Zoomy Zoid’s Speedy Speedpaint Painting Service

The colour scheme is similar to the archers but with more of the Skeleton Horde “unbleached wool” look as some of these are poor.  The general fyrd were an assembly of militia. Not just the poor they were made up of all men of martial age from whatever background or economic class that were not already at arms in the select fyrd which usually comprised the local landowning thegns and their retainers.

There are therefore a couple of wealthier men with mail armour and those able to afford better clothing which would have been dyed rarer or darker colours.  The owner would like a mixture of shields in either halves or quarters with an off white, dull yellow, madder red, dull green and dull blue colouring.  I’ve decided to keep to just one colour plus white on each shield except for the two wealthier warriors who have more colourful designs.

The mixes used were:

• Madder red – 70% Vulpus Pink Contrast to 30% Model Colour Cavalry Brown
• Dull Yellow – 50% Game Colour Gold Yellow to 50% Nazdreg Yellow Contrast
• Dull Green – 75% Creed Camo Contrast to 25% Jade Green Game Colour
• Dull Blue – 60% Akhelion Green Contrast to 30% Flat Blue Model Colour  to 10% Beowulf Blue Speedpaint
• Off white – 50% Holy White Speedpaint to 50% Menoth White Highlight by P3 (an ivory colour)

I have to write these down as I’ll need them for the second half of the force.  Blending the speedier paints with standard acrylics gives some of the benefits in that the paint settles a bit and you generally get lighter shades at the top and along edges and deeper tones lower down as the pigment settles after painting.  Helpful for pre-shading shields a bit.  Not as strong as you’d get with a layered approach but certainly as quick as is required.

All else as per the archers.

I went for a zenithal undercoat.  White over grey using Halfords rattle cans.  The look I’m emulating which has been agreed with the client is from my SAGA Normans force. I’ll therefore be using Contrast paints and a limited palette as these are poor warriors and peasants.

That’s the archers finished.  I mounted them onto the sticks as I’m not basing them for him so needed something to make handling them easier, both for the initial undercoating and then the brush work.

He’s seen these photos and is happy with the quality so its on to the first of the fyrd.

These are the first batch.  A unit of archers, a big unit of fyrd and a dozen villagers.  I’m told there are as many again but I’ll start with these and see how we go.  45 miniatures in total.  They all need some cleanup and I’ll assemble them fully prior to undercoating.