Painting in multiple scales

Having had a couple of weeks off work I’m not really looking forward to going back on Monday. At least the Border Reiver show would be a good ending to my holidays – or so I thought. Best laid plans and all that. Whilst the rest of the Petains are off gallivanting at the wargames show I’m stuck at home as we have the decorators in!

That being the case, I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out this blogging malarkey without having to post my contributions via the club president; so armed with a brand spanking new Google account here we go.

So what have been up to this last 2 weeks? Well, basically lots and lots of painting – although not what you might think.

First off we have painting in the grand scale – i.e. we are having the house redecorated. Thankfully, I’m not doing this one; I don’t think my brushes are up to it; even my number 3 may be a tad small! 

Stepping down in scale, I spent the best part of a week renovating old shields and making new ones. We have a show at Stamford Bridge, later this month, and I needed a new kite shield; my previous one has a large javelin sized hole in it. So after a couple of days sawing, filing, riveting, painting and stitching I now have what I hope is a combat ready shield

While I was at it I also knocked up a couple of late Roman shields, as I had some spare wood left over. Here is mine. The design is from the Arch of Constantine (according to Phil Barker) and may represent the Celtae. The colours shown in the Notitia Dignitatum are a yellow device on a red background but, as we are not trying to represent a particular unit, I have painted it using our group colours.

As an Anglo-Saxon re-enactor, an obvious question is why am I making Roman shields? Well the answer is that I have been indulging in a spot of ‘time tarting’ as it is known in re-enacting circles! 

Hence, I spent a pleasantly hot Bank Holiday Monday helping out at a Roman display at Binchester Roman fort. I know - the kit is from multiple periods but as the display was more pantomime than serious it didn't really matter. Anyway we didn't have an army list to work from - unless it was one of Uriah's infamous WRG 5th edition lists! 

Stepping down in scale, once again, I have also nearly finished my 28mm Peninsular French force for Sharp Practice. I know the photo is not great but as I can’t access my figures at the moment it will have to do.

The bases still need finishing and I hope to complete the officers, sergeants and drummers over the weekend, decorating permitting. The figures are all Victrix plastics and I managed to get two groups of 6 voltigeurs and four groups of 8 fusiliers from a single box. OK, the eagle eyed among you have probably spotted that four of the fusiliers are actually grenadiers but I have a plan for these.

And finally we have some opposition for Larry the Libyan. My QT Models chariot is now painted and based! 

Obviously, I still need to texture the base but I’m going to leave that until I acquire some more figures. For such an old casting, I was pleasantly surprised by how much detail there was, although you can’t really tell from the photographs. There was certainly more detail than my meagre painting skills could cope with. The model was relatively simple to assemble and went together tolerably well. My only criticism is that the metal is horribly soft and I managed to inadvertently bend bits on several occasions.

Now whilst I await some reinforcements I suppose I should name the little chap – hmmm, I shall have to ponder upon that one.