Aventine Early Byzantine Slingers

One gloss coat a week yesterday and one matt coat last night followed by some grass tufts and voila! We have some Aventine Early Byzantine Slingers ready for the table top.

I gave these just as much love and attention as the Dismounted Bucellarii in the full knowledge that they will be one of the first units to peg it off the tabletop and back into the box! This either makes me dedicated or a bit of a silly sod. You decide :>)

As usual the quality of both the sculpting and the casting was sublime. I've really fallen in love with Aventine Miniatures. I've also been eyeing up the Late Sassanids range which at this stage of painting up the Byzantine infantry could prove fatal! A fatal attraction if there ever was one.

The 'whites' were painted up with base coat of VMC Medium Grey and is gradually mixed with VMC Pale Sand then when the time comes VMC Matt White. At no point do I let the highlights reach pure Matt White as I am a strong believer that this is too stark a colour to use on miniatures.

The red hemming on the tunic and the caps is from the Second Darkest colour from the Andrea Red set then a small amount of the the Andrea Red mixed with VMC Carmine Red and a final highlight of VMC Amarantha Red.

As usual all the files are clickable to you can enlarge the images.

The Whole Unit:

Individual Bases- First Base:

Second Base:

Third Base: 

Forth Base: 

Fifth Base:

More Byzantine goodness next week with a special little something that I have been really looking forward to painting!

Harold Godwinson Vignette (Large Files!)

A few months ago I was asked by Gripping Beast to take some larger file pictures of a vignette I put together of Harold Godwinson surveying the Norman army just prior to Hastings.

It has taken me a little bit of time. Put it all down to being a scatterbrain. Finally today, I remembered and took the pictures.

The files are large, all approximately 3000 pxl wide so you will be able to click on the images and really get into the meat of the pictures, blemishes and all.

Perry Miniatures Afghan Tribesmen Test Mini's Second Anglo Afghan War

I've been working on a couple of projects this weekend. I tried to replicate the same results I managed to get when I 'speed painting' the Perry 28mm Beja for the Sudan in 15 mil on some Blue Moon 15mm Sudan 'Dervish' models I have have owned for a good while now, more out of curiosity then a serious attempt at a project and the results were not good! The Blue moon miniatures are fine and it and the bad results were very much down to method rather then the quality of the miniatures. After a bit of thought t was obvious as to why the mini's had turned out to appear so 'smudged' when finished; I had not allowed for a greater variation in tone on the layers which is essential when painting 15mm miniatures. Though, to not be too hard on myself, I haven't painted anything smaller then 28mm for well over five years so kind of forgot one of my own golden rules!

I did manage to finish off the gloss and matt varnishing on some Perry Miniatures Afghan Tribesmen from their Victoria's Little Wars range which had been sitting on the shelf for a few days as well as get in another session of another batch of 12 'speed painted' Beja (which I'll post up as soon as they have had a lick of varnish). 

The Second Anglo Afghan Wars Tribesmen below are what I can only really describe as painted at 'medium pace' (for those not familiar with cricketing terminology please refer to the Quora article HERE) . I had initially wanted to 'speed paint' them in the same manner as I had done with the Beja but after a couple of test pieces I it was soon obvious that taking into account that these miniatures are marked for a 'special project' (I will divulge more when the time comes) they just weren't going to be up to the mark. So, instead of the one to two sessions they took about three, possibly four to complete. They are by far nowhere near the highest standard manageable by your truly but they are of a good enough quality to grace the wargames table which is what I was looking for (albeit a bit quicker!)

More or less life size:

Chieftain and Standard Bearer:

(Standard to be added later when the Perry Plastics arrive!)

Dangerous Looking Tribesmen: