For the past six weeks or so, I have been "valiantly" painting a planned 120 of Bruce's finest peasants (with a few noble front rankers), a task which somewhat daunted me to start with as there are just soooooooooo many dull infantry types! As I type, I am part way through finishing painting the last batch/ unit, so almost there, but before a few photos, I thought I would educate and elucidate on how I got through this particular chore.
Firstly, anyone who knows me knows I like a bit of variety, and even my regulars have different hair colour, knapsack cloth, sock colour, indeed, anything I consider suitable to add that bit of variety. The figures I used were all Old Glory, which come in four basic spearman poses (good), but you have to drill out the hands (bad). I also have a certain standard to which I like to paint. I am far from being the world's greatest painter, but like to try and do the best I can, but I felt some compromises had to be made to get through this lot.
So here goes...
1) No conversions (OK, just a little bit)
2) Coloured undercoat, as most of each figure is gambeson. I used Army Painter Skeleton Bone, spray and pot.
3) Basic colour then wash with GW Agrax Earthshade.
4) (Gulp. I almost cannot admit it....) Do not bother highlighting back up post wash, but leave them suitably grungy............
Quickly moving on, here come the pics.
I cheated a bit by only showing you the standard bearers finished so far! They are just four of the 99 figures done so far. I still have another six standards to make and paint, namely Strathearn, Angus, Fife, Buchan, Mar and Lennox, so still quite a bit to do.
Overall, I reckon I am still on track to have the Bannockburn-era display game ready for Wargamer, but it will be tight. I still have a unit of Scottish knights, some Highlanders, some Islesmen and 4 command elements to do for Bruce's army, along with 3 units of English foot, plus all the basing and varnishing, after I finish the Scots. This covers the planned initial set up. I also need some buildings and similar terrain bits. I have already written off the idea of casualty markers and other desires for the first outing.
Needless to say, I am thinking up contingencies, just in case!
G
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| Caithness. All the banners I am doing for my six schiltrons are taken from the spread in the Osprey Bannockburn book. This is a standard figure, in that it is an unaltered pose and carries one of the shields supplied with the Old Glory figures. |
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| Atholl. The same figure as above, but with a Perry plastic buckler from the European Mercs set. |
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| Ross. |
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| Moray. You may have noticed that the figures are rather more HYW than earlier. I have tried to backdate them a little with the non-heater shields and by limiting metal armour. This guy has leather on his legs, the guy above metal. |
