Sunday Workbench 25 February

With the Ming chinese done and dusted (for now) it was time to move on to something else. I was planning to make a start on the additions to my Mongol forces but when I got them out on the table I realised that I was missing a bunch and I'll need to place an order for them. Scratch the Mongols for now.

I don't want to work on the Sea Peoples army just yet, so I had a look through my various drawers to see what else there was. Lo and behold I found a quick project I could work on - some Scythian cataphracts and command group. I did make a start on them about, ooohh, very nearly six years ago and they've sat in the drawer part-painted ever since. Truth be told, I'd barely started painting them when I must have moved onto a different project.

It was long overdue that I should finish them, so I put them on the table and started painting. I've managed to get most of the way through and might even finish the painting tomorrow night.

These will allow me to field a Scythian ally force with my Sarmatians - essential if you want to have more than two units of light horse.

Finished: 15mm Ming Chinese Anti-Cavalry Unit

Despite being slowed down by the 'flu, the fact that I was at home sick rather than just painting in the evenings has seen me complete the last of my current units for the Ming Chinese army (there will be a few more in the future).

I had bought a pack of infantry with shields by mistake, but realised that I could in fact make use of them. For ADLG they will be heavy infantry swordsmen and for FoGAM they will be heavy infantry "anti-cavalry squads" - there are no heavy foot for the Ming Chinese in FoGR.

This is how they would normally be deployed:

And a close-up to show off the freehand shields:

The officer has the symbols for "wolf" on his shield. The troopers have "demon faces" which were added with a micron pen which is meant to be waterproof - just as well I did a test with brushing on Klear and gloss varnish before doing my usual Klear/ink coat as the ink turned out not to be waterproof after all. To avoid ruining all that hard work I airbrushed them with Vallejo gloss varnish which didn't cause the ink to run before applying the Klear/ink coat.

And the army so far:

There will be a "workbench" post tomorrow where you will find out what I'm moving onto next, but it probably won't be until later in the week that the next finished unit appears (possibly even next weekend).

Finished: 15mm Ming Chinese Spear & Dao Unit #4

Annoyingly, the 'flu has caught me so I'm off work. I managed to get a little bit of painting done yesterday evening, but not a lot. Today was better and working in short bursts I managed to get this unit finished off.

This is the fourth spear & dao unit for my army, and the 19th unit overall. I've got one more unit of infantry left to paint for now. I'll start work on them tomorrow.

For this unit, I decided to freehand the Chinese symbols for "dragon" on the shields of the officer and trumpeter:

It wasn't easy as the surface of the shields is textured, but I think it came out OK.

Finished: 15mm Ming Chinese Heavy Horse Archers Unit #3

I was intending to travel down to Sussex this afternoon, but was feeling shattered so I decided to head down tomorrow morning instead. Which meant I was able to finish this unit off. And that does it for the cavalry (for now at least).

During the longer drying periods, I started work on the next batch - a fourth spear & dao unit.

I should finish painting and varnishing them on Monday and get the basing done on Tuesday night.

Finished: 15mm Ming Chinese Heavy Horse Archers Unit #2

And the second unit of heavy cavalry for the Ming Chinese rolls off the table, onto the blog and into the box file.

After Tuesday evening being a wash-out I was able to catch up a bit this morning as my boiler was having its annual service. I managed to get the final detailing, varnishing, popping off sticks and gluing onto bases done before I headed to work. This evening I got the basing done.

A couple of close-ups to show detail:

I'm going to make a start on finishing the third heavy cavalry unit now and hope to finish painting them tomorrow. With a fair wind, I might manage to get them based up on Saturday before I head off to Sussex.

Finished: 15mm Ming Chinese Heavy Horse Archers Unit #1

I did promise these in Sunday's post and here they are - the first completed unit of heavy horse archers for the Ming Chinese. They are also the 16th unit I've painted up for this army. Cripes!

These were completed last night, but I've held them over to this evening to keep my posts spaced out. Over the next couple of evenings I'll be working on finishing the second of these units which (if all goes well) will be ready for posting on Thursday or Friday. The third unit should be completed early next week - I'm going to be away this weekend.

Sunday Workbench 11 February

Things didn't go quite as planned this week. It started well on Monday and Tuesday and I got plenty done on the cavalry, then it ground to a halt as I was feeling drained after all my recent colds.

I've made up for it this weekend and took all three units to a well-progressed stage this morning. I then switched to working on a single unit and took it to completion - just the basing to do on them, which will get done tomorrow night. I'll then work on the other two in turn so should get at least one more finished before next weekend.

Anyway, here are a couple of pics to show what's on the workbench:

Finished: 15mm Choson Korean Levy 2

As explained in my Sunday Workbench post, finishing these was delayed a little but they're done now.

With these bases, I can now field a maximum-sized "mob" unit in FoGAM or FoGR and have more bases than I need for ADLG. For FoGAM/FoGR I can have a total of 24 bases, so at some point I might add another 12 bases to the army.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a pic of all twelve bases (the original three are on the right)

Sunday Workbench 04 February

Another week, another cold - just after I'd got over the last one. This winter has been atrocious for them - /i think that four days is the longest break I've had between various bugs since the beginning of October.

Of course, this one just had to be the "nose like a running tap" type so I didn't get any painting done until this weekend.

I have finished the Korean "mob" troops - there'll be a post for them on Tuesday. Once they were out of the way I cracked on with the next batch of figures - 36 Ming/Korean heavy bow cavalry. I've got the base coats, points, washes and white markings done. I've also done the bases in Khaki Grey.

Tomorrow I'll get the tack and eyes done. After that I'll be splitting them into three smaller batches for painting the riders (and probably for doing the basing). So there should be at least one more "finished" post before next weekend. Unless I get hit with yet another cold...