Question about painting cavalry

[Gjlsnowma]

I have started painting some Saxon cavalry. How does everyone hold their riders to paint them?? I am new to cavalry and struggled with painting the rider because of the lack of a base to hold. That's generally how I paint foot figures, one hand holding the figure by the base. Any tips or advice is appreciated. There are some pictures on my website of my efforts. Thanks!

battlesinthesnow.com

[Argonor]

Some people glue/pin/whatever the rider to a stick or cork where he'll touch the saddle. This is by far the most effective way to address the problem, but requires a bit of extra work. With this approach, the entire mini can be painted (apart from the point of contact, of course).

Personally, if I don't need the rider to be able to get off the horse, I simply glue him in place before painting - places I cannot reach with a brush are not likely to be spotted during play, anyways.

If I need to paint the rider separately, I place him on one of those pieces of foam you get in blisters, and paint him in stages - actually, I often use the foam when painting 'normal' minis, too, especially when I need a steady hand to paint, for instance, eyes, even if I have attached the base to a cork (I use blu-tac or the equivalent)

Without a handle, be careful when holding the rider by already painted parts - it is easy to smudge the paint with natural finger grease.

[Jeff965]

I get a little ball of greenstuff and place it on the saddle of the horse, I then super glue the rider to the horse and push the figure down on the ball of green stuff, there's normally contact between the legs of the rider and the horse so the green stuff does not get in the way of the super glue. The green stuff then, when it dries gives an extra bond between the rider and horse and also makes sure there is no gaps between the same rider and horse.
Most of my Cavalry are individually based so I glue the horse to the base with super glue and stick sand on the base with wood glue.
I then spray the whole thing black and paint as one model, holding by the base. The green stuff will bulge out from underneath the rider and I normally paint this as part of the saddle.

[Atheling]

I get a little ball of greenstuff and place it on the saddle of the horse, I then super glue the rider to the horse and push the figure down on the ball of green stuff, there's normally contact between the legs of the rider and the horse so the green stuff does not get in the way of the super glue. The green stuff then, when it dries gives an extra bond between the rider and horse and also makes sure there is no gaps between the same rider and horse.
Most of my Cavalry are individually based so I glue the horse to the base with super glue and stick sand on the base with wood glue.
I then spray the whole thing black and paint as one model, holding by the base. The green stuff will bulge out from underneath the rider and I normally paint this as part of the saddle.

What Jeff says

Darrell.

[Paul]

What Jeff said, or;
1. Drill a hole up between the legs and push the fig onto a pointy Kebab stick
2 Glue their feet  to something like a cork.
http://woolshedwargamer.com/tag/games-workshop/
2. Sit the fig on A triangle of Card/expanded foam, works better with metal figs.

[Captain Blood]

What they said 

I find the best thing to be plastic topped corks like these shown, with a section of wire spear / piano wire shoved well into the cork.
These corks tend to come on certain wine, port and sherry bottles.
I've got about 15 of them, and I've reused them over and over again for hundreds of different cavalry figures.
Also useful for painting things like standards.
Obviously making a hole in the underside of a plastic figure is very easy - just twiddle the point of a craft knife to bore a suitable recess.
For metal figures, you'll need to use a fine drill (on a Dremel or similar tool) to bore a hole. It only needs to be a couple of mm deep.
A tiny dab of superglue in the hole in the bottom of the figure is enough to hold it firmly in place on the spike during painting. Just wiggle it a bit to break it off once painted. Then you can seat the figure on its mount.

[Neldoreth]

I just glue my riders to the horse, base the horse, and paint it that way!





Thanks
n