28mm Late Roman Cataphract, Alternative to Oil Wiping Horses, Abbasid Naffatun

I have spent the last month or so trying to decide what it is I wanted to get painted for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge this year and have settled on Late Romans. A few years ago I was about to enter some Late Roman Cataphracts into the Challenge but encountered my first and only ever Varnishing Disaster; this pout me off the project entirely for a number of years..... until now! 

As a wee aside, and to quicken the process of painting up I'm going for "Wargames Standard" (I'm not getting any younger!) and have been trying to work out a way in which to use contrast paints as a substitute the oil wipe method, with the proviso that the contrast method had to be a notch higher (in my eyes) than anything I had managed to achieve with oil wiping horses in the past. I think I finally got to a point where I am happy with my new method; here's an incomplete Elven Steed showing off the basic results. Not too bad considering it is just a heavy drybrush of a medium to light grey over matt black with the contrast paint painted used not as a wash or a stain, but thickly as a coat of paint over the top of all that dry brushing. ikept the paint moving around the horse in order to avoid any pooling which would have resulted in more of a wash effect, not what I was after, It seems to have worked. There was however one snag which I'll come to in a wee bit.

I will go into more detail about the new fangled alternative to oil wiping in another article at a later date here on this blog. 

Speed Painted/Contrast on *Smooth Plastic* Elves Steed Experiment

Now onto why this method proved to be not so adaptable from plastic to metal.... metal castings, unless they are of the absolute finest quality, always have a degree of pitting from the moulds. Most of this is not visible until you apply something akin to a wash which obviously runs into all the crevices, when any pitting or mould lines not dealt with properly become very visible ASAP!  This was so on the metal Footsore  horse castings! A little but of an "ouch!" moment but as the aim is to get the miniatures out on the tabletop post haste so I'm not going to pull any of what is left of my hair out! 

Six Late Roman Cataphracts

10 Abbasid Naffatun

(Perry Miniatures, Musketeer Miniatures, Footsore Miniatures)

Cheers