Epic Pike and Shotte Cavalry Sprue

 

Finished painting a test cavalry sprue.  The figures aren't quite as good as the infantry sprue due to the limitations of the moulding process, and some are slightly odd, like a couple of the Harquebusier and one of the mounted dragoons in particular.  This makes them slightly harder to paint with washes, as they lack and detail on the front of them, but I have managed to get something reasonable done.

As always some quick photos, bases need finishing and they need varnishing.

2 bases of Harquebusier cavalry, 1 battalia commander, 1 light gun, 1 heavy gun, 1 base of mounted dragoons and 1 base of dismounted dragoons.

 

 

 Partial bases - the 2 curassier figures you get on a sprue and 6 out of 9 commanded shot needed for a base.

The sprues are definitely designed to be painted in 3s, so that you get a complete units of types, e.g. a battery of guns, 2 x Harquebusier, 1 dragoons, 1 commanded shot, etc.

I might get some horses from Peter Pig or somewhere and make horse holder bases for the dismounted dragoons, I'll see.

You are never going to get together the 15 curassier needed for a units (needs 6 sprues plus a cornet from one sprue) which would be okay for ECW but not TYW.  Warlord have realise this and provide a "resin" cast box of 15 curassier for a regiment.

I probably have enough cavalry sprues to be able to pull off the 12 Curassier I need along with a cornet and complete this unit anyway.

Another Epic Swedish Unit

 

 

Finished off another infantry sprue for another swedish 30YW Epic unit - yellow regiment this time.  Quick picture showing the result, need varnishing and flags adding.

I picked up another Push the Pike box cheaply off someone who was selling it with some extras for a pretty good price.

So, I now only have 29 more infantry units to paint, 9 cavalry sprues to finish and 3 scots units (probably in Swedish service) and everything will be done.

Planning on trying painting a cavalry sprue next and then I'll switch to painting some Imperial units.

Another TYW Unit

 Managed to finish up the painting and basing for the Grey Regiment.  Still needs varnishing and flags adding...

More Epic Pike and Shotte 30YW

 I have spent some time today painting another frame of Epic figures and thought I'd show them on the frame.

They are nearly done - need to tidy up the separate figures (which I find harder to paint) and then they can be removed, edges repainted and then based up.

These are a Swedish Grey regiment.

Same technique as before. These took about 3.5 hours to paint on and off during the afternoon.  I am actually enjoying painting these.  There is something pleasing about impressionist painting and getting figures finished quickly.

I have now bought the Push of Pike starter set as it was heavily reduced on Amazon (with free postage) so there will be lots more of these, after some French Marlburians are finished off.

Painting Epic Pike and Shotte

 I have been asked by a few people to explain the steps I used to paint the Epic Pike and Shotte figures quite quickly.

Basically the process is:

Leave everything on the frame and undercoat it grey (both sides!) then heavily dry brush white  brushing downwards.

I have some sample Army Painter Speed paints I bought to try (out of professional curiosity) so I used a mix of those, ink washes and normal Coat D'arms paints.

1) Paint the main coat colour with a wash (I used Army painter Magic Blue for the first unit) - just splash it on and cover everything.  If the unit wasn't fully uniform in colour I would miss out a few figures here and paint their jackets or trousers when I painted the hats.

2) Paint the hats in various different shades of Brown, gray and black using washes again. 

I also painted all the shoes with either black or brown at this point, and I used two of the browns to paint the bags which are on some of the backs.

I used one of the browns to paint the bandoliers on the musketeers.

I also used the black to paint the sword hilts.

I also used one of the sandy browns to paint the gloves on the officers and pikemen

3) Paint the Muskets and pikes wood colour

4) Paint the musket rests a dark brown chestnut and paint any hair on the back of the figures.

5) Paint the straps buff

6) Paint the barrel of the muskets, plus swords, top of musket rests and pike points Chainmail silver

7) Paint the armour and helmets (I used army painter Broadsword silver which is fairly dark  -your could paint them chainmail first and then wash them).

8) paint the stockings, drum bits, collars and feathers white - could do hat bands but I didn't bother. I dabbed in the stockings at the front as you can't easily reach all of them.

9) Paint the flesh on faces and hands (I didn't bother painting beards).

10) Paint sashes Red

11) Paint gold on drum rim and anything on the officer that seems it needs it.

11) Touch up anything that really stands out - like white in the wrong place.

12) Remove from the sprue - touch up sides of arms where they were attached with coat colour. Glue on bases, varnish and when dry add flock to base and glue on flags.

DONE

The secret to speed is not worrying if everything is completely neat, as you are just aiming at the look of a whole unit viewed on the tabletop and also using a colour in more than one place -so muskets and pikes the same brown and using the same washes for some hats, bandoliers, bags, etc I did wonder if the figures would benefit from a thin black wash to separate the colours more but decided it wasn't worth that extra step and it would dull down the colours.

Hope that helps a bit.

Epic Failure...

I have been thinking about a 30Yw project for some time, possibly starting with Swedes vs Poles and have bought a couple of boxes of figures (Swedish Infantry and Winged Hussars) to produce a couple of test units.

Wargames Illustrated arrived yesterday with a free sprue of the Epic scale ECW/TYW figures and I was very tempted by them.  The units are half the footprint of a 28mm unit and it is considerably cheaper to buy a full army in Epic scale rather than 28mm.

But I got rid of my 15mm because I decided I could no longer paint 15mm, having become used to painting 54mm.

So, could I paint these?  Well, I undercoated a strip last night and then dabbed some paint on this morning before breakfast.

I got 4 colours on before realising that, no, I couldn't paint them.  They are too small, too fiddly and I am not enjoying the process.  I am never going to paint 100s of these without it becoming a chore and I paint for relaxation.

So, back to the 28mm experiment!