(Hobby)brushing the dust off… (Spring clean ’25)

shields in general I’ll cover with the praetorian cav (if and when their transfers arrive!)

but these have been done with metallic marker for the boss, and the transfers here are the stock ones from the warlord kits.

But it is the final countdown and half my family’s away so I Fully intend to pinch every moment of hobby I can today!

starting point of the day is this- a little advance on the praetorian inf, but still waiting on the transfers for the cav, they should arrive today…….

Reds highlighted with game colour bloody red.
straps picked out with VGC leather brown.
half the flesh had been highlighted with foundry expert flesh D

oh and bases and sandals / feet painted with VGC dark flesh tone

With the cavalry awaiting their replacement shield transfers to arrive, I was going to hit another “non regiment” project….. but the infantry elites had been sitting on the back of my desk, and while I thought about what’s next….. it just became them!

These were started long ago, but don’t ask me when.

they’d been made, undercoated, brown coated (almost all my models start dark brown) and had the metals blocked in…… and then abandoned!

I have, however, painted literally thousands of Warlord Games’ various EIR kits so these are somewhat second nature to me, even after a year or two away from them.

Nothing amazing – the current cabinet already has half a dozen regiments in so it’s just more bodies for the masses ranks.

skin blocked in foundry expert flesh B

Vallejo game Gory red cloth

Citadel foundation astronomicon grey for white area base

Vallejo game Brassy Brass for Baltea (dangly bit at the front) and hilts

Citadel Foundation Calthan brown for Pilum shafts

and then I didn’t like the one bit I’d done before, the metals, so they got drybrushed with citadel iron breaker.

it’s here I’ll add an extra picture, as I know guys at my club freak when they see me do this.

Below is the brush I used at this stage. Warbases hero drybrush.
and I wasn’t neat with it.

my theory is simple – anything that sticks out enough for me to catch with the drybrush will be getting a highlight later anyway. Straps and things I haven’t painted yet, so they don’t matter.
and the bigger the brush, the easier brushing is because it naturally stays out of the recesses.
so use a big brush, even if you’ve blocked in other colours around your drybrush targets!

Yes, I’m deliberately using up these extra entires but my oh my, basing makes a difference!

methods and colours are detailed for the Numidian infantry at the start of this project- it’s all the same.

they just need shields now, but transfers are on order as I tried to use my existing ones and discovered LBMS transfers, as great as they are, have a shelf like of slightly under ten years (mine being over…. And fair enough at that!)

I missed my painting slot last week but it was worth while – i actually made it to my local club for about the second time this year!

but, no painting, no spring cleaning and no update.

this Monday, the praetorian cav saw some serious action however!

First thing for me to do was paint the commanders horse. Don’t know why this one wasn’t done originally, but it was flat brown, so out with the foundry triads it was!

Then it was back to looking at the regiment as a whole.

all the whites were highlighted with Vallejo model colour white.

the hooves got a coat of game colour graveyard earth.

I highlighted the trousers with game colour khaki…. So they no longer looked like the hooves!

Spear / javelin shafts were painted with citadel foundation Catalan brown

And the horses eyes were picked out with model colour white and black.

And the one I remembered to photograph – the secondary bed rolls were done with the Reaper paints olive green triad

Then I turned to the pennant.

Now this is t the first unit of these I painted. Maybe ten years back I did another regiment and I turned there to remind myself as I’d particularly liked my original pennant. originals shown here…

Now, my hands aren’t as steady, my eyes aren’t as good, and my time is more precious…. But I wanted to recreate it.

shapes were roughed out with Vallejo game colour leather brown (closest equivalent to citadel snakebite leather I used originally), and highlights applied with citadel bubonic brown and very old citadel bleached bone.

not as good as my original but I’m happy enough with it!

And with a couple of other minor straps and such picked out, they were just awaiting basing and shields!

As I put the elephants in the cabinets, I noticed a unit which I’ve clearly got used to seeing in its half finished state.

I started these romances Praetorian Cav a few years ago (doesn’t feel like that long but it was probably pre pandemic….).

their start point – dust and all!

They’re already a fair way through.

horses are all done with foundry triads from the “horses” paint set.

the one thing of note is the red. I love this tone and use it a lot – it’s Vallejo model colour black red as a base, then mixed 50/50 with VMC dark red and finally highlighted with pure dark red. You’ll see it regularly on my models!

So it’s mostly detailing. At this stage,

I’ve done bed rolls with the foundry triad.

flesh highlighted with foundry expert flesh D.

white based with citadel astronomicon grey and highlighted with Vallejo model colour white.

Think that’s it, until next time….

Time is limited and not much to say anyway really- elephants have had their bases finished. Done the same as the Numidians below for obvious reasons.

only some dodgy workbench photos for today – decent pics to follow…. I’m a bit Busy throwing paint at other things 🙂

Running a little behind – I left the country for one week, for the first time in eight years, and you featured my little blog on the show!! That was a surprise to see in catchup!

aaaanyway…..

These brutes rudely jumped the queue ahead of me finishing the elephants last Monday simply because they were in the way!

they were painted to this stage for a Pelennor / Minas Tirith mega battle in ‘23. Did have details – weapons, straps, rocks and bases – finished in time (I focused on the city itself!) to my shame.

they’re still not part of an army as such and not meant to be a focus of the game when we do replay it so I decided to bite the bullet and use contrast paints on the weapons without any additional layering.

not the look I’d normally go for but my are they fast! A good compromise for models like these in my eyes.

for the padding and straps I still fell back on my trusty foundry triads, as I did to finish off the clothing which had all had stages skipped in the pre-event rush.

And I also tarted up the more basic models with basing tufts. These guys are literally just there as wound counters on siege towers but they deserved grass!

And then my 5yo helped me with photography and she insisted I include these shots so, well, here you go….

It’s not just me getting back into toy soldiers in this house thanks to the spring clean!