Workbench update 23-11-2016

Well just to show I have been busy beavering away on a project here it is at the Halfway point.



I have posted some normal photographs to the Brigantes Studio blog and you can see them by clicking the link in the sidebar.

Regards
Loki

Organising my Vallejo Paints

I had a rather good question raised by a fellow blogger John de Terra Neuve regarding how I organise my paints. So without further ado I shall explain and show how my Vallejo paints are organised.

Firstly I have some very nice Paint racks that I designed and got Martin at Warbases to produce for me. Now just a word about these racks they are larger than those you can PURCHASE HERE.
Simply because my racks hold 90 bottles and are a very awkward fit for posting. So I allowed him to alter my design a little to make posting easier and thus retailing them.The smaller version holds 45 bottles but is very reasonably priced at £7.00 a rack. When I designed these racks I ensured that they not only are stable fully loaded they are also stack able as well as being very easy to construct.

Now organising them was made easier by my realisation that Vallejo has another code on each bottle that is different to the paint Identifier (VAL XXX).

I will explain in the following picture.

Above is a snippet of the Vallejo colour chart and what I noticed was that it is laid out in a sequence that groups similar types of colours together with the odd exception. If you notice just below each colour there is a number within an Oval this denotes its position within the paint rack for a supplier thus making it easier to stock the right paint into the gap on the commercial rack.So lets take the VAL958 Rosa /Pink as an example.

The bottle above shows all the same information and to the side of the Vallejo logo is the number that is ovalled on the chart, which denotes its rack position.

I decided this would also benefit me greatly as I could order my racks as per the colour chart and if I run out of a colour instead of trying to remember the VAL number and name I only need to know the rack position. 

As you can see from the image below I have my paints sorted in that exact method.

You will notice that I have also got my racks labelled and a little bit of a painted square of colour which aids me in both selecting colours and replacing them back after use, I often have 30 or so paints out at anyone time so every little thing helps to control the chaos at times.That's my excuse anyway although the reality is I'm more than a little OCD 😦

If you want to label your own racks then I have created a shareable spreadsheet that has the same information contained on the Vallejo paint chart with a blank section to paint your own test patch feel free to DOWNLOAD A COPY HERE.

This has also had a benefit in creating triads, and now I simply jot down rack positions for any set I find particulary useful or as is more common of late for coming back to a half started project as I record the colours I use or intend to as can be seen in the example below.

Now having said all this it is probably a good time to remind everyone that I have a lot of triads available to freely download just visit the tabs at the top of this page and help yourself.

I hope this has at least helped in someway to explain both how I organise my paints and some of the methodology on how I work.

Until next time

Regards
Loki

Painting Spanish Napoleonic Line Infantry in White uniform (Part 1)

I have been working away on a large commission of Spanish Napoleonic figures of late and thought it may be a good idea to share with you the colours used to achieve the final result.

First up a picture of a finished Infantry figure:

 

Next is a video showing how I go about painting a figure and all the colours used to achieve the final result.



Finally here is a full list of the colours used and the relevant parts of the uniform they are applied to they are listed from base tone first to highlight last, all colours are Vallejo Model color unless stated otherwise :

Flesh: VAL860 Medium Flesh Tone , VAL845 Sunny Skin Tone, VAL815 Basic Skin Tone.

Jacket and Breeches: VAL847 Dark Sand, VAL837 Pale Sand, VAL820 Off White.

Bicorne, Gaiters,bayonet scabbard and cartridge box: VAL950 Black, VAL862 Black Grey, VAL994 Black Grey.

Musket stock: VAL984 Flat Brown, Panzer Aces311 New Wood.
Musket Barrel: 75% VAL863 Gunmetal 25% VAL950 Black, VAL864 Natural Steel.
Barrel Rings: VAL801 Brass.

Plume and Cockade: VAL926 Red, VAL909 Vermillion.

Hair. VAL984 Flat Brown, VAL874 Tan Earth

Crossbelts: VAL883 Silver Grey, VAL951 White.

Facings: VAL950 Purple, VAL811 Blue Violet. It goes without saying you will need to use colours suited to the regiment you are painting

Piping: VAL951 White

Buttons, Scabbard tip and cockade strap: VAL801 Brass.

I will finish this post here, but will be back soon with part 2 covering the drummers who wear a completely different coloured uniform and the finer details on the Ensigns and Officers.

Holy Moly !!! I actually painted something from my own lead pile

I needed a bit of a diversion, I have been working a very large ongoing Napoleonic commission for months, and really needed to take a chill pill for the sake of my own sanity. I have many months ahead of the same, so staring at me across the room I have a rather large pile of plastic Dark age figures. Some kindly donated, others I have bought I had great plans for these but now I am unsure of the destination.

Anyway I decided to build a small 4 point Viking Warband as a start point, using only 25 figures it wont make a huge dent in the pile but it's a reduction at the very least. So out came cutters, files, glue and bits n' bobs from my spares boxes and I set too.

Now as I have done of late I videoed the initial build. shown below.


There are another two videos of the work in progress but you can find these if you visit my You tube page.

This is the finished result though. I have to admit they look fine to me for a wargames standard paint job.

For those who would like a better look them I have made a very short video of the them in a little more detail.



So thats me done for now until next time thanks for stopping by

Regards
Loki

3rd Game of To the Strongest - Greece vs Persia

Last week saw myself and Kevin again on childcare duty and we organised another game of to the strongest, bouncing theater and period we went with a classic. Macedonia against Persia. I took a standard force as the Macedonians, just a normal commander against Kev with the hordes of Darius.

 

 The Persians on the left and the Greek force on the Right as we commence Battle.

Both commanders take the fight to the enemy, and soon things are getting a little disordered.

However Darius is not fairing too well and the Macedonians are pushing him back, having lost almost all his cavalry on the flank at this stage.

Things get desperate for both commanders as Darius tries hard to rally his forces, while I try hard to kill them off, both of us don't seem to be able to break the stalemate at this stage.

Finally with his Infantry hit from both flanks and from the front the strain is too much for Darius to withstand and Victory comes to the Macedonians.

Once again the rules gave a great game and the card system is a total success in bringing balance to the game. All three games have been a lot of fun and have made for some great games. It has me enthusiastic that we may have just found a great rule set that gives the right flavour and feel for our needs. Dare I say it may even coax me into some purchases.....

Well folks that is all for this brief post until next time.

Regards
Loki

Painting 28mm Horses (Part 5) - Palomino Horse version 1

Hello it's me again back with the 5th installment of my series on painting horses, this time its the turn of the 1st version of a Palomino horse.



Thanks for stopping by.

Regards

Loki

Painting 28mm Horses (Part 4) - Red or Golden Chestnut Horse

Today I bring you right up to date with my series on painting horses with the last version of Chestnut variants that I use.



Thank you for reading and watching until next time

Loki

Painting 28mm Horses (Part 3) - Standard Chestnut Horse

Today I bring you the 3rd video I have produced on painting horses so far, This one is a particular favourite horse colour of mine and used a lot in Cavalry units I paint.



Thank you for reading and until next time
Regards
Loki

Painting 28mm Horses (Part 2) - Black Horses

This video is the 2nd in the series I am currently making on painting 28mm horses. I will post the other videos that I have completed and made live in the following days and I should have you all up to date by the weekend.



I will state that although I have shown two possible colours to use, there are more you can add yellow or blue tones to the black to create further variations.

Regards
Loki

To the Strongest - Vikings verses English Kingdoms.

With the boys off from school I am on parental duties for the week and as yesterday resulted in me getting no work done so to speak it seemed a good opportunity for me to drop in on Kevin who has his boys this week and while they all play together, we can use the time to have another game of To the Strongest. So with plans made I travelled the 15 minutes to Kev's for a little Dark Age run out.

We are both taking a crash course in the Ancient period rules at present having been asked to play test the ECW version, something we are both looking forward too. We have played a Britons verses Rome Game and had a great time with us finding our way in the game after a couple of turns and only had a couple of questions to resolve with Mr Miller the rules author who duly explained the issues and we understood. So lesson two came around today and this time we jumped periods I choose 120 points of Vikings from the early medieval list and Kevin choose 120 points of English Kingdoms. We decided it would be an Invasion scenario with my camp edging a tributary of a river and it was his job to stop me pillaging the countryside.

Kevin has his forces deployed on the left of the picture above. While I am on the right.

A close up of Snorri Whitebeards plundering vikings.

On the Kevin's right flank, my left after a couple of turns, which seemed to contain a lot of aces for both players in the command phase we were getting closer to combat.

While Kevin's Left flank and my right Flank had stalled, those damned aces again causing havoc with cohesion of units

First blood came to the Vikings as they quickly dealt with a unit of light infantry caught in the open, and closed in on an English division.

The Vikings then threw a small division on the other flank to try and pull Kevs center apart.

Kev tried to rally his Kings body guard as the Vikings closed in from all sides, is that an Ace I see.

However the brave English held firm and started inflicting disorder on the viking force who were being done for by those aces or bad command cards at the wrong time.

After an epic struggle the English triumphed and stole a very narrow win, with both sides having lost a division each to demoralisation, but a stroke of luck for the English came as a series of excellent command cards meant that the vikings lost another unit and handed over the last of the victory medals.

I had an excellent day gaming and my boys had a great time playing, I fully expect another battle in the very near future. These rules have me quite enthusiastic and I am enjoying the feel of the game play, we will try out different armies again next time, before we run out the ECW playtest rules. I will do a review of the rules after several more games so that any opinion I give will be an objective and fair one, and not one based on a couple of games.

Well folks that is all I have for now thanks for reading.

Regards
Loki

Time to share some knowledge - Painting Horses part 1

I have long considered that I am more of a painter than a wargamer, maybe because my earliest memories are those of me sat painting row upon row of 1/72 plastic Airfix Napoleonics with good old Humbrol Enamel paints. I get a lot of enjoyment from the process of turning a bare figure into a fully painted representation of its unit.

Over the years, my techniques have changed and my all round painting skills have improved. In the early days the skill was getting a figure block painted neatly, even back at the start of my journey I had to have everything neat and tidy. Paint of the wrong colour on the wrong bit of uniform of equipment had me hurtling back to fix it. From that I advanced to the block and drybrush method, slowly and steadily I altered things until eventually I got to the stage I am at now.

One big hurdle in my life has always been self doubt and overly critical of my own work. Combine that with depression that rears its head every so often and occassionally it causes problems. Be it the cause of motivational loss or just unhappy with a piece of work. However, the last couple of years I sought proper help to get all that sorted, and I have to say it was the best move I made. I have things to help me get through the dark patches really quickly and they work so I wont knock it. Being macho about not dealing with it and refusing to seek help really compounded the issue and made it ten fold worse over the years.

Now I am painting Full Time to earn a crust, it is not always the easiest job in the world but every time I complete a figure, unit or Army for a customer I get a sense of satisfaction from the whole job. Best of all I get to work from home and have more time around family.

I have long been a believer in sharing what I have learnt and I have over the last few years shared some things with fellow bloggers on how I complete certain aspects of figures. From how I work a face to colours used for x or y jacket, often just the little things. On the odd occasion I have been asked how I painted an entire figure or unit. That is something I have been thinking about in a bit more depth these last few months. My problem has been working out how I could achieve such a thing, my computer skills are just about competent but don't get technical on me. My literary skills are almost non existent and don't get me started on computer graphics, I am hardly past cropping and auto white balance on a photo.

Now although I have stated my inadequacies well enough, I have persevered and formed the basis of something that hopefully will work allowing me to better share my knowledge with a wider audience. I am putting together a series of guides for painting and have started the process over the last week or so using the video as a medium and uploading to You Tube.

I do not intend to teach anyone how to paint in most of these guides, as with the internet age there are enough tutorials and You tube videos available for learning a particular technique. I prefer to think of them more as a full colour palette for working a figure, allowing you to replicate the figure / unit / army with a good degree of consistency.

Consistency became more important to me at first when I was doing all my work into the Vallejo paint range and making my own Triads. It became even more important when I started painting professionally though, simply because if you start painting an Army you need it to be cohesive in the colour palette for many periods, particularly Napoleonics in my opinion. If you do any large scale army having the rank and file troops in the same colour uniform matters. In times gone by, I like many people have started a project and walked away from it, returning weeks later only to discover I could not remember the colours I used. Now I have my trusty note book and record the colours I use for units so if I get distracted or heaven forbid the wife tidies up the Great Hall, I can at least pick up where I left off without spending hours trying to colour match the figures first.I also record alternate colours for certain things like variants for horses.

So here we go then with the 1st video, If you subscribe to my channel then you will get the new videos as they are uploaded but I will publish them on my blog as well for all to see.



Thanks for reading.
Regards
Loki

All work and no play lately -

However I do not feel stressed, or concerned at the lack of personal time. I have come to accept that things change, and as my boys get older my free time is spent with the family more and more. Plans I made for getting things completed during the summer went awry, with the lads off school for damn near 7 weeks and me having to hold the fort on childcare duty for the majority of it. Stupidly I thought that I would be able to work and supervise without issue, I soon learnt that supervising squabbling siblings becomes more or less a full time occupation in its own right. This impacted heavily on what I was able to achieve and my work schedule, reducing me to only being able to complete projects for clients that had fixed deadlines attached. Fortunately most of my clients are on an as units are ready basis or are aware that their may be delays beyond my control so my head has not collapsed under a blanket of despair as I claw back from being 7 weeks behind on the schedule I have.

I have learnt the art of bulking up my desk in order to work several things at once, something that would have given me nightmares a couple of years ago is now a necessary evil. As you can see above last week I had a unit of infantry on the go and some cavalry waiting in the wings. With this kind of workload it is inevitably going to have some impact on me painting for myself but also has impacted on me getting out to game to a degree although the later is mainly due to my wife's working hours. Taking the time out to blog has also suffered as my focus is on work and after a 12 hour day I am not so inclined to be sat at the computer thinking of something to write. All blog posts that do require completion are those for Brigantes Studio, which has become the main focal point at present. The other issue I get, is those issues that working within the industry produces with alarming frequency. I am made aware of my services being needed by X or Y customer for new releases, just they cannot give firm dates for when they will have the figures to pass to me and this almost always happens with me getting the short straw and having a batch of figures to turn around in a week before they are released, thus wobbling the status quo again upsetting the schedule and causing delays down the line.

This week started with me finishing the previous weeks bits while working another unit of infantry alongside, so as you can see I am almost in a constant state of production. Taking time for myself to do personal stuff would feel irresponsible at present until I have made excellent headway into the backlog, so it is highly unlikely any of my own figures will be worked for the remainder of this year. I realise this post may seem all woe is me, but actually it's the opposite and serves to show that I have plenty of work and in this climate that is a very good thing. I am in fact very fortunate to be able to say I have a schedule that will keep me in work for the whole of 2017 as well. Most of all I enjoy what I am doing and that is a very rare thing, So I am going to make the most of it!

I leave you now with a shot of my workbench this morning, having finished a unit of Cavalry and infantry this week, I have also made good headway with another unit of infantry, completed 3 commanders, prepped and started 2 gun crews, and prepared another unit of cavalry. The completed units will all appears on the Brigantes blog in due course for those that are interested so until next time....

Happy painting ...

Loki

Over the Hills - Napoleonic Rules

Some good friends have finished a new set of rules for gaming in the Napoleonic period, always a favorite period of mine and like many people I am always searching for rules that play easily but have character. I have been given an overview of the game written by the designers and they have kindly allowed me to have some images from the book for exclusive use in this post.

So Over the Hills ….

 Like all good rules should start there is an overview of the period for those not familiar with it.

This is followed with an introduction to the rules and game mechanics:

The rules are split into three sections The Basic Game, Optional Rules and Appendices.
The basic game is very easy to pick up and sizable games can be played to a conclusion in a few hours.

Good clear explanations are given for the various formations used and how to play the game.

There are loads of optional rules for players to try and in this way a player can add as many of the optional rules as they like to flavour their games the way they want. The optional rules section contains rules that expand on the principles of the basic game, with new formations, new firing and combat factors as well as sections on orders, morale and the weather to name but a few.

The third and final section is the appendices, where you will find a comprehensive list for battalions, regiments and batteries for numerous countries that took part in the Napoleonic wars, as well as detail on brigade and divisional structures and notes on the scale of our games.

The psychological impact of the battle field will influence everything that a unit does during the game. Units are assigned a single Fatigue Factor and as this degrades so does your unit's ability to carry out any task.

In a break away from games where you throw bucket loads of dice we have decided to keep dice rolling to a minimum. Over the Hills uses D10's and in the basic game they are only used in ranged and close combat.

For those of you who are not blessed by the ‘dice gods', low rolls are good.
National characteristics and army specific command and control ensure each army plays differently.

The rulebook has diagrams and photographs throughout that assist with explanations with additional photographs that highlight what a stunning period the Napoleonic era is to game.

Finally, there are several colour plates of warriors of the Napoleonic age created by Bob Marrion and an easy to read and clearly laid out quick reference sheet.

Basing and Scale of the Game :Over the Hills can be played in most figure scales and the rules are so flexible that players do not have to rebase their armies and armies based to different rules systems can be played against each other.

Units in the Game: Another of our foundation stones for Over the Hills is the way we represent the capabilities of infantry battalions, cavalry regiments, and artillery batteries. We wanted to keep this as simple as possible and decided that a unit be they infantry cavalry or artillery would have only two statistics, a Fatigue Score and a Skirmish Value. The Fatigue score of a unit is a numerical representation of the unit's combat capabilities based on its Grade and its Élan. A units training, combat experience and psychological state are all rolled up into the units Fatigue Score. The higher the Fatigue Score number, the better the troop type will perform.

National characteristics and a unit's number of officers and men can also affect a typical unit's Fatigue Score. This Fatigue Score can be modified during the game, when units suffer Fatigue Hits taken during the movement, shooting and combat phases. To counteract that, commanders have the ability to rally units, a commander who successfully rallies a unit removes a number of Fatigue Hits. Thus good or lucky commanders can keep units in the game, even when all appears lost take (Hougomont, La Haye Sainte, Raevsky Redoubt)

A Fatigue hit marker can be something as simple as a dice or counter whilst some players have created mini dioramas for their markers. It does not matter as long as whatever you choose has the ability to record the number of hits that a unit has taken.

In the basic game Each Infantry unit has a skirmish value based on the number of skirmishers deployed forward of the main unit and the tactical doctrine of a particular army. The value is represented by a letter from A to D with A class being the best and D the worst. In the optional section of the rules this mechanic is extended to cavalry units.

In the basic game we take a simple approach to command and control. Commanders have a command range; subordinate commanders have to remain within the command range of their direct senior officer, whilst units have to stay within the command range of their commander. Commanders and units that fall outside command range have their move restricted.

The optional rules open this up and introduces orders, were units are restricted in terms of their movement, formation and tactical options depending on what orders their brigade has been given. Orders can be changed during the game.

Commanders have two other factors that define them, their Control Factor and their Inspiration Factor
The commander's Control Factor is a measure of his and his staff's skill and flare for command.
A commander's Control Factor is represented by a number from 1 to 5, with 1 being the poorest and 5 the best. This number is used in the Rally phase of the turn as it identifies the number of units in his command that the commander can influence per turn.
A Commander's Control Factor is also used in our Optional rules for Orders and Combat bonuses
A commander's Inspiration Factor is a measure of just how good they are at rousing their commands and the factor ranges from -1 through to +2.
A commander uses their Inspiration Factor when they are rolling to rally troops under their command.
.
When it comes to movement each unit can move a number of move segments. The formation a unit is in effects the number of move segments available to a unit e.g. an infantry battalion in Line formation has two segments of movement available to it, each segment being of six inches. This means a battalion in line can move up to 12 inches in a turn, but if it takes the second move segment i.e. moves over six inches it will take a Fatigue Hit, as the commanders of the unit have pushed it on and it has fallen into some disorder.

Contrast with this an infantry battalion in assault column, this unit can make three move segments of six inches. In this way there are clear advantages to manoeuvring in column.

Negotiating terrain is also left up to the player; a player can push their units on through terrain taking Fatigue Hits as they go or they can be more cautious and move through terrain at a reduced speed to prevent their units from taking Fatigue Hits.

Changing formation is completed by sacrificing move segments and in the optional rules we introduce armies that follow a French manoeuvre system and those that follow a linear system which effects the number of move segments that have to be sacrificed.

In Over the Hills your enemy cannot move their units across the battlefield and then shoot your units, who have to stand there and take it without reply. In Over the Hills one side moves and then the other fires. This breaks up the I go / you go mechanic a little and makes you think about your movement more.

In simple terms the turn sequence is as follows:
Side A checks command and moves
Side B Fires
Side A and B Fight Combats
The turn sequence is then repeated with Side B moving and side A firing.
A unit's Fatigue Score is used in the shooting phase, the higher the Fatigue Score the better chance of a unit scoring hits on enemy units. As a result, better quality units and those that have not suffered much from the turmoil of battle should do well.

The Fatigue Score is effected by such factors as a weapon's range, skirmish class, firer/target formation and cover, this list is expanded upon in the optional rules.

A D10 is rolled against the modified Fatigue Score low rolls are good. depending on what you roll will give you between 0 and 3 hits. Any hits scored are recorded on the target unit as Fatigue Hits.
In Over the Hills no figures are removed, once a unit is reduced to zero fatigue it is removed from the. Rules for units starting to waver and rout are introduced in the optional section of the rulebook.

The close combat phase of a turn represents really close range musket duals and the odd cross of bayonet for infantry and the actual clash of arms for any other combat type. Units fight using their Fatigue Score, to this are added various combat tactical factors which include the type of unit fighting, and its formation, to name a few. Once again this list is expanded upon in the optional rules.
As with the shooting phase a D10 is rolled against the modified Fatigue Score. Combats are decided by the number of Fatigue Hits scored and can range from draws to significant victories for one side or the other.
Individual combats can be fought for up to three rounds in each turn. This can lead to very bloody affairs or on occasions combats that ebb and flow one way and then the other.
Over the Hills offers players many optional ways on how they can win the game. I will focus on my favourite:
Players add up their total army fatigue score e.g. a British Division in 1815 has nine battalions of infantry each with a Fatigue Score of 8 and two artillery batteries with a Fatigue Score of seven. The total Fatigue Score for the division is 86.
Players keep a running record of every Fatigue Hit that their army takes and Fatigue Hits that are rallied from units are not removed from the running total. Once an army has taken more than 50% of its total Fatigue Score it is classed as broken and has lost the game.

Continuing the example given, the British Division would break when it had taken 44 Fatigue Hits.
I have seen players take great delight in seeing their opponents record ‘the butchers bill'

The Optional Rules and Appendices
These two sections are full of new rules and information to allow the player to shape their game the way they want, how you play a game of Over the Hills is really in your hands. I have mentioned a few sections from the optional rules, here are a few more:
Rules for good and poor shots, militia and specialist light infantry. Rules for combining battalions during a game, and several ways to represent skirmishers. An extensive list of terrain types with rules for each, a section on Napoleonic manoeuvring as well as enhanced combat responses. Fighting in built up areas has rules for engineers and pioneers as well as buildings catching fire added to it. The artillery section includes half batteries, regimental guns, grand batteries and rockets.

Well that just about wraps up this post, I would like to thanks Messers McWalter and Dalton for allowing me to showcase their hard work. I would urge you now that if Napoleonic wargames are your bag then go out and buy a copy. The rules are available from Caliver books, just click HERE and it will take you direct to the book and you can make a splendid addition to your library.

Regards
Loki

Austrian Napoleonic Infantry Facing colours post 1809

One of my great passions within the hobby is painting Napoleonic figures, and like all painters my style has changed over the years and so too has the colour palettes I use, as my knowledge has improved through research. Napoleonics for many are a thorny issue and one visit to TMP will see you run into more rivet counters than a shipbuilder has rivets. I am sure it is the manner some of these people display openly in forums that turns many a potential player away from the period. Now that's not to say that I am not a bit anal when it comes to the period, I spend many an hour researching units that I am painting, and for me personally I am happier when a unit is turned out as close to what it should be based on the information available.

However when it comes to colours it can be a minefield, many images were painted well after events. A lot of colours are just descriptions used by the writers of the time. Sometimes we have good period plates to work from but time my have faded the colours. So I take the approach of consistency into my work. What I mean by that is using the same colour palette for an army, for example I use a specific triad of blues that I like and looks right on the gaming table for French line infantry. Yes it's to my taste and based upon the historic colour, but too another it may be too blue, not dark enough or any other number of reasons they can come up with. Painting figures for a living though means that I really have to be consistent, its no good me turning out half an army in one shade and the other half in another. So I have been steadily writing down the colours I use for different armies over the last year as I work figures for them.

This brings me nicely along to my most recent work, researching the Austrian Infantry facing colours. I have a customer that is wanting a very large amount of figures painting and obviously I want to be consistent as I am well aware that several colours can cause issues and debate. I also may have to paint Austrians for other customers in the future. I wanted for the most part to be able to go straight to a bottle of Vallejo paint and have the main colour without mixing where possible and of the 24 colours used I only had to use a mix for 4 of them.

Above is the resultant chart from my work, the vallejo colours are written alongside, I hope this helps someone in the future, please note it may look very different on your monitor to the colours from the bottle due to some technical stuff that I really don't understand.

Well that's all I have for now folks back again soon

Front Rank Pre 1812 42nd French Line battalion completed

While I have been busy with an urgent job for Brigantes Studio this had a positive effect on getting the French Line completed as I needed the desk space. Yes I could have shoved them to one side but not being far away from completion a final push got them there.

I present the 1st Batallion of the 42nd Regiment Infantry de Ligne.

Right I am off to get back to work

Loki

Distractions or the butterfly effect in motion.

It is all to easy for me to be distracted when it comes to working on my own projects or figures. It has not helped that I have been trying to erect a new Great Hall in the garden, a project that has currently stalled somewhat due to the inherent British weather, when I have to work it is sunny, when I plan to spend a couple of days building it has invariably rained and often so heavy I have a lake to wade through, so instead I have been painting in my free time.

I should be working away at completing the unit of French that rocked onto the work bench after the Saracens were completed, pictured below.

This picture was taken a couple of days ago and they have advanced to almost complete, which is where is still have not managed to resist distracting myself with thoughts of what I will tackle next, so out came my Knotel plates and various PDF's from Rawkins in search of what to do with a battalion of French Light Infantry. I spent most of the day yesterday buried in books looking for that something different and I found the regiment D'Isembourg, it was of suitable dubious character serving in Italy, Spain and various other locations under the French Flag.

So what did I then go and do....

I damned well put a brush to a figure to create a test model to see if it looked good...

Not content with having completed the test model my brain then said you may as well start the whole company, so much for not getting distracted. I struggle to work out in my mind why I do this every time I work on my own figures. I don't do this when I am working on commissions I remain focused on the task in hand, maybe it's because they are my own figures and it does not matter if I float from one thing to another in a random pattern as long as I do finish them.

Right that's me off again need to make a couple of 1804 pattern flags for both of these units ..

Saga - 4pt Saracen Warband

It is good getting some of these half started projects completed. Above is the full warband, I will continue firstly with the items that were painted but un based.

The warlord he looked nice before but with the basing completed I think he's improved somewhat. I settled on a slightly more fertile desert scheme for this lot.

Next up is the point of foot warriors, with their banner, which I created from an image found on the internet. the shields are free hand and kept simple.

A point of Ghulams with spears, again free-handing for the shields, not that I had planned to but when I wanted some transfers none were available. The lance pennons were simply produced on my pc.

Another point of Ghulams this time with bows.

The final 8 make a point of mounted warriors with bows. the banner once again is a design I have created from an image found on the internet.

That is the entire box set finished and based, I managed to get every horse with a unique saddle cloth design and really went to town with the colour palette on this project.

That is all I have for this post good readers thanks for visiting.
Loki