Koyote's SAGA Britons, Irish,Late Romans, and Saxons

[OSHIROmodels]

Superb thread 

cheers

James

[Koyote]

Here are my first four Cymry Guides (or Scotti Sea Wolves).  I'm still dragging my feet on adding tufts and leaves to the bases, so the models aren't quite finished.

I experimented with a couple of different shield transfers and finally settled on the LBM's Saxon buckler transfers without shield design.  Initially I reasoned that their shields are unadorned because these men are local raiders and brigands who don't want to advertise their clan or tribal affiliation for fear of reprisal.  However, after appraising the results, I decided the shields made the models look unfinished, so I added some simple, hand-painted designs.

[Breazer]

Very crisp painting again. Love what you do with the footsore miniatures. Great job!

[Jacksarge]

Love your work mate, looking forward to more :-)

[Captain Blood]

They look great. Are they a mix of Footsore Picts and Irish? Or just Irish?

[Koyote]

They look great. Are they a mix of Footsore Picts and Irish? Or just Irish?

This batch is all Footsore Picts.  The next will include an Irish model or two and the Bad Squiddo Games mini that I'm using for Morgan Le Fay.

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Again another great looking unit! Very inspiring.
 

[Koyote]

My last four Guides (or Sea Wolves).



When planning my color scheme for Morgan Le Fay I knew that I wanted her hair and at least some of her garments to be black, but I'm not a good enough painter to pull off both a black dress and a black cloak, so I knew I that either the cloak or the dress had to be a different color.  Also, I wanted her coloring to both fit in with the other models in the unit and stand out. In the end I opted for a 'Guide' green dress framed by black hair, a black shield, and a black cloak (the latter of which is hard to see in this photo).  Matching the color of her studded leather vest to the leather shield covers to the other Guides also helps to tie her coloring to the rest of the models in the unit.

I realize that the Morgan's sword blade looks really bright.  The flat surface of blade is facing the lamplight, causing the brightness. In RL the blade looks darker and more tarnished.  Next time I photograph her, I will try turning her a bit more.

[Captain Blood]

Very nice. She's turned out well

[Ajax]

It's always a pleasure to come on this topic. Very beautiful painting !

[Breazer]

She turned out great! she looks very imposing.

[Madhouse Workshop]

Very nice looking miniatures.  Well done.

[Koyote]

Thanks, everyone.

My "reserve" unit of 4 warriors turned out so good that I couldn't resist buying Footsore's 4-pack of Late Roman Elite Infantry.  I REALLY like the look of the plumed helms.

My plan is to have enough painted minis to play either a Briton or Late Roman warband.  I want the composition of my Roman warband to differ from my Britons, so when I play Romans, my cavalry elites will be replace with infantry elites.  I think that these lovely models plus the four I've already painted will fill that role nicely. 



I began experimenting with flocking my bases.  I have several different colors of static grass, a box-load of tufts, and of course my AMMO leaves.  I didn't want to use my painted models as guinea pigs so I put texture on an 'empty' base and painted it like I normally do (Rhinox Brown base with half 'wet brushed' Vermin Brown and part Blue-Grey/Codex Grey/Administratum Grey).  I wanted the yellow and light brown leaves contrast with the static grass, so I applied some dark green static grass and added the leaves.  The static grass blended into the dark brown of the base and I couldn't get the leaves to look right.  Next I tried a lighter shade of static grass and I didn't care for the look of that either.  Then I blended the light and the dark static grass and still just, bleh.  I gave up on the leaves, but continued to pursue the Autumn look I had envisioned. Try as I might, I just couldn't get good mix of static grass and brown "Autumn" tufts. The problem was dark brown base.  Unless I completely covered it up with static grass, I couldn't get a good contrast of between the dark brown base and Autumn colored flocking.  In the end I settled on Army Painter XP Mountain and XP Winter tufts and no static grass or leaves.

It's kinda funny.  After spending all that time and money on different types static grass, tufts, and leaves, I ended up using simple tufts. Doh!

My cavalry and "baggage" bases are larger than my infantry bases, so perhaps I will have better luck devising a more sophisticated flocking recipe for them.

[Ataman]

I stumbled across this thread by chance today, and I'm very happy I did! Smashing work!

[Koyote]

Four Briton/Roman elite infantry assembled, puttied, based, and now ready for primer.  I made too much Apoxie Sculpt, so I used the extra to do a bit of work on my Warlord's display base.




Below is a photo of the simple device that I use to primer and paint shields. I cut each dowel down to a blunt tip and add a small dab of superglue to hold the shield in place.  When I've finished painting the shield, it's easy to snap off the dowel.  I use a pin vice with a large bit to remove the dried glue from the rear of the shield.  To protect the painted surface I lie the painted shield, face down, on a folded up paper towel and drill straight down to 'drill out' any dried glue.