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

28mm Reaper Miniatures - Beggar from Townsfolk II

 This guy I'm including in my Revolting Peasants project. The strumpet and blacksmith that came with him won't have the mud bases, so I'll paint them up with the other medieval/fantasy civilians. 

He stands taller than the Old Glory Revolting peasants next to him, BUT if you look where his feet are, he's about exactly in line with them. His mud pile is just a little bit taller. 

He came out pretty good - and I painted him in the same method I did for these peasants, making him stylistically part of the mob. Those are a new batch of Old Glory peasants in the background coming soon.

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

What I Saw at Nova Open 2026

 Number Three and I headed over for a couple of hours yesterday to see what there was to see. Yes, the parking was obnoxious and far away. My preferences are definitely suburban: pull up to the venue, park, walk in. Not drive around, hunt for an open space up one block then down another, finally surrender and find a lot. Pay over 20ish dollars, walk half a mile up/down hill in the heat. Arrive sweaty and uncomfortable. There was a time when city living was all I wanted, but having had plenty of it over the years, my tastes have evolved toward comfort. More importantly, I value my time more than ever and resent having it wasted. I've got plenty to do without having to cushion events for finding parking, let alone dropping that kind of cash for it. 

In any event, the distribution of crowds was a bit different this time around as we entered. For once, we had easy access to the painting contest area, usually a space that's too crowded to approach without patience. That and the crafting area seemed especially quiet. The main GW ballroom was relatively light compared to the independent room that has all the LOTR, Star Wars, Age of Sigmar, and Trench Crusade games and all that.

I mention all that as it determines what I can comfortably shoot without disturbing any particular pair of gamers. The crowds were thick, and it was difficult to navigate the narrow lanes among the tables. My camera roll is significantly smaller than it has been in the past. 

There seemed to be fewer oddball angry trans folks around this time. We also saw fewer YouTube famous people: no Uncle Atom, no Vince Venturella, no Miniac, nor Ninjon. Maybe they didn't go this year? We were only there for a pair of hours, but we did see and talk with Brent of Goobertown Hobbies and Goblin Games. He was busy demonstrating his stampin' kits. I was on the fence and bought new brushes and some new Pro Acryl paints instead. I may still get some of that stuff, but not this month.

Like the HMGS cons, Saturday seems to be a bad day for vending (my principal pursuit at these); a lot of stuff I was looking for was out of stock. There is a guy who carries Krautcover, for example, but he had a skeletal supply left when I got there. No Your Hobby Place this time, nothing really interesting for Number Three either - no whimsical or brightly colored 3D-printed toys that she was hoping for. 

Increasingly common, I had no purchase list at all but still found some impulse buys. 

Overall, I cannot judge the health of this side of the hobby. YouTube is always harping about how GW sucks, and the new rules or miniatures are expensive and /or unavailable. People are quitting left and right. Maybe attendance was down, or I'm there at the wrong times. Seemed solid to me, especially in the non-Warhammer games area. 

On to the pics! And, wow, I did not take many. First up - the Capital Palette, the painting competition:

Oh - oh - oh! A Colonial thing! Well done!

More historical things!

Jolly clever with the gunman's shadow telegraphing his fate. Really well done!

So that's it for the painting competition - on to the competition spaces

This was in the main competition ballroom, kinda neat. Most of the stuff in here is pretty ugly sci-fi industrial-type stuff. Despite the similarities, not really my hobby. 

Some have some crossover appeal - like this cool adobe building- but not much. 

 

... And ... that's it. I didn't find a lot that excited me much this time around. There may have been crowds around some of the other things I would have normally shot. The place was rotten with the younglings and the generational divide between us remains fairly wide. That said, the grognards don't care for my take on fantasy much either, so I have to wear a snowflake badge with some pride, as usual! 

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