From MartinC - Painting Practice (175 Points)

So with the completion of the ACW, apart from stragglers, I had a chance to play with painting styles. The ACW were all primed black in my old style and I wanted to try out some of the ideas I've picked up.

First up 4 random Afghans from a Northstar lucky dip bag, quite like these as it gets my creative juices flowing. These were primed in burnt umber and then a series of washes were used to build up the colour. This was quite successful but I still needed to deepen the shading and lighten the highlights. The faces were washed with burnt umber and then cheekbones added. Eyes were done white with pen pupils. I changed varnish to a matt lacquer which is nice. Overall these are great.

Secondly were 12 pilgrims from Crusader, again from the Northstar sale. These were undercoated in a burnt umber wash, this was too thin and didn't work as the paint would come off with a nasty stare. Again washes were used and then the figures were dirtied up. The eyes weren't suitable for pupils so just shading here. Again I'm happy with these.

Thirdly I purchased some knights. A unit of 8 with 2-handed weapons and a unit of 8 with maces and axes. To these I added 3 knights from the lead mountain (actually it's a hill now and I await reinforcements). These were undercoated in grey and the armour washed in black. I then dry brushed with citadel mithril silver - it's a little shiny but still the best silver / metal colour.

The surcoats were blocked in dark blue with shading in prussian blue (both Vallejo) and highlighted with light sky blue (Foundry). They are trimmed in yellow and were supposed to be retainers for the Percy family. The shield design was supposed to be 5 yellow diamonds on a blue background but after effing it up 3 times I gave up and just painted a yellow line. Need a new plan here.

The bases have a frosted ground look as I mixed far too much glue and brown poster paint for the previous unit and so put the base terrain on these before priming. Actually I quite like it.

Overall these are pretty good and I like the uniform colour scheme for the unit.

Overall I've had a fun week doing these so I hope you enjoy them

MartinC