Norman Army III

Just a quick update for today. I managed to get a spare half-hour this morning and put a little more paint onto the Norman spearmen. I got all of the men-at-arms to the same stage - their armour and over-garments have now been completed...

I am aware that showing each stage of painting is probably a little boring for readers, but I am using it as an aide de memoir as to how I painted these troops. With the next units, I will not be showing every stage, just the most important/different ones from these.

I will also list the paints used once these are completed so I have a permanent reminder of which colours I used and in which order I applied them. That way, when/if these units are ever added to to make up numbers for a particular rules set, then the menu is already here for ease of reference.

I will be taking a break from painting these for a week or two now as the kids are away but I may try to get on with something else gaming wise. I have been invited to join a D&D online game - I have created my account, and now I am working through the rest of the emails I have been sent to get fully set up in order to play in the next week or two. I will try to keep you updated on how this all works.

Norman Army II

Well, I was true to my word and managed to get an hour's worth of painting in today whilst I had the light. I put three more colours onto the Normans, which has brought them to life quite a bit now. Littlun is very pleased with the results so far and is already relishing getting them into action on the gaming table.

The second "colour" to go on was a dark flesh, This really tested my eyesight; I was trying to paint onto a black canvas, where my eyes could hardly make out any detail. I think I have gone over the lines a few times here but, again, I will try to tidy as I go along with each successive layer...

These photos are a little harsher in contrast today as I decided to use the flash on my phone camera as yesterday's photos were quite dark and not a lot of detail could be made out. My main camera is put away somewhere around the house and I no longer have any form of permanent set-up for photo taking, so I am reduced to camera phone snap shots for a while.

The third colour really started to bring the figures to life and will be the colour that ties all of the men-at-arms in this small army together...

Finally, for today anyway, I painted the leg wear...

Not a bad bit of work looking back at it - about 4 hours in total so far (glueing, undercoating and 4 stages of colour on one unit).

I am not sure what games system these will be used for yet, but he can decide what he wants to play as and when the army is completed (and hopefully some baddies to go up against).

A (fantasy) Norman Army

This year, so far, has seen very little time for me to get any work done on my gaming hobby. I have managed to play a few games of D&D 5e, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, but I have just been so busy that anything miniatures-wise has been firmly put on the back-burner...Until now!

I have only had one day off so far this year, and the current pandemic has seen me busier than ever with work (even though working from home), so I am feeling very tired and in need of a bit of a break. Luckily, I had booked up a few days off for the Easter period to look after the kids and today was the first of them.

I got a few errands and odd jobs out of the way this morning and then asked the kids what they wanted to do today (bearing in mind we are in locked down and cannot go to the park etc. for recreational purposes in groups of more than two). The girls just wanted to carry on doing what they were already doing - some internet You-Tube type stuff and some baking, my eldest said he was happy on his X-box, but my youngest, however, said he wanted me to stick the heads and arms on his Norman soldiers!

So, that is exactly what I did...

As luck would have it, he had enough pieces to make up 6 spearmen, 6 swordsmen, 6 cavalry (including their leader and banner bearer), 4 archers and what he calls a berserker with a two-handed Dane-axe. They were promptly glued up and left to dry whilst I hunted down my sprays, paints and brushes in the garage.

After the glue had had time to dry, it was the turn of the black spray undercoat. It was such a lovely day outside it would have been a shame to waste it by not getting this stage completed too...

Whilst I was doing the spraying, I asked littlun if he had any more Normans we could spray. After a quick rummage through his figures collection he found a dead Norman Knight on his dead charger, so we added that to the army too.

I had, by now, got into the groove and wanted to get started on some painting. We spoke about it and he said he wanted me to start them off for him and he might do his old Ebay LotR orc miniatures in between times. So, I got out the metal paint and did the first bit of brushwork I have done in a long time. It took a while to get my eye in (my eyesight has deteriorated even more since I last painted a figure), but I only went over the lines a few times (this can be tidied up at a later stage)...

When I asked him which unit he wanted done first, he decided upon the spearmen. I have only got the one "colour" on so far, but I am hoping to do a few more tomorrow to bring the miniatures a little more to life. Once these are done, I am hoping to get him to work on his first unit of 6 orcs. Unfortunately, the kids are only with me for one more day until they go to their mum's (with joint custody, we are allowed to take the kids between households according to the governmental guidelines). When they get back in a couple of weeks' time, I will finish these off with him.

Hopefully, there will be another update tomorrow with our progress on the Norman spearmen.