Painting 7th Cavalry (Dead Man's Hand)

Hello all,

I've started painting my 7th Cavalry gang for Dead Man's Hand so I figured I would so a "step-by-step" painting guide to how I'm painting them.  I decided to use my phone to take the pictures ... I think it works (and is fast ... I'm already a slow painter as it is ...).

In this guide I'll be painting the guy pictured below on the right.  I painted the other guy earlier.

Let's paint some 7th cavalry!

The rest of the guide here will be in the captions of the photos.  I've included the specific paints I've used in the pictures themselves (as you'll see).

I started by painting the trousers light blue and the tunic
dark blue.  I then used a black wash on both the
trousers and the tunic.  Back view.

Front view.

I use the same base blue color to put the first
layer on the trousers. Front view.

Back view.

I use black to paint the stripes on the trousers.

Other side of the trousers.

Second layer of blue on the trousers.  Front view.

Back view.

Third layer of blue on the trousers.  Front view.

Back view.

Base yellow on the trouser stripes.

Other side stripe.

First highlight on the stripe.

Other side stripe.

Third layer of yellow on the stripes.

Other side stripe.

Base steel on the spurs.

I washed the spurs with black wash.

I highlight the spurs with silver/metal.

I use a black highlight color to highlight the shoes.
I don't like leaving things just plain black as it looks
unfinished to me.

First layer of Union blue on the tunic.  Front view.

Back view.

Second layer of blue on the tunic.  Front view.

Back view.

I use black to repaint the belts, holster and bugle.

I use my gold mix to paint the buttons, belt buckle
and put a base gold on the bugle.  Technically my
Foundry 36C "Shiny" is the highlight color for
the Foundry gold set.  I added a healthy amount
of silver into my gold highlight to get the pot of
paint in the picture that is not labeled.  Front view.

Back view.

I use a black wash on the bugle - not many details to fill
but it tones down the gold so I can highlight it.

I use my special gold highlight to highlight the bugle.

I paint a base yellow color on the tassels of the bugle.

First highlight on the bugle tassels.

Final highlight on the bugle tassels.

I use my black highlight to paint the straps and holster.

I paint the base colors on the knife handle (spearshaft)
and scabbard (drab)..

I use only a single highlight for the handle and scabbard,
using the "C" colors in the Foundry ranges.+

I paint the flesh a base color of GW Rhinox Hide (hands
and face), I use Foundry Spearshaft on the wood
of the carbine and GW Leadbelcher.on the metal parts
of the carbine.

I wash the carbine all over and hands with a black wash.

I use metal to highlight the carbine barrel and trigger.  I use
gold for a band around the barrel and use a first
highlight on the wood parts of the carbine.

I put the final highlight on the wood of the carbine.

I put the base yellow color on the scarf.

First highlight on the yellow scarf.

Final highlight on the yellow scarf.

First highlight on the flesh - face and hands.

Final highlight on the face and hands.

I use black and white to paint the eyes.  They look a
little strange because of how close the picture is
but "in person" it looks good.

I use a red brown to paint what little hair is visible
on the back of the head.

I use white glue and GW sand to sand the base.

I use GW Steel Legion Drab to base the entire base.

I use a sand highlight color to drybrush the base
drab color.  The crack you can see in the sand is
because I didn't let the white glue fully dry
before painting the base drab color --- but I don't mind
since I'll cover it with tufts.

I use yellow tufts on the base --- small and large sized
mixed together to hide the crack and edges of
the base that can been seen through the sand.  Normally
I use wall joint compound (pre-mixed drywall) to
fill around the thicker bases.

To finish the job I use the base drab paint to paint
the edges of the base to make it look cleaner.

The finished product - front view.

The finished product - back view.

I know it took a lot of pictures, but that is generally how I paint my own miniatures ... and when I look to contract painting out I use painters that can match or paint closely to my models.  I hope you've enjoyed looking through this!

Blog Improvement - A New Poll

Hello everyone,

I'd like to make sure my blog is providing enjoyment for others.  To that end I've created a poll that is now available (right side and top of your screen) for you to vote on what you would like to see more of from me.  I've allowed the selection of multiple answers.

Please take just a moment of your time to take the poll - I really do appreciate it.

I will really take the results of this poll to heart and do my best to make this blog more relevant and interesting to all of you.  I do hope you've all enjoyed what you've seen to date.  I look forward to keeping things going for a long time to come!

Last, but not least, thank you to every single one of you who pursue my ramblings (or just look at the pictures) on a regular basis - I draw inspiration to keep going with these projects from your comments and page views - so thanks!

Best regards,

Jay

DundraCon 2015 Report

Hello all,

I've been a bit quiet lately --- primarily because my wife recently donated her kidney and so I've been taking care of her and busy with that (but we are quickly getting past it now) --- but fear not, my wargaming projects are making progress even in the absence of blog posts.

This last weekend was my long awaited trip to a local convention called DundraCon.  This convention is primarily a RPG convention but they are trying to expand their miniatures footprint and reached out to me at CelestiCon so I decided I would help them out and run some games.

Roy Scaife, Dan Kerrick and John Lantz all come along for the fun and we ran three games throughout the weekend:

• Friday we ran SAGA - Battle in the Great Hall.  This was a 4 player mash up (4 x 6pt armies) fighting around the impressive 4Ground Viking great hall.
• Saturday we ran Bolt Action Pegasus Bridge (same as I ran at CelestiCon).  This was the last appearance of the Pegasus Bridge scenario for a while.
• Sunday we ran Dead Man's Hand around a bank robbery scene.

For both SAGA and Dead Man's Hand we had new terrain on display.  I was very happy with both the turn out (we ran essentially each game twice and had to turn people away as we were full up for all instances).  I painted two new Dead Man's Hand gangs just in time for this convention - the Pinkertons and the Outlaws (to add to my Lawmen and Desperados).

In addition to the miniature games I played many board games - some new ones that I ended up buying.  Flash Point (cooperative firefighting game) was a hit and lots of fun.  Sheriff of Nottingham was another fun game.  There is a small game company in California here called Lumenaris - I bought two of their games - The Golden Wilderness and Vikings on the Volga.  Both are fun games.  The Golden Wilderness is about settling California back when the Spanish still were in charge and Vikings on the Volga is about being a Viking in Russia ... trading or burning and pillaging ... but trying to make money either way.  Both games are reasonable priced and the game components are high quality (for both the tiles are laser cut MDF with printed maps on them).

Pictures below of the weekend action.

The great hall is indeed GREAT!

The entrance is impressive.  This is Roy's model - he
based it on two bases that link together so he can
fit it in his storage bins.

My Vikings ready to rumble.

My newest warband - the Irish -- they did very well in
both games.

Pagan Rus preparing for battle.

Anglo-Danes itching for a fight.

The interior of the great hall.

You've all seen lots of pictures on my blog of
my Pegasus Bridge game ... so just one here
to show the first set of participants getting ready
to engage in battle.

Dead Man's Hand starting up.

The interior of the bank is exposed while the bad
guys try to make off with the loot.

That's all for now --- I need to get pictures of my new Dead Man's Hand gangs I painted up and pictures of the Irish SAGA warband ... I'll work on those two posts this week.

Tufts For Basing

Tufts (if you don't know, are little sticky clusters of static grass) are absolutely great for basing your miniatures and for spicing up your wargame terrain.  I make extensive use of tufts in my basing - but today I'm hear to impart some knowledge around tufts as not all tufts are created equal.

I'll briefly cover three primary tuft providers below - The Army Painter, Silflor and Tagima1 Miniatures.  The first two you've likely heard of ... but that last one is likely new to you.  GW has tufts ... but I don't use them ... there is much better on the market.  My primary objective here is to spread the word about Tagima1 Miniatures tufts ... a new find for me and something I think every gamer should be made aware of ... they have an outstanding product.

Quick tuft ranking:

1. Tagima1 Miniatures (best)
2. Silflor (very good)
3. The Army Painter (not so good)

The Army Painter

Link: http://www.thearmypainter.com/

I've used The Army Painter tufts for some time now (but no longer --- more on that in a moment).  I used their Wilderness tufts on all my French and Indian War minatures, the Highland tufts on my Old West miniatures and the Swamp tufts on my WW2 Bolt Action miniatures.  As you can see below, for around $7-8 USD you get a strip of tufts.  One of the main reasons I used The Army Painter tufts over Silflor was because I really liked the color mixes offered - most of the Silflor tufts I had were essentially single color tufts.

Unfortunately, the quality of the tufts with The Army Painter is the worst I've seen.  The majority of packs I get I can only really use 1/3rd to a little over 1/2 of what is actually in the pack.  The reason is because usually around 1/2 of the tufts are too spares or flattened to look anywhere near good.  I've had enough as I've found a much better supplier that is both cheaper (or the same price) and provides 100% usable tufts.  So from this point on I'll not use any The Army Painter tufts ... my pain is over.

Here you can see your standard The Army Painter
tuftstrip --- sparse and inconsistent clusters that
are flattened and unusable.

Generally what you see in the front of the
pack for The Army Painter is the better
side of the tuft strip.

Tagima1 Miniatures

Link: http://www.tajima1.co.uk/index.asp?pageid=282517

My good friend Roy Scaife found Tagima1 Miniatures online and ordered some of their tufts to check them out.  Once they arrived he brought them over to my place and I was thoroughly impressed - to the point that we both submitted a rather large order straight away.  I've now had a chance to use both the desert tufts (yellow) and wild tufts for my Dead Man's Hand and SAGA Irish basing - they are just AWESOME tufts.  Every single tuft is usable and the adhesive is really good so that you don't have to glue anything down ... just pull them off the paper and stick them to the base.

In addition to great quality, the wide range of not only basic tufts in all the colors one would want but also landscaping tufts (pictured below) is just outstanding.  These guys are my tuft guys for the foreseeable future ... I'll be ordering more for sure.

I think these are the best quality and best priced tufts on the market that I've seen ... I can't recommend them enough --- and the customer service was outstanding as well.  Do yourself a favour and head on over to their website to see for yourself.  Check out the pictures below to see a couple of the sets I have from them.

Silflor

Link: http://www.sceneryexpress.com/SilflorMiniNatur/departments/1040/

You really can't go wrong with Silflor ... they have a large and outstanding range of tufts as well ... but my one knock against them is the color mix on their primary basing tufts are a little too plain for me.  They are high quality and have an extensive range the goes beyond just tufts (wheat fields for example).  I will likely continue to use them to supplement my other stuff.