In my ongoing series of experiments with Contrast paints, I've just about finished these two units of Abbasid Black Guard spearment using Black Templar as the main colour for their cloaks. They are yet to be matt varnished (as its been too chilly outside to spray) so they are a smidge shiny, but are pretty much done.
4 Nov 2020
The Black (Templar) Abbasid Guard
25 Oct 2020
Kitbashed Arabs... the project at half way through
During the rolling, seemingly endless series of lockdowns and partial lockdowns in 2020 followers of my blog and website will know that I've been gradually building up an "all options" set of Arab troops to make up armies for L'Art de la Guerre in 28mm. The aim is kinda to mirror the 15mm Arab armies that I've enjoyed using in various competitions over the last few years, but also to try a couple of new things along the way - kitbashing and using GW Contrast paints.
Having - of course - bought far too many figures for the army I decided to start by mainly concentrating on the cavalry first, with a few excursions into infantry for variety. This set of 50-odd photos you can now access on my site is the first tranche of all of those figures, made up from 5 boxes of plastic figures all mushed together.
What you can now see here is a set each of Gripping Beast's Arab Light Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry, a Fireforge Mongol Cavalry set and two boxes of Gripping Beast's latst Gothic Heavy Cavalry - which are basically armoured lancers on cataphract-style fully barded horses.
Over the next few weeks you will see more of the cavalry on display - and perhaps more of the infantry as well if I get cracking on finishing them too.
2 Oct 2020
Arab WiP - starting to get the first few done
As well as experimenting with contrast paints on infantry and horses I have gotten a few bases close to completion already - I find finishing some of them early helps motivate me to do the rest production-line-style, as it gives me an idea of what I'm looking to achieve:
The first lot are a couple of sprues of Perry Sudanese infantry, here representing the ADLG "Impetuous Swordsmen" Tribal or Indian troops that many Arab armies have as a cutting edge to their infantry attack.
They are sprayed with Army Painter Leather, then the flesh has been inkwashed twice with ArmyPainter Dark Tone. The clothes are a base of white with diluted Softtone, GW Contrast Skeleton Horse or Nazdreg Yellow.
The Sudanese haircuts are a lttle distinctive on these, so I tried to use as many bald heads as I could from the sprues instead.
From the back you can see a couple of colourful "belts"to give them a smidge more colour.
This is a finished Commander base - the horse is pale grey with a white wet-brushed coat on top, the armour is drybrushed ArmyPainter Gunmetal over black, and all of the cloth has been done with Contrast Paints.
The Talassar Blue on the cloak is a fantastic colour.
The shield was cast-on this metal figure so I sadly couldn't use transfer and had to improvise this half-hearted peacock style thing
He's now ready for sand to be added to his base.
26 Sept 2020
More adventures in Contrast Paints
Now the Arabs are starting to come together I've test-done a few infantry figures to see what difference undercoat makes to the GW Contrast Paints that I'm looking to use for this army.
These are WiP figures - undercoated either in matt white (Halfords car undercoat) or Army Painter Skeleton Bone, and then painted with the same GW Contrast colour.
20 Sept 2020
28mm Plastic Arab Kitbashing - continued
Just before I rush outside to spray undercoat I thought I'd take a few snaps of the kitbashed Arab riders and infantry to highlight where the various arms, legs, hands and weapons had ended up.
These have been glued together and then you'll see some white and yellow patches where I've used polyfiller and wood filler in an effort to make the joins between glued components disappear. After it dries I sand it off with a small round hobby file.
There are loads of bowcases in the GB Arab cavalry and Fireforge Mongol sets so I've also been able to do a load of the Lance/Bow cavalry holding lances and with bows stowed, as well as leaving some just as lancers.
13 Sept 2020
Back into (figure painting) gear...
After a month of sporadic holiday (and interior decorating-type painting) I'm finally now starting to think about getting back into gear for some proper painting with the start of my long-promised 28mm 'genric' Arab army for ADLG.
Its a real mix of metals and plastics, with a bit of half-assed conversion going on as well. Here are some of the figures in WiP: