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I've had a paint log at Warseer for a while and I've meant to post stuff here at W-E for a while. I was recently reminded of this in my latest update, so here's a little bit of what I've been working on recently.

I've probably mentioned this before... this is for a Marienburg army. I've been collecting Empire miniatures for a very long time (3rd ed?) but never actually put togeter an army until now. I think the concept I wanted to do just seemed a bit daunting. Since Marienburg is a diverse merchant city, I wanted the army to have a mercenary landsknecht look, with no uniform and a variety of races (humans, dwarves, sea-elves, ogres, halflings...) This should work well with some of the old-school figures I have, plus the addition of some of the newer figures.

It's been a while, but I've slowly been working on getting enough figures done to play some games. (I've played a couple of small games using some unpainted figures, but it was rough as gaming with unpainted figures goes against my principles.  )

Below are the first 42 swordsmen I've finished. I still need to make a standard for the standard bearer. I'm trying to come up with an alternative to doing it in paper. I'd prefer plastic, but then I need to figure out how to attach it securely. I've got 8 more partially complete (including more command figures) and have started assembling even more swordsmen, so I can run at least 2 parent units of 25 and 2 detachments of 9.












Also worked on some artillery crew. One can never have too many. I started Leonardo years ago (5+), but only recently finished him. I think he's one of my most long-term projects.








ACHTUNG! I've removed my progress list and started to streamline it for my own convenience & sanity. If you want to peek at where I'm at in terms of painting troops...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmWnOHNZEk4TdGFnRGx6VWljcEtYbW5ERFkxT2pqQkE

Nice painting. In my army, not every model, but every unit has it's own colours, so i guess we're kinda alike.

dont send them Rufus, send them to me. I promise I will treat them with respect.  Were the bucklers from the original early shields with the holes in the centers?  BTW you did a darn good job on the troopers, I eagerly await the revelation of your standard.  If possible post the back ranks individually also they look sharp from what I can see.  Thanks for sharing, steveb

Thanks guys.

The bucklers are mostly from Old Glory. I drilled holes into the hands and into the back of the buckler and pinned them in place.

I looked at using some of the old round shields with the holes in the center that steveb mentions (and using the center parts from the really old skeleton boxed set) but they weren't exactly what I was looking for -- just a slight bit larger than these.

What I would really have killed for was a pile of around 100 of those bucklers from the Mordheim set. (I only have 2)  I've even contemplated trying to GS cast them. I know GW has even gone as far as publishing instructions on how to do that with their own bits in their own magazine, but I didn't want to get nailed for it if I ever play in one of their tournaments so I figured -- strangely enough -- that it was safer to go with the competition. 

As far as pikemen... I have a bunch of Foundry landsknechts, some of which I've even started to paint. But those will be waaaay down the list of priorities right now. Especially since there's a slim chance I'd even use them in Warhammer Ancients as the HRE/Germans kind of got the shaft. I've really contemplated building some pikemen with the plastic spearmen, but it seems they are getting hard to find now. And I keep getting outbid on eBay. (I know you're out there reading this, whoever you are.  )

The trick to painting all the multi-colors is to work on a batch of 6-10 at a time and do them all in similar colors, but different patterns. It helps speed things up when you're working with the same paints, even if the figures aren't exactly the same. I'd even go as far as mixing troop types next time.

For example, take 4 handgunners, 4 greatswords, 6 swordsmen, 2 crossbow,  an artillery crew and a command figure and paint them all with a blue and white color scheme. Then some of the last minute details can vary, like the bows around the legs, 1/2 could be yellow, 1/2 could be red (or whatever).

I think I'll join the fight for those minis, they look absolutely stunning!

I'm trying to come up with an alternative to doing it in paper.

If I were you I'd use aluminium sheet, just cut up a beer or soda can and there you have it! Flatten it first of course (for this type of banner as the beauty of the stuff is that you can bend it into any shape you want and stay that way) and glue it to the banner pole with superglue (or an epoxy glue if you really want it to stick).

These guys look great!  Very beautifully painted and a riot of color that works well together.

I'm trying to come up with an alternative to doing it in paper.

You may want to try a combination brass rod/plastic banner.  The brass rod gives it strength (lead banner poles tend to have short lifespans) and the plastic is easy to work with, and pretty strong on it's own.  Just drill out the standard bearers hand for a 1/16 brass rod (it'll be much stronger if your hole goes through the base as well.  Add a dab of epoxy to the bottom for a bit of ballast and an extra strong pole).   

The banner can be made out of an old 6th ed banner or plastic rod/tubing and plasticard.  If using an old 6th ed banner, slice up the old plastic pole and remove the cylindrical sections of "fabric".  Drill a hole thru the sections and slide them over a brass rod.  Mine fit snugly, but use a bit of glue if you need it.  You can also drill a few sections of plastic rod out and put them on a brass rod, or if you're lazy, just use the right size tubing.  After that, just glue your banner to the plastic "fabric" cylinders.  You can heat up the plasticard and place some ripples in it for a waving effect if you want a wavy banner.  If you left a bit of banner pole poking out of the top of the banner, you can add a decorative banner top of your choice.  Skulls work fine, as well as banner tops from the knightly orders sprue or the new soldiers boxes. 

The standard bearer is an old Marauder figures, as Hendrid mentioned, later worked into the main Citadel Empire line. Late 80's maybe?

http://www.solegends.com/marauder/mm60ftrs.htm


The champion is here, an early 90's figure I think.

http://www.solegends.com/citcat9x3/c92356empcommand-01.htm

(Shameless begging: I'm looking for the figure to the left and right of the musician & standard bearer in the first pic and "hero with sword 1" and "hero with halberd" in the second pic. If anyone's got any of them and interested in selling or a trade for something send me a private message.)


I've done paper and metal standards before, and I'd really like to try plastic this time (bending it a bit, as Pistol Pete mentioned). I think I will probably do it that way and replace his banner pole with brass as suggested. At first I was thinking about making the plasticard banner, gluing on 2 or 3 pieces of hollow tubing and then sliding that over his existing pole (after cutting the finial/top off)

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I like!

Love it! Great looking force, and keep up the good work.

I had planned on getting a bunch of painting done this weekend due to the massive snowstorms. We got snowed all weekend, but I ended up spending time doing a bunch of other things around the house, exploring the frozen neighborhood with my dog, and a ton of shoveling snow.


In addition to the painted stuff in the pics, I assembled & primed another 9-man swordsman detachment, converted a broken 6th ed. handgunner into a crossbowman and cleaned up a DOW mounted hero to use a a mounted warrior priest of Manaan. Or a mounted hero. Not sure yet.

On to the pics...




5 more greatswords, bringing my completed total to 22. My present goal is to get a unit of 25 ready for the battlefield. The top (front) part of the pic is a bit blurry. I have two salvaged metal greatswords. I got them for almost nothing because they were missing their arms. I fixed this with plastic arms from the militia set. Also, second from the left is an old "Paladin" from when GW had figures of 4 or 5 "Fighters." I've got some more, but the rest look more bretonnian than empire. I suppose this shouldn't matter since Marienburg presumably gets bretonnian recruits, so maybe I will paint some of the others up. I'm trying to stick with the empire look, though. The other two (center and furthest right) are just plastic figures from the 5/6th ed. sets, the "middenheim" two-handed hammer arms with the actual hammer cut off and replaced by some greatswords that I think came from the mordhiem set.

I like the look of the armoured arms better, but these will all be back-rankers, so I'm not too worried.



Here's the unit so far. Only a few more guys and I'm done. For now.

And a bit of terrain I did over the weekend...



Simple hedges. Green dish scrubber cut into strips & glued onto two-ply chipboard (from the art store, it's the cheap board that's sort of made up of the plulp from all the leftovers of other papers & boards, usually grey and pretty dense stuff.) Drybrushed 3 different greens, did the bases similar to the figures bases and the other terrain and future (and past) gaming table. Each is 4" long.

The freehand on the banner is great!  That is one area I really wish I was better at 

High quality stuff.  These guys really look like some of the landschneckts from old.

I've had very little time to work on my Marienburgers lately, but here's a few items..








First a DOW captain I'm using as a mouted warrior priest of Manaan. I like the figure, and like that he's simple but elegent looking. I can always use him as some other sort of hero (captain/mounted general) if I change my mind or convert a new WP.






A Helstorm. The first of two and a half.


Half? Why yes, after seeing steveb's pics, I had to dig out an old model to press into mercenary service...




The old Nippon rocket launcher. I may use it, I may not. Maybe for those big games where I want 3 Helstorms (sincne Helblasters aren't that great and STanks are only for the retarded.)


A pair of conversions...



First is a a warrior priest of Manaan on foot. It's the legs from the hero on the old comand sprue, the armoured torso of a knight (I think), an armoured left arm from the Mordheim sprue, the halberd arm also from the Mordheim sprue, a 6th ed spearman sheild with the embossed portion cut & filed off, a head from the hairy sprue, cloak from the outriders sprue (arm carved out of it) and some bits of plasticart and florist wire for the trident head.

This was my first time trying to cut a weapon from plasticard. Consdiering the shape of a trident, it was a real pain, even considering that I tried to stick with something nsimple & angular. I put the wire (as cord - I'll add some knots with greenstuff) to help hide the joint between the shaft and the stabby-pokey bit. It doesn't look great, but I'm not sure what else to do. Any suggestions, feedback, etc. are appreciated. Let me know if you think it looks OK or not.



And lastly...





A converted standard bearer, from one of the old metal halbardiers. He's the only one I've got and I've been considering a couple different conversions (mainly making him into a greatsword) but was suddenly inspired to try making a few banners from plasticard heated up over the stove, bent into shape and glued onto some plastic tube. (This is one of 3 - the best, IMHO.) So I simply cut off the halberd, fixed up the puffy sleeve where it met, drilled out the hand and then used the head as the top of the banner pole -- mainly because I was having trouble finding something else I liked at the moment. I hadn't noticed this IRL, but in that first pic it looks a little crooked. I'll have to try fixing that.