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I needed to travel for work, with an odd schedule where I was required to be in place for a preliminary event on Friday, with the real action (such as it is) starting today. So, I knew I was going to be halfway across the country with not much to do over the weekend. I packed up my travel paint kit and a bunch of 1/72 plastic. Some were already in progress, but mostly things had just been primed. I am aiming to run Rangers of Shadowdeep soon, and I intend to play it with my travel miniatures kit of 1/72 scale plastics. I’ll be using Caesar Miniatures orcs as the game’s “gnolls” and needed about of dozen, of which I had four done. I also needed a “burrow worm” (now a repurposed Bones 5 Core thing…), and a flesh golem (a paint scheme suggestion on a Bones 1 ghast). Since I’m on travel, i didn’t bring basing materials with me, so these guys are not completely finished, but I have gone as far as brushing on a varnish coat. That’s usually my last step prior to basing with these plastics. On Saturday, I got this done: The knight is a random addition; I am hesitant to paint horses (or, as my son notes, more likely I am hesitant to paint all the horse tack neatly), so I wanted to get over the cavalry block. He’s one of three for a mutli-figure stand, so it could be a while until he gets based. I should have actually worked on another knight on Sunday, but what I actually did was to finish the orcs and the flesh golem, and then add a few random humans on foot: If I had some bases and some scenery, I could now run a tiny little skirmish game. I’ll post the actual completion pictures here later this week.

Last week I finished up a stand of medieval city militia using a 4-color limited Zorn palette. This turned out to be oddly calming, so I went ahead this week and prepared a second stand of 8 figures (mostly duplicate poses) from the same box of Strelets 1/72 scale plastics. I would ordinarily use 2 stands for something like a Dragon Rampant unit, so it’s nice to have them in matching pairs where possible. I started in on them Friday morning, and had them varnished by supper time on Saturday (when we headed out to a ballroom dance event). I finished up the basing and put a final spray coat on them this afternoon. When I clipped these 8 from their sprues, I collected a few of the more interesting poses for use on individual bases for contingency fantasy games. I finished one of the three this afternoon, still using a Zorn palette. As you can see, these are pretty small compared to the usual Reaper sizes. I was please with how the face came out, given the size. I don’t usually zoom in to the level where the individual brush strokes are showing, but there you are. Given the size, that’s more than you’ll actually see during a game, so it’s really just for my own amusement.

I had the day off yesterday, and had 5 of 8 figures finished for a stand of mixed polearm and crossbow civic militia, drawn from the Ultima Ratio Italian Militiamen 1260-1392 box of figures I had picked up in June, so I decided to finish the last three. Let’s start with the results. Here’s the front view, with a Sir Ogre Forescale menacing the unti’s flank. RIght side three quarter view showing the shields on the front rank in particular. Back view. Now a little about the background of the project. As mentioned, I bought the box of figures during a trip to the brick and mortar Michigan Toy Soldier store while visiting my parents in June. Relatively shortly thereafter (as these projects of mine go), I decided to cut eight figures from the sprues and get started. My usual goal in mounting multiple figures on a base is to avoid overhang if at all possible. So I was unusually organized this time. I not only arranged them on a base of the proposed size, but also took a picture of the arrangement so that I would remember later. That was 19 August, according to photo data. I had finished one a couple of weeks ago, as posted in an earlier show-off thread, posted on 26 August. By Tuesday, I had finished four more, and and posted a  request for technical advice. Yesterday morning, I sat down with a fresh sheet of wet palette paper and finished the last three, mostly one at a time, but carrying colors across figures where appropriate (e.g., all shields got a yellow layer in one pass). I slapped a coat of thinned Liquitex gloss acrylic medium and varnish over them, and waited for them to dry. The flag is from my Portable Fantasy Campaign map; you can find the city of Candelon in the lower left corner. When they were dry enough to handle, I pulled out the arrangement picture, glued them in place, and disguided the integral bases with a layer of white glue and sand. I had a little extra room, so I planted a couple of tufts. At that point, it was time to go to the wargames club meeting, so I left everything to dry. When I got home, I carefully brushed on a thinned layer of white glue and added flock. This morning I did a final spray varnish coat (of Krylon Low Odor Matte Varnish), waited for that to dry, and took some pictures, as seen above. There’ a “Painting Faster” thread running elsewhere at the moment. I didn’t time the last three figures, but the first five were running about 40 minutes each (averaged, since I was working on more than one at a time). For appearances, I don’t really need to do detailed faces, and details on shoes and belts get lost in the overall effect. When deployed, this stand will probably be one of 20-30 stands on a small game table, so even more details will generally become invisible. So I could theoretically paint them faster by eliding details, knowing the gameplay end state. However, I’m generally painting for my own satisfaction and amusement, and therefore I paint them as much as I think is fun. In a game, I won’t see the work, for the most part, but I am comfortable with letting a civilian walking past a game pick up a stand and squint at it, and that’s the level that works for me. Other levels, of course, are possible. My son likes to do better; here’s a 1/72 Mycenaen chariot of the late Bronze Age he finished Wednesday or Thursday: I try not to get in painting competitions with him.

Ok, gang, I’ll be honest. I shouldn’t post this now without all the well written explanation of what I’m about here, but it isn’t coming and I would like to get this posted... Earlier this year, in the before times, I did another of these stands. These are for a Hordes of the Things elvish army (primarily) and are expected to be “beast” stands — rapidly moving, at home in rough terrain. This was a speed paint; all three figures took an hour. With the 1/72s, I like to paint a little more than is necessary, for my own amusement. Here’s a closer crop of the sorceress: The leaf pattern freehand is a bit dodgy. Amazingly, the necklace is actually cast into the figure. But it’s all a bit irrelevant when the whole group is arrayed on the stand: A bit over contrasty; had to use a flash to take the pictures. A layer of sand and glue to hide the bases, a couple of tufts, some flock, and a spray varnish and they are as ready as they are going to get:

Last month I held my nose to the grindstone, as it were, and painted a bunch of wargaming units, a dozen figures at a time. This month, I wanted to relax just a little, so I pulled a group of Caesar Adventurers (currently OOP) out of the queue, and amused myself by finishing off a couple of them. I’ve picture them here with Sir Forscale to show how not-big they are, which is why they make look just a little rough when blown up to more-than-life-size on the screen. It’s interesting to me, though, what you can do with a 1/72, if you aren’t in too much of a hurry. These were done with my work kit at lunches, so 45-60 minutes each. My elder son, who has been doing some amazing work on 1/72 historical Bronze Age figures lately, asked whether some sort of single figure game was in the plans. As of now, I am thinking about using the 1/72s to play through some Rangers of Shadowdeep.