Progress, some repainting, more paints and bases

Wow.  That's some subject.  Let me break it down.

I apologize in advance for no pictures.  I can't get them from the camera to the computer right now.

I have 4 sticks of fusiliers in good progress.  1 stick = 8 minis.  The coats are painted as are the cuffs and collars.  I just put the coat of linen white over the rest of the uniform.  I was told the poms were all red so I painted all those at the same time since I had red on the palette.  I can move forward without the new paints since the Reaper Master Series will work for the accessories.

I had to paint over the poms.because it turns out they're not all red. They're divided into companies - purple, orange, blue and green (I think - my notes are in the car).  So I painted over all the red poms with the linen white so the colors would show up correctly.  Not a lot of work, just one more thing.  I had the time to spare.  And I think I'll hit the rest of the poms with linen white as well to make a nice base for the other colors.

I ordered the black and white versions of the paints I've been using.  I want the coverage.  Those should be in by the end of the week.  I have line commanders I should be able to start painting while I wait.  I can also work on rifles and a few other things while waiting on the paint.  I knew I should have ordered them from the beginning.

My complete set of bases for my entire army has arrived.  I had some of the infantry/cavalry bases already but now I have everything I need for my army.  This is important because I can mark the bases and play with stands even if they don't have their minis yet.  This lets me play and learn the rules much better.  I took the time to put the steel on the bases so I can put them on sheet magnet in the carry case and they won't move around.  That extra little bit of height is nice too.  I only did the limber bases since there were 10 of them and I'm tired.

I found that one of my minis is actually 2 different kinds of soldier with just a couple of color differences.  I have enough to put them in the battalions.  Now it's just a matter of remember to paint them correctly.  I'll make a note of that.

I'm going to make a spirited attempt to paint a battalion of Hussar for the theme entry competition, mostly because it seems hardly anyone is entering and I'd like to see at least a few in there. I hate competing but this is for a good cause.  That's 12 horses and riders.

My friend Kris was nice enough to drill out the eagle bearers' hands so I could replace the noodle standards with something more solid.  The eagles at the ends were no problem.  He had a problem with the minis themselves and I'll be resculpting a few hands.  Nothing major.  This lets me make them removable as well so I can mix up the eagle bearers and standard bearers depending on my mood.

Finally I'm ordering the last of what I need to complete my army.  I needed 3 more battalions of Dragoons and some guns to complete the limbers.  Turns out they give you the limber but only the guns needed for the individual artillery units.  So to make a complete limber you either need to move the gun over (or move a stand behind) or buy more guns.  We're buying more guns.

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Paints are here, excuses are out the window

My paints for the uniforms are here so now I have no real excuse not to buckle down and get cranking on them.  I'm not even trying to make excuses.

In the meantime I've been working on the command horses even if I can't work on the command figures. I actually think they're done except for a bit of silver on the bridles if I want to get fancy.  I just finished the touchups tonight.

My friend is ever so kindly doing the work so I can replace the noodly eagle bearer standards with something more sturdy and even make them removable so I can use eagles, standards or both.  Depending on my mood.

No bases yet, which is annoying but not a problem.  I don't have anything ready to base yet and if I did I had some here already.

Sunday I start on uniforms so I should have some pictures of them at least partially painted to show progress.  I'm hoping that the painting goes relatively quickly.  Even the futzy stuff doesn't seem as difficult as in the beginning.  I've been asking the experienced painters for advice on that kind of thing.

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Infantry skin and hair done

I got the hair and skin painted on all of the infantry!  I decided to try for some variety in the ranks by using 3 different hair colors and 4 different skin colors.  It wasn't that much more work to do that since after a few sticks I had to refresh the paint anyway.

I used the new Reaper washes to, well, wash the skin and hair.  The flesh wash was too red and the brown wash was too cold.  But a 2:1 mix of flesh to brown seemed to work quite well on everything.  One of the painters thought the Reaper washes were too thin but they seemed to work very well for putting in the shadows without me having to go back and hit the highlights.  Which is great.

Infantry Samples 01

They're not the best pictures, as shown by the yellow tint, but they kind of show the colors.  After the wash all the skin tones seem to even out about the same as does the two shades of brown.  What I feel looks best is the brightest pink skin tone and the blond hair.  The wash tones them down to some nice colors.  I was worried that the blond wouldn't work well and now I find it's the one I like best.  Second would be the more red brown hair but the skin is all going to be that bright pink.  There just wasn't enough variety to justify working with more colors.

I won't bother to take pictures of the painted rank and file since they look just like the primed ones with brown blotches where the hair and skin are unless I take close up shots.

I'm waiting on the paints for the uniforms.  My local store can't get them from their distributor so I'll be ordering directly from Reaper so I can try to get them painted.  I'm going for the bright colors to really be seen on the table so that means a single layer of paint and no washes on 99% of the uniform.  That makes for much quicker painting.  And the conquest French uniforms are the same regardless of regiment so no worries about changing up colors.

Until those paints come in I'm going to work on the commanders' horses.  I have the paints for those.  These horses can be different colors unlike in the cavalry units where they tried for similar colors in the battalions.  I can experiment with how to paint them quickly and well.

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Prepping is done

Dedication is a wonderful thing.  A number of army painters will recommend against doing what I just did, because it can be discouraging to see the overwhelming number of minis to be painted.  I wanted to get all this out of the way.  I plan on painting them in batches and then being able to mix up my battalions because of that.

I know, I know.  At this scale the variety really isn't that visible.  But it is to me and that's all that matters.

Here's how it works.  I need 8 battalions.  Each stick holds 8 minis.  So I can paint each 8 the same except for the battalion designation.  Those will go one per mini per stick.  I can do the bulk of the army painting the regular style then just do the battalion designations across sticks.  Poms and plumes are quick paints.

On to pictures.

Infantry 04 - Prepped and Primed

This is the command figures and the skirmishers.  Total of 24 skirmishers, 8 eagle bearers, 8 drummers, and 3 sub-commanders.  I had to break up some of the organization to make it fit on the bookcase.

Infantry 05 - Prepped and Primed

More command figures.  6 mounted generals, 8 mounted commanders, 8 aides de camp (I think), and 64 grenadiers.

Infantry 06 - Prepped and Primed

Regular infantry. 104 advancing fusiliers.

Infantry 07 - Prepped and Primed

More regular infantry.  96 fusiliers.

So that brings the minis so far to 329 and that's just the core infantry.  I think I've got too many of the fusiliers but I'd rather have too many than not enough.  The mounted generals were just because I had them, I was prepping and priming minis and they might be a fun break to paint.

My paints are on order yet.  I'm using Reaper Pro Paints for the bulk of these.  The paints are vinyl based so they cover very well in one coat.  Very important in painting this many minis.  And I'm planning on painting in what I call "cartoon style" so the colors are very vivid and stand out well on the table.  With so many of them bunched up together the subtle stuff gets lost.  One of the club guys has his painted that way and I really liked it.

While waiting for the uniform color paints I'm going to work on skin and hair this Saturday.  That is easy enough - base coat and wash.  I don't even know if I'm going to do the highlight since I'm going to try moving away from the dark brown wash to the lighter, more reddish flesh wash.  I'm also going to be just a little OCD and paint each stick with a different color of hair.  That also gets a simple wash.  I know it shouldn't show much from a distance but I'll know and when someone picks up a stand of minis it will look like I made a lot more effort than I did.

The next shots should show paint on the minis.  Primer is not a color!

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Prepping an army

Like I don't have enough armies.  Previously I showed some 15mm I was painting.  Now I've got most of the rest of the army and have been prepping like crazy while I've got some time and the need to do repetitive tasks.  I'm still waiting on the paints I want but I've got painting I can do until they come in.  French Conquest is pretty easy - red, white and blue.

Here's slightly less than half of my line infantry.

Infantry 03 - Prepped

Each stick holds 8 minis and there's 12 sticks.  It should have been 11 sticks but I had enough for one more and I would rather have too many prepped than not enough.  I still need to do at least 10 more sticks of regular infantry.  Yes, I need a total of 232 minis for my battalions.

Here's a combination of my Grendadiers (need more), drummers and eagle bearers.  The drummers and eagle bearers all belong to the command unit - there's enough of those.  Yes, I have 8 battalions to do.

Infantry 02 - Prepped

And finally the skirmishers (done) and the horses for the commanders and possibly sub-commanders.  I'm not sure if I'm using those horses or if I have other ones for the sub-commanders.  I need to dig through the unprepped stuff and see what's there.

Infantry 01 - Prepped

Hrm.  The last stick of skirmishers at the bottom didn't seem to be in the picture.

Let's total up.

• Line Infantry - 96
• Grenadiers - 24
• Drummers - 8
• Eagle bearers - 8
• Skirmishers - 32
• Commanders and Sub-Commanders (we'll count as half since the riders aren't attached) - 12

Grand total - 180 prepped minis.

Next up is the remaining line infantry.  So that's another 88 or 96 minis, depending on how many I prep.  Or maybe 80.  I'm hoping there's more Grenadiers in that set since I need another 40 to fill out the battalions.

For those who don't know the Lasalle rules a battalion consists of 4 stands, 8 minis each for 32 minis per battalion.  With one exception.  There's 3 stands of 8 infantry and 1 command stand of a mounted commander (counts as 2 minis), a drummer, an eagle bearer and 4 infantry.  Mixed in with the 28 infantry are 8 Grenadiers.

I need a total of 8 battalions since I'm playing French.  We get 2 additional battalions when we attack.  This is before the French turned into cheese eating surrender monkeys.  Along with a regimental battery (artillery - 3 cannons and 1 howitzer) that makes up my core force.  Of course the artillery needs to be modeled and painted as both limbered (hitched to horses) and unlimbered (unhitched and about to cause havoc) so essentially it needs to be painted twice.

Let's do more math for a total core division.

6 Veteran Infantry - 20 line infantry, 8 Grenadiers, 4 Skirmishers 1 drummer, 1 eagle bearer, 1 commander, 1 horse
1 Regimental Battery - 3 cannons, 1 howitzer (unlimbered with 12 crew); 3 cannons and 1 howitzer (limbered with 6 horses and 3 riders/drivers)
2 Veteran Infantry (attacking only) - 20 line infantry, 8 Grenadiers, 4 Skirmishers 1 drummer, 1 eagle bearer, 1 commander

Now this is where I start sobbing.

6 Veteran Infantry - 120 line infantry, 48 Grenadiers, 24 Skirmishers 6 drummers, 6 eagle bearers, 6 commanders, 6 horses
1 Regimental Battery - 6 cannons, 2 howitzers, 12 crew, 6 horses, 3 riders/drivers
2 Veteran Infantry - 40 line infantry, 16 Grenadiers, 8 Skirmishers 2 drummers, 2 eagle bearers, 2 commanders, 2 horses

Grand total of minis for the core division:

• Line infantry - 180
• Grenadiers - 64
• Skirmishers - 32
  
• Drummers - 8
• Eagle bearers - 8
• Commanders - 8 on horses
• Cannons - 6
• Howitzers - 2
• Artillery crew - 12
• Limbered horses - 6
• Limber drivers/riders - 3

Total of minis for the division.  I'm counting the commanders and horses as separate minis for painting purposes even though they create a single mini.

Total - 337

Sound bad enough?  There's 2 different support divisions as well.  Cavalry and artillery.  Light cavalry is 32 mounted figures and artillery.  Dragoons are 32 mounted minis and artillery.

Oh yeah - I need a commander and 3 sub-commanders.  So that's another 5 mounted minis.

Grand total is around 445 miniatures and if I want to do casualty disruption markers I'll need 15 of those as well.  I can use dice for that but it's not nearly as cool.

This is why you don't count up the number of minis in a historical game.

On the plus side I've got them on the sticks so that I can paint up the 99% that's the same on every one.  The last 1% is the color of the pom/plume to designate the different battalions.  I plan on breaking an army painting rule and not do the same color pom/plume on each stick.  I'm hoping to do some variation in hair and skin color per stick so making each stick one of each battalion will spread those around.  I like a little variety on the battlefield.

Let's hope the weather holds and I can get these primed.  I'm going to prime white since so much of the uniform is white and I want the bright colors for the uniforms. That and my grey primer has been hijacked.

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I didn't forget my elves

Honestly, I didn't.  Once I finally got them here I carefully examined each one, put them in the "good" and "repair" piles and then went about fixing the paint on the ones that got abused.  I have all of the repairs done.  There weren't many - mostly a paint chip or where it rubbed on the foam.

I have to finish up the 3 that were painted onsite.  They were painted but need detail and cleanup work.  They're off to the side, watching me work on a small commission.

Yes, I said commission.  A friend needed some minis painted as part of his booth display at a large convention and asked me to do it.  How could I refuse?  Yes, I know.  Easily.  But that's what friends do.

After all that I hope for pictures this week.

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A couple of pictures of my elf army

I hope to have good detail shots in the near future but until then feast your eyes on the army on the table.

Elf Army 01

Elf Army 02

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