Some more Army Painter

This time a couple of Victrix French, teh one on the white bottle top was done with Army Painter, teh one on the yellow bottle top was done with washes....

These aren't painted quite as good as I would normally do, especially the faces which could be better.

Again, especially considering the time saving the Army Painter + Highlight works very well.

New rulesets and a change of scale....

There has been a spate of rulesets release recently and I particularly like Lasalle and Black Powder. But here lies the problem, I don't have enough space to play either. My maximum table size is 6ft x 4ft and this is going to be too small for 28mm games ( I don't want to play skirmish ). On top of that I am running out of storage space !

So I have decided that I will go down a scale to 18mm. I've painted a few to test and I can paint them pretty well and paint a 32 figure unit 1/2 the time that I can paint a 24 man 28mm one.

So AB or CGM it will be probably AB.

So the whole French collection are on Ebay. With the Brits going on this afternoon.

Front Rank French 8lb Guns & crew

I got some more Front Rank, this time some French guns. the guns are excellent. I painted them using the Foundry French artillery paints ( apart from the barrel ) and they were very easy to paint using the 3 layer method.

The figures came as a pack of 2 guns, but the crew are a mixture of loading and firing.

Front Rank French light Infantry

I decided to paint some Front Rank figures to get a good comparison. They are very well cast, crisp and clean with plenty of detail.

I have a couple of minor complaints on the figures. Firstly they shako plate is a little less detailed than most and looks a little blob like. Secondly I would like a little more variation in each pose. The variation in pose is just personal preference though. Minor quibbles.

I used the standard foundry 3 layer paint system although I have started doing it a little difference with large colour areas. I miss the shade, paint the mid colour then the highlight and then go back and shade at the end. It just seems to speed things up a bit.

My reservations about pose weren't as much of a problem as I thought, though I think they look quite good.

Another thing about Front Rank ( which I was aware of ) is that they are big. you can't mix them with foundry it just looks wrong in the same unit. That said they are fine next to each other in separate units.

Foundry French

The mainstay of my French army is made up from Foundry French. I tend to wait until the 20% off sales to stock up. I like the subtle variation in the campaign uniform figures and I mix in some greatcoat figures as well to give them that campaign look.

I still need to texture the bases.

Offensive Miniatures French...

My French army is under way, my first battalion is a line battalion from Offensive miniatures. I bought a battalion pack of 36 figures. There are 3 variants for the march attack fusiliers. The figures are a pretty good match for Foundry, the officer even has a largish head....

I like these figures, the detail is very crisp and they are easy to paint. Later I will post some comparison shots.

2009 A new beginning

So after many years of not painting (apart form the odd commission) and an even bigger gap between playing I started again.

January 2009 I received a large order of French and British peninsula figures. I began to paint. I started a plan, I would build a French and British armies for 1811 in 28mm.

The armies would be built for General De Brigade. My first attempt in 5 years of painting. A french battalion. I was quite pleased. However, I didn't really like the Elite figures, the French were OK but the British I really didn't like. So I sold them and started again.