Giant Commission -- Austro-Hungarian Grenadiers

Here are another 60 figures, enough for 10 units of grenadiers.  I spent a little extra time on the cap bags on these figures.

Next up are the Hungarian line infantry.

Giant Commission -- The Rest of the German Infantry

This finishes a huge chunk of the Austrian army.  Here we have 219 German infantrymen, in all the colors of the rainbow.

Today I am priming the rest of the Austrian infantry.

Giant Commission -- German Infantry Command

I'm nearing the finish line on my 288 German infantry.  Today I put the finishing touches on these 33 command figures.

I love GMB's flags for these guys.  I've never seen a better range of flags in 15mm.  I have less love for Austrian barber poles.  They look sharp, but they are a pain to paint.

Austrian drummers have a cool diagonal black and yellow design on the drum bands.

I painted three different shades of grey on the officers' coats.

Tomorrow I will start my white highlighting on the mass of marching infantry.

Giant Commission -- First of the Kaiserlichen

I have spent all of January painting 288 German line infantry for Glenn's Austrian army.  These 24 figures are the first to be finished.  

Glenn wants each base to be a separate regiment, and he has enough figures to field every regiment in the Austro-Hungarian army.  These are IR 4, 26, 28, and 59.

These are the "at rest" poses.  The other 264 figures are marching.

White is always a challenge to do well, but I am very pleased with how these turned out.

I used two tone shading on the jackets and coats, of course, but also on the facings, bayonets, overcoat rolls, packs, and canteens.

Here are those other 264 figures, just awaiting highlighting.  I hope to be finished with them by the end of the month.

Last Painted Figures of 2015

With Jon and me hot for Chain of Command, I have been expanding my 28mm World War II armies a bit.  One of my grail projects is to play a skirmish campaign set in the Battle of the Bulge.  I have never been able to find a good set of rules for WW2 skirmish, though, until Chain of Command.  I love the way the rules reward good tactics, so I am starting this project.  Most of it will have to wait until my big commission is done, but I have snuck in a few figures when I could.

These Artizan Fallschirmjager got their covering of Dullcote this morning.  While the figures are not really meant for cold conditions, I thought that painting their hands as gloves would make them look right.  Their uniforms are bulky enough that they could easily be wearing several layers.

For my 28mm WW2 figures, I just do a block paint job and then use the dip for shading.  It works really well on these drab uniforms, and it is VERY quick.  These eight figures took about two hours.

Before I started my commission, I had painted up these 14 Artizan Americans in overcoats.  Something obviously went wrong with the Dullcote, though.  I am hoping that once they have their snowy bases complete, the fogging from the Dullcote will not look so out of place.  Still, I may strip these and start over.  I love the flat finish that Dullcote gives, but my last few cans have proven maddeningly inconsistent.  This is the first time I have ever had such fogging, but then this was the first time the Dullcote ever came out in a stream instead of a spray.

2015 Retrospective

2015 was another busy year at the painting desk for me, with a total of 1,510 figures finished, or about four figures each day.

This year most of my painting was for commission work.  When I moved to my dream neighborhood in 2011, I lost my dedicated wargaming room.  Now I am saving my pennies to build a two story garage with the top floor as a dedicated hobby space.

My 2015 totals were:

28mm Foot: 150
28mm Mounted: 36
28mm Guns: 4
15mm Foot: 1040
15mm Mounted: 254
15mm Guns: 26

For my collections:
15mm Ancient Greeks, 280 hoplites, 112 light troops, 24 cavalry
15mm Napoleonics, 24 British cavalry, 38 French cavalry
28mm Napoleonic French, 30 cavalry
28mm ACW, 16 Union infantry
28mm World War II, 14 American infantry, 8 German infantry

For commissions:
15mm Napoleonic French, 648 foot, 168 cavalry, 20 guns
28mm Colonial British, 96 infantry, 16 gunners, 4 guns, 6 mounted generals

My Analogue Hobbies scoring system total for the year was 4,506 points, a slight increase from last year.  My problem with that system is that it equates scale with painting difficulty, something I do not think is true at all.  A 15mm AB French fusilier is two or three times more difficult to paint than a 28mm WW2 American infantryman.

I plan to spend 2016 plugging away on my giant Napoleonics commission.  I had hope to finish it within a year, but with three small children placing demands on my time, that probably won't happen.  Still, I am maintaining a good painting pace.

Happy gaming in 2016, everyone!