Deadcember... new zombies

Dear fellow painters and readers, let's dive into dark Fantasy again.

As you all know (and if not, see here, or there), Orctober has been a chance to complete an Orcs and Goblins army. In november, I came back to historical figures, but with unusual subjects (for me): Peninsular War and American War of Independance... and at last, the Ancients saw reinforcements with some Greek Hoplites. I've also painted many other individual figures but not units, so they probably will be displayed later on this blog. In case you're curious: a C'hin heavy warrior, two Norman foot warriors, a Spanish Caetratus, two servants for a Greek balista, a Samnite... to be continued.

But we are now in December, also known as Deadcember! I don't think I will spend the whole month painting undead creatures, but part of it, yes :)

I have an Undead army for HOTT which was almost finished, I only needed a few more zombies. Here they are!

These minis are a mix of several sets:
- Caesar Zombies
- Dark Alliance Light warriors of the Dead
- Zombie!!! boardgame figures

In the middle of the picture below, you will recognize Red Sonja as a zombie leader :)

The two Dark Alliance minis are in the center of this picture:

I already painted these minis as ghosts, they looked very different:

As written above, the Undead army is now complete: zombie warriors, skeleton warriors, ghosts, spectres, zombie dogs and a vampire lord to rule them all... but I still have to base them. And it might be that they lack strength against my Orcs, so I should probably paint some Undead riders, including some more vampires. I'm still looking for a good color scheme, any idea ?

Back to Ancients... Ancient Greeks !

I'm a bit fed up with Fantasy these days, and it is always as difficult as before to paint more than once the same uniform, but on the other hand I like to take pictures of nice units, so... I decided to return to ancients :)

This time, I try to expand my small classical Greek army. Basically, you need a few psiloi and a lot of hoplites. For some variants, you can add one or two elements of cavalry, but that's not the main force, so, let's paint some bronze shields and armors.

My hoplites so far:

For those who visit this blog regularly, you will certainly recognize some old Atlantic hoplites painted a few years ago. As you can see, they fit rather well with the Zvezda figures.

I also painted a Greek officer and a musician playing an aulos, an ancient double-reeded instrument.
 

The ancient Greeks used to deploy psiloi (light infantryman) before the hoplites. They were used to harass and desorganize the enemy battleline.

The latest painted figures are pictured below, all from Zvezda set 8005  Greek Infantry.

Of course, it is a pleasure to paint these shields, not free hand painting because I followed the patterns sculpted on the figures.

Some close-ups:

As always, hope you like them :)

AWI Continental soldier test shot

These days I'm not in the mood to paint regiments (you can say I've never been), or even soldiers of only one era or conflict. What I want to do is to paint some very old figures - to catch childhood memories maybe, or to see what the veteran figures look like with a proper paintjob, I mean: not with Playmobil colors :)

Among the most loved figures I still own are Washington's soldiers by Airfix, the first Airfix set I've seen, and received as a gift, when I was 10. They've seen more than one battle in my parent's garden, and received color using the famous Playmobil pens, but I never tried to paint them, and now it's time...

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of documentation about the American War of Independence, so I have to look for pictures on the web. The pictures I mostly use are those of reenactors, because I usually try to represent the men with the dress they actually wore rather than regulation dress. In this case, I found a very nice painting by Don Troiani representing a Private of the 9th Massachusetts Regiment in 1782. As far as I know, Don Troiani's painting are regarded as accurate by the painting community, good thing. And again, I was interested in the color scheme: white and blue, not that original, but with buff trousers, which allows to add some sort of yellow in the color scheme.

First, the test shot figure (direct from the 70s):

And then the reference painting:

What do you think of it ? Is it close enough ?

If find the mini rather convincing so I am going to paint some more. The question I ask you this time, fellow painters, is this: do the soldiers of this regiment all wear the same uniform in 1782 (after the 1779 regulation), or are there still many differences between the men - the variations that we could find in a French Napoleonic regiment during the Peninsula war, for instance, or even more variations ?

Thank you for reading this post, all comments and opinions welcome !

Portuguese soldiers of the Peninsular war

Probably because winter is coming, I need to paint some figures that remind me of the sun of south Europe. The Spanish guerilla leader was a first step into the Peninsula war, so I searched in my old boxes for other figures related to that conflict. I could find old Qualitycast metal figures I bought together with my Spanish guerillero: other guerilleros (I have only 4, not a lot), enough British line to represent a battalion, and a few Portuguese soldiers, 8 line and a dozen Caçadores. The line soldiers had the stovepipe shako, so they were ok after 1811, and the Caçadores had the Barretina cap, so early soldiers. I wanted to paint late Caçadores, so I converted some British soldiers of the 95th just by removing the cords of the shako.

Here you are the result:

Three of them are plastic soldiers from the Revell 95th regiment set, whereas the 2nd trooper from the left is a metal figure by Kennington. These troopers belong to the 6th regiment of Caçadores. Not sure of the color of the plume, I have to keep on researching.

The same figures with two pre-1811 Caçadores by Qualitycast:

Close-up shot of the Qualitycast figures: troopers of the 5th regiment (Campomayor).

The three first line soldiers were also painted this week-end (Qualitycast figures). They belong to the 7th regiment (Setubal).

And a general view of the troops so far:

What do you think of my (very) little conversion, is it accurate ? And if you have the answer for the plume color, I would be glad to read it :)

José de Espin

In the previous post, I asked you to identify the last mini I had painted. Fire at Will answered very swiftly: the mini represents a Spanish Guerilla leader by Qualitycast - a metal mini.

But who is this man ? His name is José de Espin, one of the leaders in the guerilla band of Don Juan Martin. He's been portrayed by Denis Dighton (a contemporary English painter) in 1813 in the picture below:

This image is the source for the plate below, taken from Uniforms of the Peninsular Wars 1807-14 by Michael Chappell.

 Strangely, the blue jacket of the original picture was changed to green in this book, hence the color chosen for my mini - I didn't look for the original picture before painting, I should. So remember: primary sources first !!


Maudlin had proposed Juan Martin Diez, an important Spanish leader nicknamed El Empecinado (meaning the Undaunted). Looking at his portrait and historical background, it was not far from the right answer !

Will you guess...

After more than a month dedicated to Orcs, I really need a break, and to paint something completely different.As written in the comments of the previous post, I have a lot of plans - at least a lot of wishes, both for Fantasy and historical armies.

Fantasy:
- an Empire army to fight against the Orcs (using historical minis, so I would paint both fantasy and historical at the same time)
- a Fantasy Egyptian army, with a mix of historical and fantasy figures, the famous mummies
- an Undead army - infantry finished, but the cavalry not started
- an Uruk-Hai army to finish

 Historical periods:
- Mayas
- Aztecs (they are painted for 25 years, I'd like to add some contrast)
- Early Imperial Romans (same as above)
- Greek hoplites (same as above)
- Ancient Egyptians (40% done, but the chariots...)
- Sea People (50% done, less chariots :))
- Sassanid Persians (not even started)
- a Crusader army to finish (almost done, only 2 knights and one monk left to paint)
- an Ayyubid army to finish (only 30% done)
- HYW English (50% done, so many archers...)
- HYW French (10% done, not a single knight on horse)
- Feodal Japanese (5 minis painted)
- Napoleonic French army (peninsula)
- Allied army for Peninsula

 As I was looking for a musician to paint (yes, the musician of the month, remember ?), I found a mini that I had completely forgotten. I remembered that there was an illustration in a book with a good color scheme for this mini, so I gave up all my plans and started to paint him immediately.

You wander what mini it is, right ? I will show you, but I won't tell you, and I offer a challenge instead. Let's have a look:

So now, can you tell me:
- who this guy is ?
- who the manufacturer is ?

I hope you will find, I think it's not that easy, even some sort of cheat.
The answer in the next post.
Good luck :)

PS: Oh, I won't set any label on this post, it would help too much :)

Orc army completed for the last day of Orctober, Waaaagh!

Ok, let's resume the situation here. Every year, lots of figure painters and wargamers around the world paint some Orcs (or their kin) during the month of Orctober. I don't when this tradition begun, but I like it. I imagine that at the end of the month, all painted Orcs gather for the Orctoberfest, an orcish variant of Halloween maybe.

Last year, I proposed a challenge for 1/72 fantasy painters at Benno's: to paint some Orcs for Orctober 2019. Several persons answered the challenge - you can see the result here.

My personal challenge was to complete an Orc army for OTT / AdG Fantasy, and for once... I succeeded! I'm a happy general.

So, what do they look like ? Are they more impressive when they are together ?

Let's have a look in detail. Last painted but first because of his rank, the new leader of the army, Vorgorog the Insane, surrounded by the elite of his warband, the Skull warriors:

No, the Uruk-hai are not their allies

Any general needs cavalry, hence a unit of heavy Warg riders, good for scouting and as a fast shock troop.

The extra heavy shock troop, not as fast as the Wargs, is this one, the troll unit, super massive and with dark armours.

the most dangerous place in this army

 The Orcs can find allies in the mountains, such as these goblins, nasty little troglodyte creatures. Not very reliable allies, but allies nevertheless, at least before the beginning of the battle.

The whole army: not very large, but more than enough for HOTT.

The army list:
- 1 Orc general
- 1 unit of skull warriors, 3 figs
- 1 unit of Warg riders, 6 figs
- 1 warband of Orc warriors, 29 figs
- 1 unit of archers, 4 figs (including an old green Orc - wasn't convinced with this color)
- 1 unit of Goblins, 7 figs
- 1 unit of Trolls, 4 figs
- 1 unit of lesser Goblins or Imps, 2 figs

16 of them have been painted this month. And you know what ? I'm happy with the result, and it's time to move on. I have a lot of other projects in mind, it's time to go back to historical minis, such as Napoleonics (the variety of colors in the Peninsula troops is very attractive), Ancients (any Ancient) or maybe a few more ACW soldiers. What do you think ?

A couple of pictures to conclude. Happy Orctoberfest!