Wet Paint: 3D Printed Jagdpanther

 

This big cat already featured in an earlier game in a slightly more embryonic state (let's say it came straight off the factory floor). It's a 3D printed Jagdpanther, printed on an FDM printer. Because of the nature of FDM printing, you do see the individual layers this model is built up off, and they are even more pronounced by the drybrushing finish on the model. For mid to late war German vehicles, this is something I can live with, as it gives a finish somewhat reminiscent of the zimmerit anti-magnetic coating usually applied in that era.

Wet Paint: dwarven heavy metal

As always, attending a wargames convention (Warcon 2020 in this case) gets the wargaming mojo going again and I've spent an enjoyable few hours at the painting table. This resulted in these cheery fellows:

Say hello to the artillery section of the Watch of the Seventh Deep. Those with deep memories (or good search fu) remember their crossbow toting brethren, whom I painted over 7 years and one house move ago. At this rate, I'll have an army of them ready to play by the time I'm retired and living in a care home somewhere.

Like the crossbowmen, the figures are plastics from the Kings of War range of Mantic Games. Here's a few other angles of them:

Wet Paint: Thirty Years' War musketeers

These are 6 Warlord Games Thirty Years' War musketeers, just off the painting table:



They are going to be part of the Yellow Brigade of Gustavus Adolphus' army, whose other figures have been languishing in the 'painted but awaiting completion' box for a very long time now. I brought them out for a group shot just for fun:



The new musketeers will be joined by another 6 in firing poses so I can make up two more stands of shot. I can then use the full brigade as two units (of 2 pike / 2 shot) or make one big pike block with two wide shot sleeves.

I am using new paint recipes for the new paint jobs, as I switched from Foundry to Vallejo paints again. As a result the new figures look a bit brighter than the ones painted earlier, probably because the Foundry highlight paints might be the base colour with white added, so their saturation goes down. I'm not going to be bothered about this, though - let's assume these are new recruits with less campaign weather beaten clothes :)

Wet paint: 20mm British Airborne sniper team

I'm in the process of doing a bit of a refurbish / reorganisation on one of my very first wargame armies -- 20mm WWII British Airborne. I am reorganising the figures into units which are suitable for use with Chain of Command (although that will not preclude their use with other rulesets of course), as well as redoing their bases to have a single basing style. These figures were painted over many years and based in many different styles, so the rebasing was needed.

In Chain of Command, the platoon HQ section for a British Airborne platoon has a sniper team, for which I did not have any figures painted up yet. This is hereby corrected:

As you can see, the 'wet' part of the title of this post is to be taken literally - the ink on the base was freshly applied when I took the photo. The figures are from FAA (the sniper is part of the assault party).

As an aside, I am now officially getting old. Seeing details on these black undercoated 20mm figures well enough to paint them was impossible without magnification. I think I'm going to need reading glasses :)

Wet Paint: Württemberg infantry regiment Von Phull, 1st battalion

It's been a while since I posted to our blog, which has mostly been due to a distinct slump in hobby enthusiasm. We've all been through these phases where the hobby flame, for various reasons, is burning low.

That said, things seem to be picking up and I have started painting figures again. Here's the finished (not yet based) 1st battalion of Wurttemberg regiment Von Phull, as they would have appeared in 1809:

When going through my notes, I noticed that the first of the figures in this battalion were painted late 2016, so the entire battalion took over 2 years to paint. Some slump indeed :)

This also means that these figures are subject to my switch back to Vallejo paint. Two of the stands (which correspond to companies, BTW) have been painted with Foundry exclusively, one is mixed and the fourth (which I finished today) was painted with Vallejo only. Can you tell which is which (don't cheat by looking for the previous 'Wet Paint' posts :) ).

One final remark on flags. The figures are Front Rank, bought as a battalion pack. The pack comes with two ensigns, so I had to improvise for the second flag (Wurttemberg regiments carried only one flag in 1809). I chose to use the ducal (and, in 1809, royal) colours of yellow over black for the second flag. That flag is home made on wine bottle cork wrapper foil (how's that for compounding words), the battalion flag is from Maverick Models.

Wet Paint: mimic

Here's a few shots of a little mimic that has been hiding three-quarters finished in my painting box for a while before I finally finished it tonight:

The miniature is another Reaper Bones one. Even though the mimic has long been on of my favourite 'classic' D&D monsters, I think I've never used it in one of my adventures so far. Time to correct that oversight, I would say :)

Wet Paint: mushroom men

These guys are Reaper Bones miniatures which I got as part of either the first or second Bones Kickstarter (I forget which). In the deep background you can see the first of the three mushroom men, whom I painted quite a while ago -- he made it back on my painting desk as a painting reference for his two friends :).

All three mushroom men will form a part of my growing 'it came from the forest' fantasy force.

Gerardus Mercator and 3 Cultists

I finished a couple of figures today.

First, a figure representing Gerardus Mercator. This was a limited edition figure for one of the CRISIS conventions. Since he was a professor at the university of Leuven (1530-1532) where I am currently a professor, I painted his robe as a university gown, with a proper light-blue lining for my faculty ;-)

Below are 3 cultists. I have no idea who the original manufacturer is, so any help is appreciated.

Wet Paint - forest mage

Allow me to introduce: Cairion sul Viridis, Master of Bough, Leaf and Crown, Keeper of the Azure Flame and Guardian of the Furthest Reaches:

I am (slowly) building a fantasy force with a forest theme, and this guy will be its commander, and he might even show up in my roleplaying campaign. I have no idea where I got the figure -- it was of some boutique fantasy miniature webshop somewhere. All I know is that the figure came in two parts (the main body and the hands and upper part of the staff) and is in resin. If anybody recognises the figure, give a yell :).

Ah yes -- the little guy sitting in front of him is his familiar Fred. He's a fungus. Fred the Familiar Fungus, as it were :)

Update: I found where I got the figure. He's the Scibor Miniatures elf mage.

Wet Paint: IR 30 - De Ligne

These guys have been on my painting table for so long that they have featured as background for numerous 'wet paint' shots, but here they are finally finished. These are Austrian Infantry Regiment 30 De Ligne. I chose these to paint because they recruited in what was later to become Belgium but was then the Austrian Netherlands. I also lived very close to a Prince De Ligne street back in my Leuven days, so there's some connection there as well :). The figures are Perry plastics and the flag is from Maverick Models.

Terrain archeology

Just off the painting and flocking table:

This is the venerable Grendel Ruined Acropolis, a set which probably every wargamer of a certain vintage has lying around. This particular set has sat in its box since the early Lonely Mountain days of Schild en Vriend and has seen at least four house moves with me. So I decided it was high time it got painted :).

Wet paint: some Cossacks

These were painted many months ago but were not featured on here yet (they did get varnished recently, so it still qualifies as 'wet paint' :)):

They are good old Foundry Cossacks (Seven Years War types nominally, but a Cossack is a Cossack regardless of period) and will be used in my Great Northern Wars games.

Wet Paint: some more Wurttembergers

These were actually painted a week ago, but only posted now - some more Wurttemberg Napoleonic chaps:

These are Wurttemberg grenadiers (one out of the two battalions per regiment had a company of grenadiers in the 1809 Wurttemberg OOB). They are painted up as belonging to the 1st Regiment (Von Phull). I have a source (well, uniform plates found on the net) which has only their cuffs and turnbacks in the regimental colors (yellow in this case), with the facings in the standard Wurttemberg dark blue. So that's how I painted them up.

The figures are Front Rank Miniatures.

Wet Paint: Thirty Years War musketeers

These are a stand of Thirty Years War musketeers:

They are Warlord Games plastic figures and have been painted up as belonging to Gustavus' Yellow Regiment. I know these probably did not, in fact, look remotely yellow in real life, but I'm calling wargamer's license on this. The Yellow Regiment needs to be painted yellow. 

This brings by painted figures for TYW to 5 stands - one of musketeers and four of pikemen. The idea is to have two small playable forces by next summer. To start with, I'm doing the Yellow Regiment for the Swedes and a Bavarian regiment for the Imperialists / Catholic League. A regiment in this collection will consist of a number of pike and musketeer units, with about 1 pike unit to two musketeer units for both sides.

Back to painting

After a year of almost no painting output (it happens), here's the latest bits off (technically, still on) my painting desk:

These are Front Rank Napoleonic Wurttemberg figures, painted up as the 1st Regiment. The idea is to replace my Victrix French brigade with a Wurttemberg one to supplement the Bavarian brigade I already have.

Some more figures to go to reach that goal :).

Wet Paint: forest troll

Just a quick post to show the completed forest troll from before. Here he (it) is in finished glory:

Wet Paint: British paras and a weird fellow

Hot off the painting desk, the first painted figures in over a year's time (the last painted ones were from May 2014). Here are some old Britannia British paras and a Reaper Bones Mushroom man:

Wet Paint: Bavarian infantry

It's been a little while since I posted here, mostly because I moved house in the time between this post and the previous one. The new house has already seen a few games (Great Northern War and Ancients) and has the painting desk set up again. First major output off the painting desk are these:

These are of course more Foundry Bavarians, painted up as the 2nd Infantry Regiment 'Kronprinz'. For those interested, you can tell these apart from their cousins in the 1st Infantry by the colour of their uniform buttons, which are yellow (as opposed to white in the 1st). Button counters take note! 

Also, because us wargamers are interested in that sort of thing, here's a (dark and brooding) picture of my painting desk setup in the new wargame room (aka front bit of my living room). Those with very good eyes (or Photoshop) will recognise some Thirty Years War pikemen, Romans and pack animals around the periphery of the painting desk

Wet Paint: Arthur

This is a Foundry Arthur (one of many in my collection :) ) which has been on and off my painting desk for a couple of years now. In a bid to clean out the painting queue before my move, I finished painting him yesterday evening. This figure was painted in full–on–four–layers–with–knobs–on style (it goes to 11)—deliberately so to see if I could still do it. This of course takes time so I have generously awarded myself 5 points for painting it.

I plan on finishing the basing of this figure and then selling it (Ebay or through some forums). With the current popularity of Saga and Dux Britanniarum it should hopefully fetch a good price.

Wet Paint: first Reaper Bones figure

A good week ago I received my big box of Reaper Bones (I pledged at Vampire Level in the Kickstarter so I got a box of 200+ miniatures). This is the first of them painted:



Meet Elkar Levanas, called the Blood-Eyed, Guardian of Kandor, Master of Everhome and archmage of Nirya. The figure is called Anirion, Wood Elf Wizard, on the Reaper site, but in my world (Nirya, of course) this is Elkar the Blood-Eyed. Elkar is the most powerful mage of the land, the equivalent of wizards such as Mordenkainen, Elminster and Raistlin in other campaign worlds. And yes, his looks (if not his character) are very much inspired by that last mage, who has always been my favourite among the 'official' game world mages.

I gave myself two points for this one as I went full-on three (even four occasionally) layers for his paint job. This photo does not really show that, something I will remedy later with a better 'studio' photo.