My Successor/Hellenistic project moves on apace, with a recent spell of dry(ish) weather allowing me to do some outdoor spray undercoat, and then matt varnishing to make a dent in the cavalry contingent of this almost-all 28mm Victrix army.
12 Nov 2023
28mm Hellenistic Cavalry
20 Nov 2022
3D prints - The Greeks
Those of you who listen to the Madaxeman Podcast will have heard us talking about 3D prints a fair amount recently - and in the lastest episode ("Huge Grenadier Hat Malarkey") we even committed to the idea of Tamsin printing off some figures for us all to have a go at painting as well.
These are the 3D Breed "free" models (STL files to be precise I believe) that are given away as tasters to their range, and come in both 15mm and 28mm styles. Tamsin printed them off for all of the Podcast crew and I've now managed to finish prepping and painting the Greek Hoplites I ended up with, and have taken a few photos of them here:
These are the beasties in their au naturel purple plastic form, with "supports" still in place. This looks a right mess and a faff, but using a sprue clipping tool (a necessary investment for anyone making plastic figures these days IMO) they did clean up eailly easily and quickly to then undercoat for painting.
We'll be talking more about these figures on the next episode of the Madaxeman Podcast which is out now and can be reached directly here
1 Sept 2021
Line Up, Line Up.. for some Egypto-Greek ADLG action at the Seaside!
15 Jan 2021
Random 15mm January Work in Progress
With the Lockdown Podcasts due to start again next week and the UK in what feels like it will be a hard-lockdown lasting at least into March, I've been chewing away at some bits and pieces before embarking onto an actual major project.
Here's a few photos of the WiP figures (all pre-matt varnishing, as it's too cold to do) - there are loads more photos on the Madaxeman Website
I'm also taking the rebasing moment as an excuse to repaint the spears as well. Spears do tend to get chipped and bent, so repainting them all makes a big difference to how new the army looks.
Getting distracted by a variety of projects is sometimes a good thing, as it does mean you can get a sense of achievement from making a noticable difference to some figures - and at the moment we all need some achievements to mark down!
Equally, taking advantage of the extra time we've all been gifted at the moment does allow some experimentation, and the hoplites certainly fall into that category as I tried a very different painting style, taking almost a week to do these handful of figures
Either way, a break from launching into the next major project is great, and when it throws up some interesting figures, paint styles and creates some reason to use new(ly rebased) armies in future that otherwise might have languished in a drawer thats great too.
There are loads more photos of these on the Madaxeman Website
26 Mar 2020
Museum Hoplites Part II
There is a mix of armoured, linen cuirass, skirt and nude figures, but I just mixed them all up together for variety.
This view more clearly shows the different armour (or not!) styles
The transfers are great, but still do leave a big lip around the edge of the shield which for some of the designs (with detail right up to the edge of the transfer) is rather tricky to blend in with matching paint out to the shield rim.
The base on the right shows this - the guy at the front ended up with a contrasting shield rim, whereas the guy behind I just about managed to blend in the rim with a similar red to the transfer itself.
The "white" shields are a bit easier, and I went with a simple bronze rim for most of them anyway
As well as packs of mixed poses, there are separate packs of just the standing guys - my view is that you probably need a number of these standing pose packs to make up the bulk of the rear ranks in your army or units, otherwise if you just go fo rmixed packs you could end up with a few too many kneeling and, erm, lurching men in the front rank
I kept the crests all black - there's probably more than enough colour in the shields and their rims already and I didn't fancy drifting itno rainbow territory onn the crests too
19 Mar 2020
New Museum Miniatures Hoplites
For these chaps the mail order bit had been done during January in the Museum sale, making these figures pretty much the cheapest metal (or plastic - yes, I did the maths!) on the market right now, which is remarkable given they are the new digitally sculpted Museum Hoplites from their new "Z" range.
The paint job is definitively incomplete, but rather than wait until they are finished I thought some WiP shots might be good to get out into the internet-verse right now, partly as everyone is sat staring at a computer trying not to OD on (usually depressing) news, and partly to try and inspire you to support some of the gaming hobby retailers who will be missing out on trade show impules purchases for the next few months or so.
The Museum figures can be bought with LBMS shield transfers - which you can only buy from Museum themselves.
There are only 3 basic poses, but you can get (I think) 4 different states of undress for the men as well, which means there is more variety apparent from the back than the front.
Museum also do a range of helmet crests - all of the helmets are the same across the figures (at the moment..) but you do hardly notice that - at least with my painting !
I have given some of the shields a coloured edge to add a little bit more variety to the figures - once they are finished I might do a few more with bands of alternating light and dark for more interest too.
LBMS do a special range of 11mm diameter transfers for these guys because the Museum Z-range shields have been designed to be bigger, and flatter than most other manufacturers hoplite shields, specifically to take LBMS transfers more easily. I have a suspicion this might even have been something I actually suggested to Dave at Museum when he posted some WiP shots of the sculpts on Facebook... but that may just be me making stuff up to make myself feel more important!
The hoplites feet have really well-cast sandals - these have no more complex paint job that flesh paint with a diluted coat of army painter wash to create the detail in the sandals.
Likewise this guy is just wash over matt flash
Here they are next to some Chariot Miniatures and Essex hoplites. Apart from making my 20 year old attempts at painting shields look suddenly pathetic you can clearly see the difference in shield sizes, and in figure height - I suspect this is enough to make these Museum guys a little difficult to mix with other manufacturers for most wargamers.
The Museum guys "might" be on slightly taller basing, but probably only 1mm, as they are on 2mm MDF with no magnabase, whereas the other older chaps are on hardback envelope card + magnabase
This is a shot of the Museum guys with some Xyston - I think these are Theban - Hoplites. A better fit, but the shields are still noticably bigger
Here they go toe to toe
And with Xyston Paphlagonians - a relatively new figure for Xyston I think? These seem a better match.
And a set of two bases.
The shields are big enough that I have managed to base these in 7's, using afront rank of 4 and then 3 behind for an ADLG Heavy Infantry base - fitting two ranks of 4 might well have been a bit of a crush.
There's still plenty of tidying up of these to do, and I also need to decide if I base them with sandy-coloured wood filler or use the sand + woodstain + drybrush technique that my newer Biblical armies now are mounted with.
Once they are done they'll appear here again!