25mm Old Glory Medieval - Revolting Peasants - Part 10 - Project Complete!

 The final 24 Revolting Peasants from Old Glory! I don't think I'll have time to set up the entire mob just yet, but I wanted to get this up as its own entry. I started this in April and did little else but them and some odd terrain pieces here and there this year. 169 models done. I'll probably do the Rat Catcher from Mega Miniatures to make it an even 170. 

I did express wonderment at how many retinues I could have done had I not taken this big diversion, but these have so much utility for witch/werewolf hunts, goblin/orc fodder as well as for their intended medieval purposes. Zero regrets! 

The other thing I need to look closely at is if this exercise improved my painting at all with all the practice. I think it rather did. And I really do like the "YouTube" style of painting (base coat, dark wash, build up volumes from there). And yes, I know people have been doing that for years before. My heroes honestly are Steve Dean and Kevin Dallimore, who I think largely eschew the washes altogether, using pure layering resulting in clean delineated lines. So in effect, this was a kind of cheat, using an extra step for a uniform shade of Army Painter Strong Tone. Here, this gives them all a muddy undertone. 

Also, if it's not been explained before, I prime in black, then heavy drybrush in white - I use white ProAcryl Primer for this - before moving on to the base coats, then wash, etc. I also don't fiddle with eyes, which I nearly always do - even in 15mm if they are sculpted! Generally, I stuck to Army Painter Fanatic and ProAcryl for everything, no Contrast or Speed paints anywhere. 

Enough blather - on to the pics! 

These are the last of the armed peasants with a few from the leaders/agitators set - the two butchers and the white-bearded torchbearer. The torchbearer on the far right is from the Looters and Pillagers set. I put all the cool models onto single bases so the dregs get lumped in here where they don't stand out so prominently. 

These are the last from the Looters and Pillagers set. I armed as many as I could with conversions and add-ons in an earlier update, so these, apart from the odd belt knife, are wholly unarmed, right out of the bag, 

All together now!

Let's see how those Victrix bannermen fit in: 

Fine!

Some action shots

The last act of defiance from this crude royal family!

I'll do a new post with all of them together, though I'm not sure I can put together a whole farm just yet, but I did buy the Victrix animal sprues to help with that. I also have a lot of wattle fencing to paint up too. 

As for painting, though, I am moving on to tackling the 100ish Old Glory Voltiguers for the 1812 Retreat game. You've seen the battalion command, the company officers and NCOs, and the remnants of the adjacent 5th company, but not the largest group of all, the rank-and-file Voltiguers.  I've been putting it off for years, and the peasants' exercise has boosted my confidence and appreciation for just muscling through a big project.  

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments, and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

25/28mm Revolting Peasants - Miscellanea

 Done! The mud is still drying on the 24 remaining Old Glory peasants, so look for them tomorrow.  But this project is now complete! I'll do the tally in that last post. For now, here are some of the miscellanea I completed this week to help round out the project. 

Since most peasant revolts began at the local village or parish level, when a village mobilized, they often simply went to their local church and took the parish banner to march under. These, I understand, would feature local patron saints, the Virgin Mary, or the Agnus Dei (the Lamb of God). Lamb of God. Some of you know I've been a metalhead since the early '80s and that the album Ashes of the Wake (from the band Lamb of God) is one of my desert island picks. So I get to slip a subtle heavy metal reference into this project. I used ChatGPT to draw up some Agnus Dei-themed banners which were then printed to size and cut out. 

However, this idea occurred to me only after most of the Old Glory Peasants were completed and the rest were primed and ready to go, making them unsuitable for converting. So I had to turn to Victrix to get some suitable bannermen, i.e., peasanty types with very long spears, minimal to no armor, and who could reasonably fit in with the Old Glory models without looking too flashy for these lder style of sculpts. 

For those, I drew from two different packs to get a little variety: the Early Saxon Unarmoured Warriors and the Dark Age Archers and Slingers. Putting it all together, you get these:

I'm not thrilled with the backs of these banners - the blue one especially. I did a nice job carrying on the fringe on the back side of the burgundy one, but I just clumsily highlighted some folds that leave me slightly ashamed. Can we just agree to not notice?

I've also had this three-person set of crude royalty from Fantascenes who are thematically aligned with the peasants, so I thought I'd include them as part of this. That creates some alignment issues, as who would defend these rather disgusting little tyrants? They are slightly beyond contempt. No matter, they have gold and will have to buy their friends and pay for their own sycophancy, I guess. 

These are the only models where I didn't use Army Painter Strong Tone on them, so they'd appear less grimy than their revolting subjects.

Finally, I have the collection of Villagers from the now-defunct Mega Miniatures line. The beggar can join his Reaper Miniatures counterpart pictured a few updates ago. There is a suitably grubby Ratcatcher from this set I may add at a later date, but the rest are more well-to-do and thus ill-fitting for this exercise. 

Finally, a note about how I made the banners: 

First, I superglued some cross beams snipped off some paperclips to the spears. 

Then I glued one end of some thread down. When that dried, I could comfortably lash the crossbeam to the spear diagonally to show it was roped together. Unfortunately, I went at this with too much alacrity and made what looked more like beehives. It did affect how I had to apply the banner, as it made the banner bulge out at the top. To fix this, I didn't trim them exactly to what was printed, but rather lengthened the tabs by a few millimeters to effectively lower the banners further down the pole. I painted over all the white that remained to blend it in with the rest of the fabric. 

ChatGPT assumed I was making a commercial project here and tried to label them accordingly with instructions - lol. I also had to trim off the crossbeam spear tips on The Crucified Lamb, as well as the mutation on the left side of The Lamb of Revelation. Fine. Easy work. 

I'll post up the last of the Old Glory models tomorrow and will try to get a big group shot together too as a capstone. As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments, and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

25mm Old Glory Medieval - Revolting Peasants - Part 9 - The Mob

Here are more 2-figure bases and the beginning of the 3-figure bases. Their footprint shrinks quite a bit, being more densely packed. This brings the total up to 137 models done. Imagine how many knightly retinues I've forsaken for this!

The film, The Uprising -about the peasant revolt against King Richard II- seems to have gotten a lot of mixed reviews. I'll wait for streaming, but its release was a lovely coincidence for this project. I didn't even become aware of the film until I was well into it, but I'm sure it will provide more scenario fodder to consider. 

Incidentally, I quite knowingly painted these peasants in drab colors. There are accusations that The Uprising creators did the same in their costuming selections by accident. People love to bitch about how much cleanliness and color there was in medieval times. I've made room for that. But not for this project. Further, I intend to use these in fantasy settings as well. 

I followed the same formulas here as I've had with their predecessors, but added a few newer colors from ProAcryl - namely the Yellow Green, Camo Green and Gray Green as bases to work from. 

The Yellow Green, when first applied, is exactly the color of Kermit the Frog. Front row, far right, is one in that color. The tunic on the guy second from the left in the front (same body) also has the same color. I like it, but it may be brighter than I was hoping.

The first of the 3-figure bases

The Yellow Green can also be seen on the leggings and hood of the scytheman at far left. 

Just 32 left to do, and this project is complete! About 25 more Old Glory peasants, as well as some Victrix banner men and some other odds and ends. There are a lot more looting models in this final batch, but they still have their utility for any number of encounters. I do have a ton of Wargames Atlantic Knights mounted and on foot in the queue and the same sets from Victrix to build as well as some Dark Age stuff I'll repurpose for fantasy humans, but I'll likely be going back to Napoleonics after this. 

When it's done, I'll share some summary shots of all 170 models together for our mutual enjoyment.

After that, it's time to complete the 100+ figure Voltiguer company for the 1812 Russia game. They've been on the table for years, and I've dusted them off repeatedly, waiting for God knows what. The command, bits of the 5th company, and all the NCOs have been done for years; it's just time to get these guys over the finish line. But I do enjoy this bulk process where I don't have to make too many decisions and can just diligently and robotically apply colors. I suppose to many that sounds awful, but I'm looking forward to it.

My former Fresno group has already nearly finished this 1812 campaign and I'm a bit ashamed of how far ahead of me they are on it, and I've been fapping on about it for years.

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments, and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

Diabolical Terrain Dreadroad Ambush and Brite Minis Trees

 My arbitrary commitment to myself is to finish these revolting peasants, allowing only terrain items to interfere with this challenge. I picked all of this up at Historicon this year - the three standing trees, I think, at the Trainwreck 3D booth. 

First up are two scales of the same tree, simply labled "Tree" from Brite Minis. They come in a pale orange, but paint up nicely. 

They are probably supposed to be flocked, but I'm always looking for scary tree models

This mix below is from Diabolical Terrain and is from a nice box set called "Encounter Box 6: Dreadroad Ambush." It also comes with a (horseless) medieval wagon and a low flat bridge, which I will get to anon. 

The fallen trees are intended to block a road. They can be used anywhere, of course. I guess the rocks hide ambushers. And of course they can be used wherever.

This is by no means a layout - I just want to see it amongst other terrain items. Renedra outbuilding and a Perry Medieval Cottage in the background.

I sprinkled in some of the fallen/dead tree items from Monster Fight Club for comparison. There's plenty of cover for any skirmish-sized game. Again, I would never set it up so unnaturally for a real game.

Part of what makes a scary forest scary is a deep dark canopy and undergrowth that hides whatever monstrosity your imagination can conjure up. While each of these pieces is sinister by itself, they lose what makes them frightening in big groups like this. I have enough to do a small cluttery table with dead, fallen trees and stumps, but I'm going to transition to more thickets of impassable but obscuring terrain. Still, having a large variety of scatter options is always useful. 

And as always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

25mm Old Glory Medieval - Revolting Peasants - Part 7 - Looters and Stoners

 This is the last of the individual models. The rest are on bases of 2-3 models to make moving them around a bit easier. 

Each of these models was, apart from a knife, entirely unarmed.

There are only five different bodies here. OG adds different heads in different positions, and I added the sheathed weapons, shields, and spears. 

I don't have a single bits box, but here I drew from some old fantasy parts as well as some plastic scabbarded swords I snipped off the Perry and Wargames Atlantic sprues I had left over. 

For spears, I used the ol' broom bristles method - super durable, but with just the slightest give. The round shields I got from Foundry at the long gone D&J Hobby near San Jose and the kite shields are Wargames Atlantic leftovers. 

More added shields, spears and swords

This time, and going forward, I've had to add some DAP, Ready Mixed Concrete to build up the ground to the lip of the integrated base. It does add another step, but it takes away the step of having to add second and third layers of the expensive Vallejo Mud basing product. 

Not as versatile as plastic kits, but between Old Glory and I, I'm able to get three quite different models out of the same base body. 

Old Glory very clearly labels these as suitable for Dark Ages through the Early Renaissance, so I've just had to come to terms with that and added round shields, kite shields, and a buckler all together. Odd for strictly historical games, but perfectly fine for orc or goblin victims. 

I can't abide these guys carrying nothing but a pair of stones. Here's where you can see the obvious spear as well as some short swords on the belts - three fairly unique (and armed) figures! 

A bodkin added here ...

... two swords added here. 

Sword and shield for the guy on the left, spears for the other two. 

A shield on one, spears for the others. I had to cut the stone out to give the middle one his spear.

The other half of this pack are carrying sticks, but I painted up every one of the stone throwers. 

Here's all the finished shields. I was going to lighten them back up again after the Strong Tone but thought they looked more revolting unretouched. 

Here's all the spearmen. On to the looters! 

Like the stoners, I didn't want a lot of unarmed miniatures around, so I added more swords, shields, and spears for those who needed something.  

This is one of each of the looting bodies. They all have duplicates with different heads.

All together now! This brings the count up to 89 of around 150 models - well over halfway done.  

Here's the looters making off with their spoils

And here's the cowards that'd rather throw stones than engage in fisticuffs.

And some customary AI backdrop - this one from ChatGPT

... and this one from Gemini, exact same prompt but decidedly inferior. (They both use nano-banana.) Grok wanted me to pay, so I passed. 

Until this project is done, I'm not painting anything else except terrain as my off-ramp exception. Next up are the second batch of multifigure bases - you've seen the women and children already. Husbands and wives, children on their own, and then, brothers? Fathers and sons? A bunch of two-figure bases - back to farm instruments, some duplicates, and then the variations on minis you've seen before. 

And as always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858