and research continues. These photos illustrate my basic method of the Flat Brown dry brush over the black base which makes an excellent starter for both horse tones and flesh tones. In this case my favourite Flat earth/Japanese Uniform/Cavalry Brown produces very pleasing horse tones with a touch of red, and you can see the mix on the MDF base that I prefer over wet palette for horses as I find I can work them in together and add highlights easier when fairly dry. Another blend is Japanese Uniform/buff/Ivory for lighter horses and for darker horses Burnt Umber/Cavalry brown. Flat earth highlights over the basic Flat Brown also works very well. 

I have also settled upon my flesh tone for the warriors, a 50/50 mix of Mahogany Brown and Orange Brown seems just about right to me over the Flat Brown dry brush. All in all it's a most enjoyable challenge and I think I'm getting the hang of it now!

Next I'm going back to good Old John starting with his box of  Winged Hussars that I have had prepped up for ages. The decision to cease painting further Epics was not an easy one but to be honest the pressure was getting too much for me to handle at a time when I really wanted to ease back a bit.

 A few shots of a batch of horses in progress.

A few more plains Indians and plans!

Many thanks for the comments on the previous post, I'll reply to them all individually of course. Meantime here are a few more photos as we are now up to 30 painted. Lot's of useful comments were made and some useful links provided. I should stress that Mark's brief was to try to keep the colours 'earthy' so I toned down a few touches of the initial 12 and I'm far happier now, I think the vivid colour illustrations in the Ospreys, especially of the bright bead and embroidered decoration influenced me somewhat to add a touch of 'pop' but I'm far happier now! 

Mark has decided upon stain varnish and I'm really pleased that he has because I know how much it brings out the horse colours in particular. I'm aware that they look very flat in these photos but with satin there is no need to over highlight muscle tone etc. One detail that I raised with Mark was that of the horses reins and the fact that many had only reins cast along one side on the neck which puzzled me given the quality of the sculpts. Research shows this is spot on! The Plains Indians often riding with just a single long rein and no metal bit, simply looped over the lower jaw, often braided and up to 12 feet long so if the rider was unhorsed he could cling to it and remount. 

After this batch of 68 I'm back with Old John for a couple of weeks. I'm not painting Epics now and currently seeking a painter to continue the commission for Tony. Fact is that I have had to reduce my painting time and simply could not commit to 3 weeks per month for the Waterloo project any longer for personal reasons. if anyone knows or can recommend a painter please do get in touch.