15mm Thracians

These figures I also painted on commission, for the same client as the Gauls. These are all Xyston Miniatures. I tried to vary the colors and designs as much as possible while still finishing the unit in a reasonable amount of time.

15mm Gauls

I painted these figures on commission, so sadly I won't be playing any games with them. The figures are all Xyston, and I painted them as I would 28mm figures. That means the tunics and pants usually got a check or striped pattern and the skin and metal bits got two tone shading. I hand painted all the shield designs, using the two tones on the main color of the shield to give them a little more depth.

So this is why the blog went two weeks between updates. These little fellows were time consuming, but I think the extra effort was worth it.

FoG Numidian Javelinmen

I finished the second of my two foot skirmish units today. These are Numidian javelinmen.

The figures are Gripping Beast from two packs: NUM01 "Numidian Skirmishers" and LIB04 "Libyan Skirmishers." Javelins are all cut-down North Star spears.

I wasn't very happy with the looks of these figures. Their dress is suitably plain, which doesn't leave the sculptor with many interesting things to add to the figures. Some of the poses were a little odd, and many of the faces were downright ugly.

Uninspired by the figures, I put a very basic paintjob on these. I painted all the shields as simple hide-covered affairs.

FoG Balearic Slingers

Next up is one of two skirmish infantry units in my Field of Glory Carthaginian army: Balearic slingers.

The figures are all from Crusader Miniatures' ancient Spanish slingers pack. There are four poses in the pack. Each pack contains eight figures, so although this unit is six bases in my army, I went ahead and painted all eight bases.

The Crusader figures were decent enough, which is probably all you can ask for with slingers. They're not the most visually impressive figures in the army. I decided to paint the men in plain tunics of undyed linen, with the exception of the one figure who had a sculpted collar. If I do another unit of slingers, I may vary the tunic colors and paint some designs on them.

Here are some closeups of the four poses.

By way of comparison, here are some Old Glory Balearic slingers I painted about five years ago. The sculpts are pretty ugly, but the sculptor did include some more interesting details. I prefer the Crusader slingers, but the OG figures do have a certain homely charm about them.

1:72 Scale Sherman V, Lower Hull

I picked up a 1:72 kit at the bargain store last week, and I started work on it this morning. The "Tulip" was a pretty rare conversion, limited to one battalion of British guards. I'll be leaving the rocket launchers off and building this as a straight Sherman V.

First up are the wheels. Each bogie contains four parts, one of which is not visible once the assembly is built. I'm leaving off the sprocket for now to help make painting easier. I'll glue it in when I attach the tracks.

The two halves of the casing don't quite align. If I were doing this right, I guess I would fill that gap with some putty, then sand it down. I'm not going to bother, since I don't think this part of the bogie will be visible once the build is done.

The transmission cover comes next, and this is a good time to look at how tiny the kit's photoetch is. I'll be replacing the tow lug mounts. I had to fold that tiny piece of brass to get it to that shape.

Then I cut away the kit's styrene tow lug mount and sanded the transmission cover smooth.

Here's a good comparison of the styrene and brass.

Both replacement lug mounts.

Completed transmission cover. The towing lugs are now attached to the replacement mounts. These are so thin that I couldn't remove the little wisp of plastic where the sprue attached without breaking them to pieces.

One more insanely small piece of photoetch: that handle is almost too small for me to see with the naked eye. It's so small, you can hardly make out the bottom arm.

FoG Spanish Heavy Cavalry

After painting hundreds of 15mm ACW figures, I slowed down and painted 12 28mm cavalry. These Spanish cavalrymen are from Crusader. Bases are Litko, spears are North Star, and shields are hand painted.

I wanted lighter colors for my horses, but I may have overdone the highlight shade on some of these.

The Crusader figures were, as always, very nicely proportioned and easy to paint. The horses' manes kept the figures from seating properly, so I trimmed them with a pair of wire cutters.

I only painted two shades of flesh, a base color and a shading color. I may go back later and touch them up with a highlight. The horses all got three colors. The clothing and armor got two.

Commander

Standard Bearer

Horn Blower

Spearman

Spearman

Spearman

January Painting Totals

January was a pretty good painting month. My totals are dominated by the one week I painted my big 15mm ACW group.

15mm Macedonians, 16 cavalry, 10 foot

15mm Napoleonic Austrians, 36 infantrymen

15mm ACW Confederates, 144 infantrymen, 1 mounted general

15mm ACW Union, 124 infantrymen, 4 mounted generals

28mm ACW Confederates, 8 mounted generals

Yearly totals to date:

28mm Mounted: 8

15mm Foot: 314

15mm Mounted: 21