Second grenadier à cheval de la garde

Good evening (it's winter, seems that the evening replaced the day any time), I hope that most of you will enjoy some vacation for Christmas sooner or later. There's only a few days left before the end of the year, so it's high time to finish what can be.
In my plans for this year, I wanted to paint a few grenadiers à cheval, so that my French Imperial Guard project (long term project, Fantasy and Ancients come first) record some evolution this year.

Well, the result is very modest since I painted only one horseman (and his horse too). Together with the one painted, hmm, last year, they form a very small unit, maybe a squadron (some rulesets require only two cavalrymen).

Very little pictures for this very little step :)

I have 3 more undercoated, but it's very unlikely that I finish them before the end of 2019.
Hope you like them anyway :)

Star Wars Imperial Assault: Rebellion soldier

Oh oh, a second post on the same theme, that's rather unusual on this blog! I keep on painting some minis for the Star Wars Imperial Assault boardgame. This time I've painted a good guy (that's what they say in the saga), a soldier of the Rebellion, the sort of man that you can see in the first seconds of the first opus (that is the nr 4, you all remember, I won't explain), trying to protect Princess Leia from the Imperial assault (ah ah) of the stormtroopers, and Darth Vader himself.

That's what my mini look like:

A courageous man ready to defend that door (let's pretend Leia is behind - no, that door won't open on the next picture). Incidentally, there are enemies rushing to him.

A close-up to show how nervous you can look when you have to enemies in your back :)

And this is what the soldiers looked in the first film (I meant the fourth... well). You know what ? They don't seem to worry that much. I think they should! So I guess it's not a real war picture, but a reenactment one :-)

Ok, my colors are a bit different, but the originals looked very dull, and after all, I just intend to paint minis for a game. A few more pictures of our rebel:

I still have two other guys exactly like him to paint... maybe one of these days.
Hope you like him :)

Star Wars Imperial Assault: my first minis

Several years ago, FFG released a game of tactical combat based on the Star Wars universe, Imperial Assault. One of the players commands the armies of the Empire while the others become heroes of the Alliance.
I bought that game to play with my son, and we had several disputed fights. I'm not a big fan of the films, but I appreciate the universe for its depth and variety, particularly the numerous species of aliens.

No wonder then that the first mini that I have painted is one of these aliens, a Rodian, that is a guy from the same species as Greedo, the bounty hunter killed by Han Solo in a Mos Esley cantina on Tatooine.

So, here you are this Rodian citizen, just painted today, with a stormtrooper to fight against.

The Rodians are meant to be green-skinned humanoids, so I followed the instructions :) Regarding his equipment, I gave him a blue outfit, dark leather belts and boots, iron pieces of armor, and a black gun.
I tried to paint his eyes as if they were red gems - dark red, orange glow at the bottom and a spot of white to simulate the reflection of light - not quite satisfying, but I have so many other figures to paint, I will do better on the next ones.

A few more pictures of the duel. The elements of the scene come from the boardgame. I planned to replace their bases with transparent ones. Oh, and I should add a layer of varnish on the white armour.

By the way, the first post with a "Science Fiction" label on this blog, hourrah !

Hope you like them :)

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 !