I'm keeping busy, can't believe it's almost August! I have started to work through magnetising all of the 3mm bases following a slight mishap a couple of weeks ago when Grandson Oscar grabbed one of the boxes and turned it upside down. No damage done just a jumble of bases to sort out luckily. I was lucky enough to be sent 4 x A4 ferro steel sheet by a fellow member of the 2/3mm FB group so only had to buy a couple of packs of the magnetic printing paper from eBay, all enough for any future armies. The small card boxes 20mm deep is a bit of an experiment as I think I prefer my nice wooden ones, two armies to each box.
Army number 7 - The Parthians - is underway starting with 4 bases of cataphracts, armoured men on armoured horses with massive punching power. 27 figures per 40mm x 30mm base should look the part. These will be supported by 8 bases of light horse archers.
Commission painting.
With the ACW's fully completed I'll be getting them all packed up over the weekend. I'm currently painting through 4 Epic Pike and Shot sprues for Noel and must say I'm rather enjoying doing them after my initial comments. The tight packed musketeers are a bit tricky to work on at the speed I like to paint but still come in at a round 3 hours for the 4 strips to the standard below as indeed did the pikes so all in all round about consistent with my usual Epic work. I could of course go further with more detail and highlights etc but in this scale I think the strips look fine and customers are happy. A few photos.
I still have not found the time to unpack the massive box of metals out in the porch but hope to do so over the weekend. First batch scheduled for August and I'm going to enjoy it.
Lovely work as normal Lee. Are those ECW pikes able to stand a bit of rough handling? Asking (ahem) for a friend.
ReplyDeleteHello JBM :) I'm surprised how robust the pikes are to be honest, they have a bit of bend in them and not at all brittle. Very cheap too a full 80 man regiment of foot for about a fiver a sprue! I'm sure your 'friend' would love them if he can get past the squished up muskets and odd hand positions of some of the pikemen.
DeleteLee.
Beautiful work Lee.
ReplyDeleteMuch appreciated Ray :)
DeleteThe Epic look nice and I was interested to see your warming towards them. On my test sprue, I used contrast paint on the bandoliers and they looked good. And it helped speed things up,
ReplyDeleteHi Norm, yes I agree that the bandoliers are a bit of a pain as unlike the 15mm Peter Pig chaps they are not well defined. Still, I'm relying on the mass effect for a good overall look and as I say I could charge more and go further with detail but for £9 per strip - 90p per figure compared to £2.25 per 15mm PP metal - I think they are OK :)
DeleteLee.
Presumably the pikes pointing forward (rather than just straight up) will add depth to the unit bases - either that or the pikes will overhang into space. I do prefer my units to keep within the dimensions of the actual base. That way any units in melee will actually be contacting each other. The figures do look nice though and, as fully expected, you done a great job painting ‘em. Well done Lee. 👏👏
ReplyDeleteI guess being an officer is a dangerous role - I appreciate you want your men to be able to spot you (rally round, if needed) but it does also mean the enemy can also easily identify you too.
Your cataphracts are coming on nicely. It’s just a shame that none of the Parthian horse archer castings are in the classic “Parthian shot” pose. ☹️
Cheers,
Geoff
Hi Geoff. I did and still do have reservations about the Epic Pike and Shot if I'm honest, and would have gone with all pikes upwards (at 'order your pike') and officers etc in the front rank, just using additional strips and discarding the forward pikes. Still, there we go, they are what they are and I'm just giving them my standard paint job!
DeleteCheers,
Lee