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Got inspiration to resume old west gaming again so dug up box full of dixon wild west miniatures and bunch of sarisan buildings I need to build up. Started with four random foot guys.

Think I screwed up grey :( Especially cloak of 2nd guy from left is failure yes? Probably need to redo that part.

One thing I tried first time was painting hint of unshaven beard for the first guy on left. How did that work out? Haven't before tried painting that. If model had beard I painted that but for face without sculpted beard trying to paint hint of unshaven beard....That's first for me.

Any other comments? Still need to do belts, holsters, gunstocks and hairs. Plus bases. Totally puzzled about bases still.

Nice brushwork. Not a huge fan of the minis themselves, but I'm a massive fan of Old West gaming (even sell my own game!)

Wow these minis sure are unique! I like them: good poses and kind of a nostalgic feel.

I like the stubbly effect on that first guy. For the cloak on the 2nd from the left, you might try blending your layers a little more. Especially a wet on wet approach combined with a gradual addition of white to your base color will really make the colors flow together. Proponents of the "Dallimore Method" tend to tell people to highlight to extremes, but the truth is it can come across as garish and weird in certain situations. The browns of the hats is excellent. The way the color flows from the recesses to the raised parts is well done. Think about how you did that and try to replicate that.

Keep posting pics of your progress.

Well, pardner, as a westerner myself, I can't help but say that there's a nice little posse you got. Heck, I like them better than my ten gallon hat and rowel spurs. Let's sadlle up and go hunt down that Black Bart fella...
I would suggest a desert base job, since that is pretty much most of the west...unless its a deadlands thing...As to the greys, maybe just a bit of blending. Sometimes just a wash of black or a dark grey can create the same effect. The stubble looks great, and since it was two bits for a shave with a straight razor...most cowboys weren't bothering. Hope to see some more!

ez8 wrote:Wow these minis sure are unique! I like them: good poses and kind of a nostalgic feel.

I have big pile of these waiting to be painted. Each unique. Dixon has wide selection going for it. Bit worried about how scale fits with others though.

I like the stubbly effect on that first guy. For the cloak on the 2nd from the left, you might try blending your layers a little more. Especially a wet on wet approach combined with a gradual addition of white to your base color will really make the colors flow together. Proponents of the "Dallimore Method" tend to tell people to highlight to extremes, but the truth is it can come across as garish and weird in certain situations. The browns of the hats is excellent. The way the color flows from the recesses to the raised parts is well done. Think about how you did that and try to replicate that.

Think the highlight colour was too light. Looking if I have bit darker. Alternatively redo it again from scratch. Now it's fang+nuln oil+russ grey+wolf grey(and retrying with administratum grey). Maybe fang+null oil+fang+russ grey as edge highlight.

edwardmyst wrote:Well, pardner, as a westerner myself, I can't help but say that there's a nice little posse you got. Heck, I like them better than my ten gallon hat and rowel spurs. Let's sadlle up and go hunt down that Black Bart fella...
I would suggest a desert base job, since that is pretty much most of the west...unless its a deadlands thing...As to the greys, maybe just a bit of blending. Sometimes just a wash of black or a dark grey can create the same effect. The stubble looks great, and since it was two bits for a shave with a straight razor...most cowboys weren't bothering. Hope to see some more!

I'll be posting some more as I get by. I'll be thinking how to paint gunstocks and hairs for a while so will start working on next batch of 4 along with assembling first sarissa building today. Then I need to figure how to PAINT those. Been ages since I painted buildings and never was good. Maybe I can use my brand new airbrush to ease up on that though.

As for bases...Desert is the goal! I'm just stumped on how to paint them! So far all I have done base wise is green or city. Never desert one!

First, great to see more wild west models. They're currently my favourite - so much character to put into them, and it's a setting that's easy to 'get'.

I'd strongly advise painting the sarrissa stuff (at least the insides) before assembly. mark out inner door frames, stuff like that. It's a pain to be looking at the inside of a building from one side and not realise there's a door there. Plus, internal detail is good in Western games - you spend a lot of time in buildings.

With your grey, yeah it's a bit stark. Needs to be a smoother transition.

Top tip: Don't just use pot colours. Mix on a wet palette or such. You do NOT want complete consistency from model to model - it actually looks wrong.

Base up before judging your paintwork too harshly. You'd be surprised how much it changes the overall look.

Gun stocks - paint brown, use a very fine brush to do streaks for the grain with lighter brown. Highlight edges with just a touch lighter.

I paint desert bases using two Vallejo 'Panzer Aces' colours - weathered wood (or old wood - same code), and light mud.
You could also use Game Colour heavy brown, and some sort of 'bleached bone' tan colour. Little bit of dark green clump foliage in tiny bits, and some GW 'dead grass' and it's done.

Look like this:

winterdyne wrote:
First, great to see more wild west models. They're currently my favourite - so much character to put into them, and it's a setting that's easy to 'get'.

Yeah wild west is pretty easy to "get"

I'd strongly advise painting the sarrissa stuff (at least the insides) before assembly. mark out inner door frames, stuff like that. It's a pain to be looking at the inside of a building from one side and not realise there's a door there. Plus, internal detail is good in Western games - you spend a lot of time in buildings.

I'm not sure how I can get them detachable so that they are easy to go in. That's the obvious goal though. I was thinking of assembling first just the bottom floor and then top floor separate and keep roof separatable as well. Then I can figure how I can keep them like that so that they are sturdy. This way I SHOULD be able to paint insides as well right? First building is basically just big empty room on both floors so painting shouldn't be affected if it's just floors that are separatable.

Top tip: Don't just use pot colours. Mix on a wet palette or such. You do NOT want complete consistency from model to model - it actually looks wrong.

Hmm good point. It's not like these are on uniforms so inconsistency? Who cares! Sometimes I don't think far enough! (off topic but related on not thinking through. I have big plan of walking shikoku pilgrimage(you can google that if you don't know what it is). Original plan was to sleep in hotel type places every night. But then I thought some camping in tent might be fun. Sunsets and sun rises are very good and when you are sleeping in what amounts to private home almost being up before sunrise might not be that feasible. But tents are expensive(there's also issue of weight) so I was yesterday cursing "I can't afford this!". THEN I realized...If I'm going to go into trouble of carrying extra 2kg or so for 1400km I won't be camping just once or twice but often. And every time I camp I save about 65-70e of budgeted lodging price...That saves up the money spent on tent quite fast! 10 nights out of 51 and I should have expenses paid up already! Stupid stupid stupid! Price ain't issue. It's the weight!)

Thanks for the tips and also picture. Extra inspiration also for clothes colour. Don't want to have too few colours to use.


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Next batch of 4 models I painted to same stage as last(I need to think up last pieces colours a bit. Been a while since I have painted hair, gunstocks etc so want to think those through AND check I have all the colours I need!).

Took given tip above about not needing to be consistent and so started to mix colours bit more.

Much more happy about grey on 3rd from left(bowing guy with shotgun). Love the model with just one arm and cavalry hat. That just oozes character! I have another copy of that model with different head as well. Originally imagined shirt bit more yellow but thought this worked as well.

And incidentally I love these sarissan buildings! Lot better than what I could do and not really that expensive especially if you factor in price for my own time. And seems they are detachable easily. The roof and 2nd floor are separate so I can have models inside no problem. Now just need some furnitures

Well spent two days mostly building the sarissa buildings(I love them! Easy to assemble. Even the corner hotel wasn't too hard. Bit trouble due to outer stairway missing from instructions so had some umming and amming over what pieces go there but nothing too hard). I also got some material for board itself. And yesterday did get another 4 to same stage as others and another 4 are on highlighting clothes part. On that I ran into slight trouble though as I dug up various shades of browns I didn't even know I had and now have trouble remembering what couple were! Hard to highlight when one doesn't remember what was base colour(which I even mixed up with black to boot...). Whoops

Anyway the next 4:







Not 100% sold on the bottle. Maybe redo that. Also 3rd from left might need rework on eyes...

These are fun to paint. Each is very much unique model so interesting to paint. Don't feel like factory painting at all! And never been mixing paints this much before!