Wallachians_DBA Journal

Hi,

Apologies for not having posted recently - I just haven't had much time to paint..
Yesterday however I had a few hours free and managed to paint the 6 javelin armed Rustici which will make up the remaining elements of psiloi. These are the figures I'm not 100% happy with - they just don't "feel" very Wallachian. I'm placing an order with Essex later in the week (for a Later Achaemenid Persian DBA army) so I'll order another pack of RNN7; Assorted Tartar foot Archers, to replace the javelin armed psiloi with. I also managed to paint up the 5 peasant figures which will make up the single warband element. I really like these figures, with their fur caps and farm implements, but I'm not too sure of how best to use a single element of warband in DBA - my initial thought is that they might be a bit of a liability when facing my Ottoman Turks, Rupert's Golden Horde or Ian's Poles. I'll certainly try them out, but I think they might end up as a camp garrison more often than not....!
I stuck with the same palette of colours I'd used on the archers (brown, green and a little red) and am happy with the overall look of the army thus far.
That's the foot contingent of the army completed.

Today I made a start to the mounted troops - 3 elements of Light Horse and the general's cavalry element.
Now, horses are not one of my favourite painting subjects, but over the years I've developed a technique that gives a fairly satisfactory result. Basically, all of my horses are painted up as bays of varying shades!
I start off by painting my horses with a basecoat of either Games Workshop's Bestial Brown or Scorched Brown over a black undercoat, leaving the mane, tail & legs below the knee black. I then highlight raised muscles etc with a lighter shade of the base colour. In order to speed up the whole process I've actually mixed up a couple of pots of the highlight colour - 2 parts Bestial Brown to 1 Part Games Workshop's Bleached bone and, a similar mix using Vallejo's Middlestone to lighten the Scorched Brown (I found that white or bleached bone just made the Scorched Brown a bit "pinkish"). Once the highlight's are dry I then give the whole horse a wash with diluted Games Workshop Brown ink and leave that to dry. Varying the ink/water mix gives a good range of Bay shades. Once the ink is dry I go back and paint stockings, socks and/or face markings (stripes/flashes, stars etc) on every 2nd or 3rd horse using an off white colour. To finish I give the mane & tail a quick drybrush with Games Workshops' Space Wolf or Codex Grey. Despite using a limited palette, I find that by the time I've painted the saddlecloths & horse furniture using a couple of colours appropriate to the army I end up with no two horses looking the same.
I'm using my SLR camera to photograph the army and will have some pics to post early next week (hopefully of the army fully painted and ready to base).
I'll discuss basing next time.

bye for now..
Bob

posted by Bob Mcleish @ 1:55 AM