Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => VSF Adventures => Topic started by: Red Orc on April 21, 2018, 09:42:59 PM
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...but this isn't a workbench thread. It's very definitely VSF.
Brigade Games 'Steampunk: British Empire Troopers in Rebreathing Apparatus'. And their officer.
http://brigadegames.3dcartstores.com/Steampunk-British-Empire-Troopers-in-Rebreathing-Apparatus-5_p_3355.html
You know the minis. I think they're cool, I've had them a while but didn't get round to painting them, I've been talking about using them for my 'Aetherines' project for so long, and before that I was going to build my own Aetherines... I first mooted this project probably 8 years ago.
But now I'm actually painting them I'm just thinking 'meh'.
The current scheme is khaki pith-helmet, blue jackets and trousers, khaki puttees, white webbing and brown boots and facemasks, with some brass detailing on the rebreathers. The idea is the Aetherines are a crack-force of aeronef-troopers. Like Marines of the Aether, obviously. That's why the blue jackets - the Royal Aeronef Corps wears blue, I decided way back in the mists of when. But I think the problem is that for the life of me I can't see them as British troops.
The first thing I think I need to do is turn the helmets white. They have a cloth band around them (a puggaree?) which I think should stay khaki, but I think the helmets are going to go white (or maybe, the helmets should stay khaki and the pugarree should be white?). And then I think I'm going to have to paint all of their jackets red. At the moment I think I'm reading them as French or Belgian or something.
Anyone remember the Games Workshop figure-painter things they used to have on their website, where you could try out different colour-schemes on an outline of a Space Marine or Eldar warrior? It would be really handy to have a couple of those to do test paint schemes on (or even one given that 90% of VSF figs are basically Pith-helmet/home service helmet/Pickelhaube, jacket, trousers, puttees and boots).
I dunno. I'm in a funk. The minis I thought were going to look cool painted as Aetherines don't look as cool as I expected. Partly it might be my bad painting, because I can make a silk purse look like a sow's ear, and partly it might be over-anticipation. But partly I think it's because it's now so ingrained to read red coats as being British.
So that's what I'm going to do. So long Aetherines of the Royal Aeronef Corps, hello troops of the Royal Martian Infantry. Or maybe even the Second Battalion of the Royal North Surrey Regiment, in their Martian gear. Redcoats for the win!
(Maybe there will even be photos at some point, if I can remember how to work photobucket.)
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I don't believe the RMLI wore blue until the late 1870s or 1880s. Red was the traditional colour of the Marines, so no reason why they can't still be Marines if you want them to be. You are in an alternative history, after all.
I feel your pain. Sometimes though, all it takes is a break. Go away and come back again and sometimes everything falls into place, even on figures you'd almost given up on. We all have bad days, months, years... But they don't last forever.
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Thanks Plynkes - good point about the date of adoption of the blue Marine uniforms.
The problem really isn't that I need a break, this week is the first time I've picked up a paintbrush in about 2 years! But having done the basic paintjob on Tuesday, I'm distinctly underwhelmed. Not with the figures themselves, they're great, but with the look of them.
I think I just got it wrong. What looked cool in my head didn't look as cool when I'd painted it. There are undoubtedly several reasons for this (I can't paint as well as I can imagine, for starters) but I'm going to give it a go with the different scheme and see if I like it better.
I've been perusing threads and mini-companies for inspiration and I've found some great-looking minis and schemes (Artizan do some Martian Infantry that I somehow missed, and their Colonel is painted in 'trad' red-and-blue and he looks fab). And in the end, I decided that red jackets will probably just look better!
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How about this handsome chap, with navy blue puggaree and tunic, khaki helmet and white breeches?
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/72/ef/2d/72ef2d5a1a54588b9b9facbd883afeec.jpg)
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I was beaten to it by Cubs but I was going to suggest the white helmet and blur puggaree also, honest...
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Not that it matters, but that ain't no Marine, that's a Jack Tar! :)
It's a damn good look, any road.
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That's a most excellent pic there Cubs, Plynkes is right it's a damn fine look. But yes, Navy rather than Marines.
However, I was so excited by the test-scheme I've painted them all as redcoats!
The pic isn't very good but hopefully this will work OK... (damned photobucket)
No, can't get it to work. Bugger!
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No, can't get it to work. Bugger!
Well that's a bit of a tease! lol
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Anything like my Dystopian Legions Britannians?
(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8545/15574293848_6e73a4eaca.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/pJfjXJ) (https://flic.kr/p/pJfjXJ) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/10903634@N05/)
Although my Artillery Gunners are done with blue jackets...
(https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5519/14564492805_2ce17760da.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/oc1QhV) (https://flic.kr/p/oc1QhV) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/10903634@N05/)
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A bit like that!
But yours are better painted - they look lovely! :D
I'm going to be getting some artillery next I think - Ironclad's Electric Cannon (can't remember what it's actually called, Galvanic Cannon maybe). I've been drooling over it for ages but it was my birthday recently and I've got a bit of money for toys!
However, if my experience with the Aetherines is anything to go by, I will be giving them shockingly a-historical red coats. Don't tell the chaps on the Colonial board, they will never speak to me again.
For some reason photobucket is refusing to give me image tags properly.
Anyone know how photobucket is supposed to work now?
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Don't tell the chaps on the Colonial board, they will never speak to me again.
I think it's a bit late for that, but they'll not hear it from me. ;)
For some reason photobucket is refusing to give me image tags properly.
Anyone know how photobucket is supposed to work now?
I take it you've been on the Moon for a few months? A while back Photobucket had some kind of nervous breakdown (well, they realised that they weren't making any money), and declared that if you want to use their services to host your picture on another site you have to get a paying account. The internet collectively shit its pants and kazillions of websites were instantly ruined. LAF itself was quite badly affected, you'll find many old threads no longer have pictures. There was quite a long thread on it somewhere around here. Most people have decided to seek new methods of displaying their pictures, rather than pay Photobucket's "Ransom."
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I knew they'd changed some things. I've been going back and repairing threads where I can (using the '~original' hack that seems to work about 80% of the time). I didn't realise that they no longer generated image tags at all - I thought it was just extra faff to get them.
But, yeah, I've been really busy with what is laughingly called 'real life' and have only come back to play silly buggers very recently.
OK - as an alternative - I'll put a shot up on my blog and see what happens there instead.
Give me a few minutes...
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I can't say I'm familiar with the details of how Photobucket is supposed to work nowadays. I gave up on them a long time before the recent troubles, simply because their site was so slow and wonky and ad-filled, and it had become a right pain in the arse to use.
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I only use it for posting photos to LAF... now I can't do that I have no use for it all.
So, a link to my blog instead: https://redorcsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/because-photobucket-is-shite.html (https://redorcsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/because-photobucket-is-shite.html) where I've posted the only known photo of the Aetherines in red jackets/Royal North Surreys in 1st Martian War gear/Queen's Own Martian Infantry/whoever I decide they are tomorrow.
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They're looking good in those red coats.
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lol lol lol lol my wife said: who wants them to die they dressed them all in red !
also do you think darker blue pants might help you love the paint scheme more ?
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Thanks Thargor! I like them much better now.
Gun bunny - it's always been a bit mysterious as to why the English spent 250 years or so dressed in red... but hey-ho. But yeah, possibly, the blue I was using may be a bit light. It looks OK with the red coats I think, but with blue jackets too it just didn't look right.
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I feel your pain with just not feeling the original paintjob, I've had that many a time. A much darker blue may have helped with the original marines/blue idea, but the new red jackets work as well.
As an idea to let you keep a semblance of 'historical accuracy' regarding the uniform, maybe the Royal Marines' hierarchy vetoed the use of marines blue by these upstart Aetherines - and possibly banned the transfer of Marines into the new Aeronef troopers unit, forcing it to rely on soldiers volunteering to transfer. This would account for the red jackets.
With regard to the photobucket situation, I've been using https://picload.org/ (https://picload.org/), which works well enough to embed photos in this forum (& is much quicker than photobucket was at the end).
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I plan on using Adrian helmets w/gasmasks on my warlord brits and paint them a green (Waagh Flesh to be exact) with tan pants and brown boots. Not sure about the helmet color yet.
They will be the 3rd VEF Highlanders and I just bought a female Hussar Commander and the Hussar robot from Hinterland (as lone survivors of a camp the Brits found). Should be a fun crew for IHMN.
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Genghis, that scenario sounds very likely, given how often the Army and the Navy were at loggerheads. As the real Marines were just moving over from red to blue, the Admiralty may even have done the new service a 'favour' by letting them have the old red uniforms for a consideration (might also help explain the mix of uniforms from about 1875-1900 in my VSF Brits!). Having them in red coats just makes them more flexible. I can say they they're Aetherines (or the Queen's Own Martian Infantry), or I can say they're a 'normal' regiment (the Royal North Surreys, fictional but plausible) who happen to be in Martian Emergency gear or whatever.
I'll check out picload, thanks.
Grendal, that sounds awesome. I love the idea of using Adrian helmets. I also have a Rifle Regiment (the Northdales Rifles, again a fictional regiment) in what I know as Dark Angels Green and you may know as Waaargh Flesh (not absolutely sure about that, but I don't really know the new colours), with khaki Glengarries. They also double as 'Uniformed Naval Infantry Territorials', based on back-projecting the 1970s version of UNIT from Dr Who to about 1880. I figured 'Rifleman Green' was probably the best late-C19th analogue for 1970s battledress, and couldn't resist the idea of Glengarries substituting for berets. I look forward to seeing some painted examples!
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... it's always been a bit mysterious as to why the English spent 250 years or so dressed in red... but hey-ho...
I always understood it was because the important consideration was being able to identify the nationalities of troops from a distance. Muskets being pretty inaccurate at any real range the most effective way to use them was big lines and columns so hiding wasn't really the order of the day. Having clearly recognisable coloured uniforms meant they didn't get a volley fired at them from their own side or run down by their own cavalry. As long as they clearly were not French, all was well.
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never thought of rifle green?
or reserve army grey?
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Tropical whites?!
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/32/163-080518171553.jpeg)
Or even, if it doesn't make you spit your tea out across the room... Khaki?
Edit: I know you've done them now, but just in case you have to do any more of this sort of thing, and hit an inspiration brick wall again. :)
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Thanks for all the comments chaps.
Andy in Germany - I think the use of red goes back to the 'English Civil War' when not being identified as French maybe wasn't such an issue! I've also heard that 1-red dye was the cheapest; 2-it was so bloodstains didn't show up and 3-when originally-raised, regiments were outfitted by their commander (who could get the troops to wear yellow or blue or green if they wanted). I think you're right that red became the 'normal' colour for the British army to distinguish us from the French (we didn't fight so many wars against Denmark, it didn't matter that they adopted red jackets too) but it doesn't really explain why we went for red in the first place (I'm inclined to believe the explanation that it was the cheapest dye).
शेर खान - I'm not sure if you're saying you have never thought of Rifle Green, or asking if I didn't. I do have a unit in Rifle Green (well, Dark Angels Green really) which is my version of a Victorian UNIT unit, as I mentioned to Grendal. I didn't think of grey, no, but some of the grey uniforms from the Crimean War look pretty cool.
Plynkes, those white marine uniforms do look awesome - but white is bloody hard to paint. I do have some guys on the workbench with khaki jackets and blue trousers, representing a regiment in the middle of the change-over (blog post from 2013 when I started painting them - https://redorcsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/wip-of-some-new-chaps.html), and originally intended to represent an early incarnation of the Wessex Rangers (from the 'Spearhead' TV show 1979-81-ish); they may see the light of day at some point.
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Very nice looking chaps.
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Thanks Jonas. They're lovely figures, I just wish that there were about 3 more of them - an NCO and a couple of specialists would be great.
They got me on a new painting kick which has since stalled as I've tun out of 'flesh' and haven't yet got round to buying any more - expect updates somewhat sporadically!