25mm Old Glory Medieval - Revolting Peasants - Part 2: More Monks and Agitators

 Second batch of peasants finished - this time with the other half of the monks bringing the petulant orders up to 12. Also from the same set come just some of the agitators. 

Old Glory's model is to make a few bodies, then change all the heads, and the direction they are looking (Hey, Steve!), so that you get effectively a totally different figure - an easy way to get a lot of variety. My plan is to try to get one of every type on its own base. The others will be added to the multi-figure bases. There are, what, 150 figures across all five bags? I don't want to move 150 individual models around, and you don't either. 

And, as these were made when the pewter had more lead in them, they are quite heavy. I'm certain I could injure someone if I threw that monk with the ham at someone with any kind of force. 

I'm going to focus on single models for the next couple of updates, then start doubling and tripling them up. As I stated in Part 1, these will all have the same identical mud bases from Vallejo effects. I will also eschew any colors outside of the earth tones for this project. I'll use more color for models from Foundry, Wargames Atlantic, Victrix, etc. 

The first 6 are all from the same order - whatever that may be. These I wanted in colors more appropriate to their sculpted style. Thus, the three at left are Franciscans, the middle one looks a little cultish, so I put a black hood on him. He'd be a good derelict priest for a witch hunter warband. 

Second from right suggested a mad hermit do he gets a darker brown robe - he reminds me of Gene Hackman as the blind hermit in Young Frankenstein. The one at right has a really distorted face, so maybe he's survived syphilis or leprosy. A black robe, more typical of the Jesuits, matched his energy.

The butcher (second from left) - inspired by Michael Berryman?) and the baker (at right) do not have alternate heads, so their "extras" will be on the multi-figure bases, as will the variants on the torch bearers and the bludgeon or great club guy.

These are very odd figures as I begin exploring how to paint the various articles of clothing. I may have mentioned that some of these are definitely attired as for the Dark Ages, while others are clad in articles common centuries later, the hairstyles too. They could be regional variations as well as temporal variations. In early medieval Europe, beards were common and associated with masculinity and status, but by the high medieval period (roughly 12th–13th centuries), clean-shaven faces became fashionable, particularly among the nobility and knights. Surveying these models, I see there's an awful lot of scraggly long beards in this bunch.

Further, let's look at the bowl-cut figure 3 with the great club above. He's wearing a crenelated crest of clothing over his shoulders. This is part of what should be the liripipe - the long, trailing tail or tube attached to a hood (called a chaperon). The crenelated edge was part and parcel to it, not a separate piece. Yet, this figure does not have the chaperone or the rest of the liripipe! 

I don't really care all that much, but I thought I'd mention that these models are inappropriate across several dimensions when combined into a single mob. I originally bought them to be victims of fantasy humanoid races anyway. 

1/5th of this range is dedicated to looting figures. However, these two rapey looking guys clutching their booty were in the agitator pack. There also seems to be an intention to give buyers a way to assemble a Robin Hood type force. Friar Tuck seems obvious from the monks, but also these horn blowers seem like scouts. In the next update are two archers who look suspiciously like Errol Flynn in his 1938 Robin Hood costume.

I mentioned having to pile on the Vallejo - Diorama FX Thick Mud in the first entry. This stuff really tightens up enough to make the integral base stand out - a look I was trying to avoid. But, I found that adding more after the original curing time was completed proved to be a seamless and satisfactory remedy. 

To conclude, here are some in-the-wild shots:

Next up will be some missile troops and then a much larger set of women and farmers.

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 1 - Monks

 I've had these for years to be victims of evil dwarves, greenskins, undead, or whatever; I had previously written off Medievals in this scale. However, the new Barons' War stuff has really captured my attention. I've all the packs from Wargames Atlantic, many from Victrix, and a representative amount from the official Barons' War line in metal, sculpted by Paul Hicks. While I await the new King John's Sourcebook, I elected to take on another long-term project I may never finish. Five bags, roughly 30 figures each, of armed peasants filled with the requisite amount of ressentiment, defining a project quite appropriate for our current age. 

And as with everything else, I thought I could whip these out quick - not a lot of gear, hardly any straps, extra weapons, etc. But they took longer than I thought, as usual. I really am incorrigible. Nonetheless, where I could, I've snuck away to begin prepping the rest of the roughly 150 figures in this collection. The first pack: Leaders, Agitators, and Mad Monks is primed, zenithaled, and in progress on the desk, crowding out a large unit of Warlord Napoleonic British. 

I thought I'd divide the 12 monks into two groups - this is the first half, being a kind of generic, but common order found in England during this period. I was going to paint the other six as either Jesuits in black robes or maybe even Franciscans, but despite them all being "monks," they seem to be of different orders. If they are to practice tonsure, shouldn't they all be this way? What about the culty-looking chap with the processional cross? I think I'll do the others in the most appropriate colors for the sculpt. Some clearly seem to be of the Dark Ages, whereas others seem more suited to the 14th and 15th centuries. You'll see more of this as the project unfolds. 

The other thing: to give myself some flexibility, I'll be doing these in the 3, 2, 1 basing style. All basic sculpts that are ones of a kind will get individual bases. If there are variants of a basic sculpt, one will be done individually, and the rest will be paired off on a base with similarly acting miniatures. Finally, there will be some made up for three-man bases to make moving them around easier, plus they will be tightly arranged vignettes to represent a mob. The individual models can be used anywhere, even Baron's War, Pillage, or victims or a lynch mob in a medieval witch hunt game.

Here's how they began - black primed, then drybrushed with white. Doing 2-3 layers over black to get solid coverage is too time-consuming, but bringing the levels up in advance makes it much easier, plus I can better see all the haste-related irregularities common to all Old Glory sculpts. Irregular, but endearing, even charming! 

That's Dark Warm Flesh from Pro-Acryl for the skin. Lovely paint - one coat application mostly. Army Painter Fanatics still require a couple of coats, but they are far better than the originals. Tan for the cowls, grey for the robes.

Bootstrap for the shoes, leather, belts, and some of the hair. Ancient Stone was for the rope-style belts.

Pro-Acryl for the wood and weapons, Two Thin Coats Glistening Gold for the larger crosses - odds and ends for the rest it, the ham, rolls, necklaces, etc. Everything has a base coat of something.

I'm doing what I call "YouTube" painting - most of the non-competition painters on that platform do it this way: lay down the midrange base coats, then put a wash (colors vary, but they are always darker. Then bring back the original colors, leaving the darkness in the recesses. BUT my Army Painter Strong Tone has lost some moisture over the years. Further, it was kind of a mess to move around having a jelly-like consistency. I went with it anyway knowing I can fix it with subsequent steps.  

Here I've brought back the original colors on skin, cowls and robes. (Maybe hair?) I like the weird muddy effect it left behind (not just a rationalization) on the bottom third of the robes so I left it there and didn't paint over it. This also made it appear like the robes are not only dirty, but sodden too. 

The next steps were to just bring up the highlights on everything while leaving that bottom part of the robes alone. You can see I've uncharacteristically work away a lot of the primer along the base edges. And I have been poo-poohing using figure holders while I paint!

Finally, I finished the bases with Vallejo's Diorama FX Thick - Russian Mud. Every mini in this project will get this treatment to unify the collection. First time I tried it and it came out great. The peasants have to be revolting mud dwellers after all. Historians may disagree. 

The mud did shrink down a bit after drying, so note to self: pile it up! I also resisted putting any of this stuff on the miniatures themselves. It's quite dark, and I chickened out, though in the end, I don't think it needs it.

I put in a Wargames Atlantic Foot Knight in the mix so you can see how they compare size-wise. They are monstrous compared to modern miniature making, but I love them nonetheless. So don't get me wrong, I love putting together plastic mins, but Old Glory will always be my favorite in any number of projects, as this blog attests. Character matters.  

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 Northern Crusades Miniatures: Medieval Ruined House

 I picked this up at an HMGS con last year, I think. It was not from the manufacturer, as this particular one had all kinds of printed buildings in a jumble. 

Still, serviceable little thing, useful almost anywhere, though drybrushing really brings out the print lines. I notice I was also charged $6, when the manufacturer charges $5.

Warlord French infantry with Wargames Atlantic zombie heads for scale. 

It took just an hour or so over the course of a couple of days, picking out individual stones, drybrushing, and finishing with some speed paints. 

I'm still working on the Warlord O'er the Hills and Far Away, British, but needed something small to do in between all the details and flippin' straps. I've also boosted the box contents by an extra sprue, swelling it up a bit. This has taken many, many sessions, as I'm, even with AP Fanatic, having to go over and do the two thin coats virtually everywhere. I really want a solid foundation as I've never done British Napoleonics in 25/28mm before. There are easier and faster ways I know, but I'm doing my traditional layering approach. 

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 Black Orc Games - Hundred Kingdoms - Kingdom of Avalon - Friar

Many were excited about Hundred Kingdoms - a miniature agnostic, faction-based miniature game from Black Orc Games. They were going to have, literally, a hundred different factions to pit against one another. I think they only did ten before packing it in. 

This is one of two Friars - the one sculpted by Drew Williams, not Gene Van Horne. 

This is another I painted up and photographed in the early 2000's. 

He'd be a good combatant in the Peninsula War, or even in medieval games too, I reckon. 

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 - Maria Roseblade

Little blurry, but you get the idea. I found the pictures, not the miniature itself, in a file called "Reaper" all by themselves. These photos were taken in December of 2005, when I was more focused on this kind of thing. 

I think I painted this at the request of a friend of mine who wanted her player character for D&D on the tabletop. Occasionally, I come across the question in forums about how much one has improved their painting over the years. This one suggests I may be worsening! Looks pretty good to me! Probably Polly-S paints too. 

Further, I didn't start this blog until 2010, and I was pretty active in the early 2000s, painting for our group. Some have been posted here already, others I stumbled across quite by accident, as I did this one. There'll be more from that era in between current projects as I find them. 

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 North Star Military Figures - Oathmark Heavy Dwarves - Unit 2 and Heroes

 Ok, the black armor came out better than the former unit, so THIS is the Black Metal Heavy Dwarves unit. 

Most of the faces were visible here, allowing for the corpse white faces, the blackened eye sockets, and blackened lips. The GW/Tolkein take on Dwarves is that they are vaguely Scottish, but another strong theme copies a Viking sensibility. So starting there, but trying a more paganistic angle, I aped the look of black and death metal bands. I'm more of a Thrash guy, but I have some fondness for the early progenitors of the genres that took off in Gothenburg and Norway.  The metal armor here is black, so the only real color is denim sleeves and the surcoat, where it peeks out here and there, all with silver studs - a basic look for metalheads. The flag itself is a giveaway as to inspiration here - more on that below. 

At least for the Dwarves, the "Hero" pack is the most armored of them all, so these are included below as well. The "Champions" seem to fit in with the regular Dwarf Infantry, and the Dwarf King, Wizard & Musician, I'll do when I get to the Light Infantry. 

Easy to do the Black Metal face on the, er face. I probably should have done her hair black too, but I don't see that in musicians of this genre; they tend to wear their hair in natural colors. I have some small regrets about doing her ears in white. I think it's mostly just the face that is painted. Ah well. 

As with the hammer gal, I have one regret - I left the ears flesh colored, but I did his bald head all white too. I also see my brush tips are too blinkered to do fine scratches on the hammer head. 

Armor on everyone was done with ProAcryl Dark Silver, this was highlighted with Army Painter Plate Metal, THEN it was given a layer of Armor Wash from P3. For the first unit of heavy dwarves, I used the armor wash before all the highlighting. All gold was Glittering Gold from Two Thin coats. That is a magic paint, I tell you, very finely ground and just lovely in one coat. It's nice, bright, and punchy against all the darker colors here. 

This is the intended officer - a plastic mini, whereas the Heroes are metal.

There are three swordsmen among the rank and file, and I love the idea of swords being super bright which is more evident in real life than in this pic, but I gotta sing the praises of Vallejo Model Air - Silver. It is the brightest, smoothest silver I've ever used; I'll be using it wherever I can for final highlights on white metals. These particular swords had small mould lines along their lengths that I neglected to eliminate, marring the overall effect, but still: satisfactory. 

If you don't know, the Little Big Men Studios, Shield and Banner set is not intended to work with the Heavy Dwarf set. Yes, the smaller gray banner fits on this flag pole, but the better one (the black one) is twice the height! Too bad, it really would have been perfect for this unit. Where did this flag come from? Google found me the goat on a black field, Google Gemini provided the "dwarfish runes, border and symbols." In Excel, I made three cells with a blue background, then pasted two flags side by side within the blue borders and printed, then cut it out and touched up the edges. Easy peasy! 

This is many times more effective than the Excel flag I made for the Perry Linebreakers in this picture. I really need to go back and redo that. I have transfers and stuff that can make this infinitely better. 

For this flag, here's what I started with. One prompt later:

I wouldn't say these are Chaos dwarves, but they could also just be evil dwarves. Oathmark allows for strange allyships with the way the campaign map works, so these could easily be in alignment with an Undead Oathbreaker faction, or go against other dwarves in a civil war-type scenario. OR they could just be the strange toughs in an otherwise traditional Dwarf army.

Here are all the heavies mopping up a unit of orc archers. Heh, behind those mountainous facades are the assembled, but unprimed knights from Wargames Atlantic I need to get to. 

Building plastic kits, or cleaning up models and priming them up, is fun and rewarding in and of itself. However, I have locked myself in with primed models everywhere, on this table, my former "main" painting table, on shelves, everywhere I look. So instead of not buying anything til I paint up something, I'm not going to build or prime anything new until I get some of this stuff completed and out of here. I've had a good run in 15mm last year and cleared off a lot of old projects, but it's time to get some of this 25/28mm stuff completed. 

Anyone else read Bernard Corwell's Sharpe novels? I've read all but the two latest ones, but just completed Sharpe's Assassin, which has me itching to get some of this Peninsular War stuff into play. Yes, I've tended to focus on Russia, but I plan to do a comparable project for Napoleon's western front in Spain and Portugal. New Perry releases are also contributing to this mania with the brilliant Skirmish in a Box and now a new set of Guerrillas coming out as I type this.

I've daringly invested in more medievals, too. This is a project I never had much love for, but that early side that the Barons Wars era covers has got me in its clutches! I would love to assemble all this stuff from Victrix too, but I'd be forced to carry them around in my hands, having no surface on which to put them down! I need to build the rest of the orcs and dwarves too!

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