No Battle Plan Survives Contact

Well the wash was largely a bust putting me back to square one. I was relying on the wash to "tighten" the airbrushed base coats so that I can Drybrush the highlights whilst keeping the preshade green underneath. The result would be a quick, effective but simple method of painting the fatigues. All I gained was losing the built up layers and highlights. Bugger.

Instead of plodding along I turned my attention to my long neglected Flames of War. I base coated my British infantry, painted the flesh and began on the helmets before being called away. Not all bad but frustrating.

Practice

I type this with the post Sunday dinner belly reflection, today I practiced airbrushing specifically mixing / thinning. I feel after a year of airbrushing I've made some but little progress. Today I inched ever forward. I leanrnt to control my airbrush a little better and how to properly prepare Taminya paints on the other hand I was left frustrated with the Vallejo model air not performing as intended.

 

This weeks goal is singular apply my new secret weapons wash (should arrive tomorrow) and apply first highlights to 20 guardsmen.

Day 6

So my quest to paint / be productive for 7 consecutive days hit a snag, a long days at work + chores scuppered any desire to paint yesterday. Today I was going to try my new casting gear but a leaky man cave roof and cold weather dissuaded me, instead I headed inside to the warmth and painted the first stage of skin onto my guardsmen. No pics I'm afraid as the lighting was bad, all I've done is put several successive thin layers of Tallern Flesh the a couple of washes of Army Painter Mid/Sepia tone on. I suspect another wash or agrax will be needed but I'll see in the morning light! Tomorrow's goal is finish the armour base coating.

 

Day 5

I was only semi productive in my time before work. Narrowed down my armour colour and wash recipe, got first coat on 20 guardsmens armour but successive coats are needed plus general tidying up. So generally a postive.

 

Day 7

Armour is now painted, handful of touch ups but the base layer is on. Next stage will be some basic highlighting before I move onto chipping. Basically I'll be using a sponge to chip the armour before adding some final highlights. Later I'll use weathering powders to enhance the weathering. Oh if anyone's interested I used 1:1 mix of Stormvermir fur and fortress grey.

 

In the beginning....

Introducing the 95th Emperors Own, yeah an unoriginal name but my brother is a huuuge Sharpe fan and this army is predominately for him. The 95th or as I call them Cadians 2.0 is my first project of 2014. In a nutshell it's making something of the piles of guardsmen I first bought when getting into the hobby. And by piles I mean Apoc sized piles. The regiment is inspired by numerous sources but the general inspiration is paratroopers / Vietnam aircav, this means lots of personality and lots of gear to represent there light/modern infantry elements.

The general layout (and I guess the fluff) is the 95th are a newly created regiment from a rich trade world to fight against the newly rising Helghan threat and against marauding Xenos. They are attached to the 401st Armoured who will sport a decent amount tanks, there is also a small Naval detachment which will feature a couple of flyers and Valkyries. In real terms this means lots of infantry, a couple chimeras and half a dozen tanks. Being newly raised I can create the 95ths fluff through there battlefield deeds.

The plan for Janaury is cleaning and building two troop choices or 4 squads plus there command elements, additionally I'll build 3x missile heavy weapons teams to act as the HW selection should I need it. I'll be setting a goal of at least painting a squad fully and prime/pre-shade and base coating the rest.