Speedpaint Pens vs The Pile

All done, and I’m very pleased with the final results.  As speed was the key here this is how we did:

144 Legionaries painted with only Speedpaint pens.  @24 hours that’s 10 minutes each.

144 Legionaries based with Krautcover Soil of Sparta @6 hours an extra 2.5 minutes each.

18 characters painted by brush with Speedpaints and some acrylic highlights and then based as above @<8 hours or @25 minutes each

In terms of the essential equipment I’ve been very impressed with the pens.  There is no discernible difference in finish quality that I can detect between when I started and when I finished. My technique improved slightly on the animal skins but the pens delivered very consistent results right through. There is a bit of wear to the nibs, especially the Crusader Skin one but that is to be expected and hasn’t made any difference to their utility – it is a fairly approximate technique and the Speedpaint is very forgiving, it hides overlaps in a pleasing way.  The pens still feel at least half full for the most used ones and others, like the metallics, have got loads left.

The Krautcover was very impressive.  This is my first go at an all in one basing solution, usually I prefer a painted texture followed by a series of separate flock and tuft selections.  The basing for this force took a bit longer than I might have expected but a lot of that was down to issues getting them to fit onto the bases.  Once this was done the Krautcover step was very straightforward.  It dried slightly darker than when it went on which was pleasing.  I’ve got half a box left so it looks like a box will do two large armies.  Very cost effective.

Overall this has been a very interesting project.  I felt I learnt a lot and pushed myself to do things differently.  Now I’ve got a finished Roman army to show for it 🙂