Lord Flashearts Fabulous Coach

A few years back a somewhat marvelous model turned up on my birthday. It was the Warlord Games pike and shotte period coach, and it was lovely, although a bit daunting and so I put off looking at it for quite a while.  And then a bit longer. And then a few years after that.....

Moving on I was putting together the Black Coach and a couple of skeleton chariots and decided to use the experience to work on the coach at the same time. All four were made and based at the same time, but the pine and shotte coach was by far the biggest so it received its paint job last.

The build - The model was a combination of metal for the most part with a resin cab (and roof), and it's length and limited connections between parts - especially the horses to the traces - provided some issues.  An Eons Of Battle (youtube) tip for adding bicarb of soda to superglue to fill gaps and make it dry swiftly helped,  as did some green stuff in a few critical spots.  I made a base out of thick plasticard, only to discover it flexed under the weight, so I braced it with long straps of the same plasticard, hoping to disguise them with sand and flock on the base at the end.  The bracing did work however.

Painting - I gave it a rattle can spray of brown before painting the base (drybrushing the base) before moving onto the tricky bit, the actual painting. I had a few rough ideas on colours, but when it came to it my inspiration fled into a dark corner and I mostly followed the box art.  I find horses tricky so I focused on the Carriage itself first, driver, and its two passengers.  The passengers and their baggage I painted separately before sticking in at the end.

For painting I dry brushed most of it lightly in white to make the colours stand out, then I did a fair amount of blocky base colours before following up with a wash and then a highlight/dry brush. The red on the coach was the exception, it just looked right straight away so I left it.

Final stage - the flocking and varnishing. Flocking went ok, didn't hide as much of the strengthening struts on the base as I would have liked, but I also used some flowers and overall I felt it finished nicely. I went for a spray varnish, and not having used it for best part of 2 years I overdid it on the roof and caused some damage that had to be repainted, but the massed dreaded cracking didn't occur, amd after the first paint fix it was done.

Orcses in yellow my precious....

Exactly what it says on the tin, ronsel style.  GW has launched an Age of Sigmar start collecting magazine set, which for the most part is £8.99 and not justifiable for my income, however week two was flagged up to me on a Facebook page somewhere as being £5.99 and having 10 orcs attached.  Spotting it in tesco (other supermarkets were available but not stocking it) I bought two packs.  I was thinking that 20 orcs would bring a nice variety to painting undead, and that they would be a handy bit of colour to any dragon rampant games I played with children.  They are marketed as not needing glue (push fit), but I did use plastic glue, and I'm glad I did. Without it I think they wouldn't have stayed together.

Colour choices - green was an obvious one; a bright green followed by a green wash and a couple of highlights/dry brushes of the same bright green but brought lighter by increasing levels of white.  The shields are a red with a light dry brush of orange; left to my own devices I'd have probably ended up with bronze, but the GW ones on the magazine had a similar redish colouring and I thought id try it. Its cone out really well.  The clothes I was originally going to go with brown, after all there was plenty of green amd red/orange going on already. But then wondered what a brighter colour would look like and tried a yellow. 

It came out really well - I find it a hard to do colour so I had lightly drybrushed where it was to go with white, then put two coats of yellow. I followed this with some arms painter strong tone wash, before finishing with some yellow highlights and a tiny bit of white drybrushing on the very raised areas.  Jobs a good one, now just another 18 to do....

Work In Progress.....April 2023

In which I look back at my painting, gaming and modeling exploits of the last month and write a small amount.

I've finished a number of models I've been working on for a while, and very varied they are too. When I played regularly I would make and paint units ready for the next week, or even a big game in 2-3 weeks time, and getting them on the table to use next time out was my motivation for painting and modelling.  Fast forward and I am playing no games whatsoever at the moment, but have picked up an interest in modelling and painting once more.  My motivation for getting figures done is now very much about how much fun I'll have actually doing the task rather than getting to use them.  This means I'm picking some seemingly very random bits to paint!  I've also discovered a need to paint in bright colours, something I avoided due to a lack of skills when I was gaming regularly.  This has had a distinct influence on how bright everything I'm painting is.

And so with no more addo let me introduce you to this month's creations:

2 Orcs

1 Black Coach

6 blue men (more on those in a later post)

1 water carrying supply train piece

A hen house

2 chickens (same base)

And a badger.

The skull markers I did last month but look nice.

Working on currently is this nice ECW piece which I've had for a number of years but never made.  Currently trying to get the base colours right before going to the wash stage.

Little Blue Men

A while back I bought some zulus from a bring and buy, and hidden in the back of the box was two large bases, each with three....pygmies on them.  The sculpting was....questionable.  And the paint job on them was....hmm.  If you have read Astrix & Obelix and you recall the way Africans are portrayed then you'll get the idea. Absolutely not something that I would ever be using on any table.

I debated selling them, or even just throwing them away, for a long time, amd then one day recently looked at them and thought "I wonder if they'd look acceptable in blue". 

I stripped the pain off them, rebased them individually and tried a blue and orange theme, partly inspired by the Nac Mc Feegle from Terry Pratchets books, and partly by the thought that they could be mystical pixies/spirits and tag onto my undead.  I enjoyed the painting, it was very different in colour scheme to the undead I'd been working on, and overall I think they look good.

Don't get me wrong, I can't hide the sculpting, but I think they should be ok to use.  For now they are going into my undead box and I'll see if I can wheel them out next time I've a game and get sone feedback from the opposition.

The Black Coach With The White Horses

And the purple curtains. When I originally painted my Black Coach c.2001 it was very traditional. Black. Red curtains. Black wraith. Flames in braziers. Skeleton horses. Job done.  It was also on a ridiculously large base that made its footprint huge and made it an easy target in games.  The rebasing I covered in a previous post, and I'm pleased with the new trim base.

The 2023 Black Coach has come at a time of colour, and so the horses (proper horses, no skeletons) are white - inspired by Binky (if you know, you know), and after tinkering with purple gor the wraith i went for the same white effect. The curtains are a lovely deep purple, and the flames are blue and magical. Even the wheels are....interesting. The undercoat was my preferred brown.

Overall I'm a fan, although if I did it again I'd base coat the horses grey and build up.  The overall image is a physical coach and coffin, drawn by ghostly horses and coachman.

The Rise of The Vampire

The first warhammer figure I bought; purchased from GW Warrington years and years ago, he was the start of my undead army, and nearly invincible once he avoided my brothers treeman.

Years and years later and he needed a makeover. What he got was a huge base; with his daft sized cloak and sword ranking him up with the skellies was a nightmare. A new 40mm square bases means he can be counted as a vampire AND 3 skeletons, and fit in and look impressive. I hope.

The paint scheme is daring; pink followed by red and purple replaced thr traditional black. His squashed nose (a legacy of not looking after my models) spoiled a decent job on the face. A wash failure did not help - with the main colours on I went for an all-over strong tone wash, only to put it in the same paint mix space as a copper which wasn't dry, and he turned darker and a bit glittery. It didn't do too much damage however.

I finished off with a matt varnish painted on. It could probably do with a bit more watering down but came out OK. Overall I'd say 6.5 out of 10 - not as good as I might have hoped for, but not too shabby.

Great Chariots of Bone

This week I have been mostly working on chariots. I've two skeleton charriots which I've had for....many years, mostly unpainted and in poor condition. But spurred on by my daughter wanting to paint (in her case a dragon) I've put brush to paint and finally given them a dusting of colour. In case your wondering 10 minutes of mostly green and she left the dragon for another time.

The chariots had already been fixed and tidied up and based, and given a nifty brown undercoat (army painter for those with an interest).



The bone effect I did some YouTube research and settled on a white paint coat, followed by an army painter strong tone wash, before a drybrush/highlight of GW bleached bone, with extra bleached bone for good measure. 

I went for a burn red for the leather and wood, and a lovely bronze for the metals.

The bases were a red brown vallejo coat, followed by a dry brush of army painter monster brown, and a light iraqi sand drybrush to follow. I'm liking the effect, I'm just sad that the rest of my skeleton infantry still need rebasing so they will have to wait. Green is the flick of choice, and I'm still debating which colour to do the edge of the bases.