28mm Edo Japan: The Ronin, Samurai, and a Kid.

Democracy at work.
Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll! It was a clear victory for the Edo collection. These miniatures have been designed for skirmish gaming so I started with un armored figures. Bear in mind that the Edo period is historically the twilight hours for the Samurai. The bright colors of earlier periods have fallen out of fashion and are replaced by more muted colors.

Each group or "Buntai" as the Ronin ruleset calls them is defined on the table top by a similar color. In the case of the Ronin, I use variations of blue. It's just a way to let players further identify the roles of the figure in the game.

28mm Perry Miniatures: Ronin

28mm Perry Miniatures: Ronin

Conversion: Lone Wolf / Miyamoto Musashi
The last miniature is a head swap. I also added long hair (hard to see in the picture) and played up the mustache and beard. Miyamoto Musashi was known to keep his hair and clothing unkempt as means of distracting his opponents. If you are a fan of Samurai tales and don't know of Lone Wolf and Cub you owe it to yourself to find out.

28mm Perry Miniatures: Ronin and son / Miyamoto Musashi

Employed Samurai
The next group represent Samurai that are still employed. Sort of the middle class Samurai for this period. Their group color is green and they tend to have more detailed and brighter colored clothing than the Ronin to show their status.

28mm Perry Miniatures: Samurai

28mm Perry Miniatures: Samurai

Pro Tip: If you have two of the same casting, paint them in completely different color schemes to hide the similarity.

28mm Perry Miniatures: Samurai

40mm Peninsular Project: Here's Where The Fun Begins!

The last of the prep work.
I've been making steady progress on the British Light Infantry, finishing up the last of the brown/black washing of the rifles, belts, backpacks, etc. I have a rather hodge podge collection of paints and inks i use so I can't give readers a "recipe" for this part of the technique, so  you will just have to eyeball it. The final mix should be a bit more brown than black and roughly 1/2 the opacity of the paint you would normally apply. Don't thin with water, use the ink instead.

Be sure to cover pretty much everything not already painted at this phase.

Here's the fun bit. Making faces.
With the black/brown in place it's time to start putting the mid tones and highlights on the figure. Either by habit or necessity, I like to start with the faces. I find that it makes it a little easier to power through any boredom that may arise when you are painting all the straps and belts that come later.

To the right are the paints I used, with the scarlet washed over the cheeks and knuckles after the final skin tone highlight is applied.

Next up: coats and pants.
Once the faces are complete, move on to coats and pants. I have decided on grey pants for the officer and a beige white for the Lights.

By making the base coats dark, you can get away with a mid tone and one highlight. If you want to push it further, and ad a final layer you can, but I'm trying to get these done as quickly as possible.

I'm still trying to decide if I am going to "dirty up" the legs of the pants to seem muddy. That kind of detail seem to work with the 40mm scale but would take more time...

Pro Tip:
Once you have mixed a grey reuse it on other figures in the unit. The bags, officers gloves, and bed rolls are all based around a mid grey with a soft beige added rather than pure white.

A mid tone red with scarlet highlight.

Reuse the grey on the bed roll and bag.

Officer with face, coat and pants completed.

The Perry Brother's Retire!

It seems the brothers have stepped away from Games Workshop to focus on their historical miniatures! I don't really paint fantasy miniatures anymore, but in honor of this auspicious occasion I thought I would post one of my favorite miniatures from their tenure with GW. I really should get around to basing these fellows.

28mm Gandalf the Grey

28mm Gandalf the Grey