Progress and a little side project!

 Not a bad weeks painting, 12 Hanoverian cavalry and 34 Turkish Janissaries all for Old John. Starting next on more of  JBM's gas mask wearing Prussians - even the Uhlan horses are wearing them! - and Denzil Holles Regiment of Foot for Graham. Then it's back to more for John, more Ottomans mostly before I get started on the follow up box. 

I still have quite a number of AB Napoleonic 18mm figures left in the drawer so as a means of using them I have decided to paint up British, French and Portuguese armies for use on the Commands & Colors game board with 1 figure replacing each block. I have absolutely no intention of painting up full units, entirely pointless, but I still like the idea of a game of commands & Colors now and then and the figures are perfect for it being very robust. In order to enable single figure handling I'm going to use a couple of coats of gloss varnish to get a more toy soldier style. A few examples below, note the bare round bases with colour coded edges, again gloss varnished. Not going to rush this, just a background project over the next couple of months or so and who knows, if I'm happy with it I may even go on and do the Prussians. I have no interest any longer in laying out big tables with lots of scenery but I do fancy having some shiny soldiers to use straight on the game board with just the terrain tiles supplied.

EDIT: Once again useful to view the photos large, slight scratch on the right shoulder of one of the spearmen corrected, also tidied up the tops of the officers turbans.

Above: John asked me to paint the 4 Turkish officers the same as the supplied gloss varnished figure if possible. I think I managed to get pretty close? (Minifigs).

Turkish archers above: Ral Partha.

Above: Janissary archers, I love the huge 'onion' turbans on the commanders, green was the requested colour! (Minifigs).

Above: Turkish spearmen by Ral Partha.

Above: gas mask wearing horses, next in line for JBM.

Above: Here he goes again I hear you say! Shiny toy soldiers for C&C.

Hanoverian Liebgarde cavalry.

I make no apology for the frequency of posts recently as it really helps me with motivation and keeps the blog ticking over with what I hope is interesting content. 

12 Strelets cavalry painted as Hanoverian Liebgarde as per supplied reference plate. These are of course for Old John. Today I have 12 Minifigs Ottoman archers undercoated, these seem to weigh a ton after the plastics but they do feel as though cast in a particularly heavy alloy? 

Hanoverians for John.

Here are 24 more Strelets figures for John painted as Hanoverian Guard infantry as per reference supplied. Always useful to take photos because I just noticed I have not painted in the white cuffs on the 8 command figures! The flag is an impression of the illustration, tricky on a cast on flying colour but not a too bad  I hope. As is my standard method now for red coats I start with Cavalry Brown base, Cavalry brown/Flat Red middle tones and Aramanth Red highlights. The blue is Dark Prussian Blue base with about 50% Azure mixed in for the highlights. Muskets, flag pole, shafts etc are Flat Brown with Flat Earth highlights. I'll start on the Hanoverian Cavalry regiment next week and then probably paint Graham's next regiment of Peter Pig foot Denzil Holles' Redcoats along with a pack of petards and crew. I also have in the pipeline some 18mm Prussian Uhlans and artillery crew for JBM.

I'm enjoying painting the Strelets figures and have more to do including a box of dismounted French Dragoons, lovely box artwork and John has loaned me a beautiful reference book with a note to take my pick and surprise him with a colourful unit and there are plenty to choose from.

38th Regiment of Foot - Strelets 1/72nd figures.

Just finished are these 24 plastic Strelets WSS figures for Old John representing the 38th Regiment of Foot. Great figures to paint and good written references supplied which really helps. I will go straight onto 24 Hanoverian foot in marching pose, also Strelets. 

I have also been doing a bit more painting in 2mm scale. However, it has become increasingly clear to me that I will probably never find the enthusiasm to actually use these figures (surprise, surprise!), as much as I have enjoyed painting them. The challenge of seeing what I could bring to them was the attraction but I'll probably stop there I think and pass them on.

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. 

Buggering around with 2mm blocks!

Knocked out a few bases worth yesterday afternoon. I think to this standard - which is probably as far as I would want to go in this scale - each base took around 10 minutes actual painting time, which is really not bad going. A couple of armies could easily be finished in a couple of dedicated days! I will texture the bases once I source some fine sand but for now this just gives them a bit of a lift. In my view they represent something between figures games and board games, but whatever, I'm going to have some fun with these. 

Starting Johns Strelets today, I have to say that once undercoated in black they are up there with the best metal figures with really nice proportions and long muskets, I'm looking forward to seeing how these turn out. I'm going to painting in batches of 8 foot figures per day. 

Saturday will be spent painting all the rest of the 2mm bases, about a dozen or so, plus my first attempt at a 2mm village model. Sunday we have family over for lunch so a day off from painting.

So, Irregular Miniatures 2mm ECW 'blocks'. Bases are 50mm x 20mm (as I happened to have them handy). It's impressionistic painting but have tried to represent that blackened armour/buff coat appearance for the horse. Might just give the horses noses a touch of white on the forehead!

EDIT: Knocked up a little village base this morning, great fun and very. very quick. Norm in his comment mentioned the 'camo' pattern on the bases and I agree, it had already occurred to me! I will texture them and reduce the brown area. Going to order more blocks including different formations of horse, artillery and command bases.