Tools of the Trade 3 - Brushes, Tufts and Paints (plus some other stuff)

Over the last few days my initial orders from Mighty Ape arrived:

- 4 x Italeri 00 sables
- 4 x Italeri 1 sables
- A bunch of Warlord FIW blister packs (Armed Settlers, Frontiersmen, British personalities, Last of the Mohicans, and the 4 Indian leader pack)
- 10 x Army Painter Tufts packs ( 2 each of Woodland, Swamp, Highland, Mountain, and Lowland Shrubs - all 2016 editions)
- Army Painter Tweezers



I have to admit I was swayed by the price and the handle shape - I'm not at the skill stage where I can justify spending oodles of $$$ on Winsor & Newton Series 7  but to be able to have separate brushes for metallics, reds and white at an affordable cost is huge for my peace of mind.

I picked up the Army Painter tufts that were on special (the 2016 ones that are not as consistent as the more recent editions) as I preferred the look of them to the newer ones. Thankfully I have enough tufts now to base all 450 miniatures and bases that this project will entail as I'll be mixing them up as much as possible - I already have several packs in storage that will get mixed in as well.

Yes, 450 figures. Originally I'd estimated around 360 figures for three forces. That went south as soon as I bought some Warlord FIW and also decided that I would be adding a few more civilian/settler types to expand the scenario types I wanted to model. Project creep is real.

I popped into a local games store just for a nosy and was very pleased to see they were now stocking the entire Vallejo Model Colour and Game Colour ranges - so I grabbed some core paints that I don't have including that most vital of Vallejo products - Surface Primer Grey. An absolute must when painting lighter coloured civilian figures as I will be doing over the next 2 months. I made sure I also grabbed a few different reds so I could experiment with the shade of the British red coats. I'll almost certainly favour the darker, deeper reds over the palette that moves towards the Napoleonic red.

And because Mighty Ape only had one set left and I wanted to try painting a formal unit anyway, I picked up a box of metal Colonial Provincial Regiment - which I'll end up having to buy a second box anyway to have multiples of 6 for Sharp Practice.

Still a couple of things awaiting arrival, notably leader bases, 25mm round bases and shock dice/frames and the storage options I'm taking a punt on just to see if they are worth a long term plan.


Pete

Project FIW 2 - Choosing Miniatures

I've always been a little bit contrarian in nature, so the idea of choosing a lesser known miniatures range has always held a certain amount of appeal. Given that I'm starting from scratch, I didn't want to spend too much time obsessing about constructing the perfect force. I also had to bear in mind that I needed to plan the acquisition of miniatures reasonably  carefully as this is going to be a long-term project lasting at least 12-18 months just for the miniatures alone.

A quick google search and a disciplined return to PMT turned up some interesting choices. AW miniatures seemed to really suit my initial thoughts on how I was going to approach this. In terms of inter-range compatibility, well let's just say I put that aside as an unhelpful distraction. I can pretty much get everything I need from the one range, and if I do find some particular minis I like from another manufacturer, I'm quite happy to mix rangesd within a force, if not within a unit should the disparity be significant.

AW really helped themselves by selling their miniatures in Sharp Practice bundles, the prices are acceptable including postage and handling. I did like the the simpler nature of the castings, not too fussy or overly-detailed which suits my projected painting needs and style. They are on the larger end of the 28mm genre which I don't mind at all.

I did look at the Conquest/Warlord Games range which have the advantage of being available from Mighty Ape, but the availability of the entire range can be sporadic and I dislike having to order a range from two suppliers, particularly as Warlord have some figures available direct only.

In terms of numbers of miniatures, I'm trying to limit myself to around 100 figures max per belligerent so around 300-350 minis in total including civilians. This should give me some flexibility as well as being an achievable and affordable amount over the next 12-18 months.

So AW miniatures will form the basis of my FIW collection at this stage of the project.

Pete

Project FIW 1 - Why 28mm?

Why 28mm?

Choosing to play with 28mm has its disadvantages and advantages without a doubt. When I last built and played with 25mm historicals, foot were 50 cents, mounted troops were $1 and artillery were around $5 for a gun and 3 crew. (note these are NZ prices from the mid eighties so that tells you just how long it has been)

Back then I was dealing with a 1500 point Renaissance (Gush WRG) Persian army that featured around 70 cavalry, 3 guns and 130 foot., not exactly small or easy to transport (no plastics back than), and the selection of manufacturers was very limited.

If I was going to work with 28mm, I wanted something that wouldn't inveigle me into an ever-expanding arms race of miniatures purchases (hence Sharp Practice and FIW as opposed to British Grenadier and AWI) and also would meet the Goldilocks principle of wargaming - not too big to wear me out from painting fatigue and pressure to complete, and not so small as to seem somewhat half-arsed or paltry.

I did consider AWI with the plastics (TBH, I will almost certainly go down that road in a couple of years anyway - I know my foibles all too well) but I didn't want top faff about with a large amount of  assembly of miniatures (one of the reasons my CoC 28mm WW2 stuff is still sitting in boxes). I appreciate the heft of metal, particularly when handling individually based  figures and dealing with casualty removal/sabots.

Another reason for going with metal is that as I am re-learning how to paint in effect, I'll almost certainly be stripping my initial attempts once I've reached a standard I'm happy with.

The real clincher is my eyesight - brought home to me with a vengeance in the last 4 months. the thought of trying to paint even twenty 15/18mm figures fills me with dread. I've just had to move to a combination of three different pairs of glasses - Distance, Reading and PC/Office work - after 40 odd years of a single catch all prescription.

One of the reasons I stopped painting and modelling was that I was getting severe headaches within half an hour of starting a painting session which sucked all the joy out of creative endeavours. So moving to larger scale was always going to be on the cards.

I'm not going to try and create masterpieces in 28mm, so decent table top standard will suit me down to the ground and I'm happy to do without painting eyes or details that can't be seen without picking up the figures anyway.

Pete