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How that 'dip' are working? Like contrast?

It's like a cross between wash and contrast paint- heavier than wash, lighter than contrast. It flows well into low spots but provides color for the higher or flatter surfaces. I'm going to experiment a little and see how it will take a thin wash on top, to provide more depth of color. This particular dip is from Greenstuff World and is fairly reasonably priced.




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Saddle pads are done...

That's looks realy good. Have you thought about adding more blue or maybe purple to the seams? It might make the blankets stand out even more.

Yes- exactly that! I figure to use a royal or dark blue wash to make the seams stand out and enhance the one color on the pieces that won't be military green, tan or brown.

Still thinking about some sort of unit sigil or patch on the coat sleeves, too, for the same purpose.




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Got a little bit more work done tonight:

Added the blue wash to the saddle pads and got the saddle bags done:



These will get a wash of Sepia or Burnt Umber and that should do them. The equipage straps will all be khaki (blanket rolls, bags, ammo pouches), the saddle furniture (saddle, girth, reins, crupper, martingale and bridle) will get mahogany brown- more leather-like.

Also got all the horse gas masks painted:



The chamfron will get the 'red lacquered armor' treatment and the eye lens and the grill on the front will get done in gun metal or silver (maybe brass for the grill?).

Thank you for looking in, more follows soonest.

Nice progress on the horses, Meer_Cat , but what a busy schedule. I'm looking forward to the eventual hobbit houses.

With more blue it's really looks better. IMHO bags are a bit invisible. Maybe some orange/red brown for them?

Thanks for looking in, Syro- the hard part sometimes is keeping the momentum going!

kabaakaba: I agree the saddle bags are too close in color to the horses- this khaki may work with the other squadron (to be mounted on bays, if I don't succumb to a mad desire to greenstuff feathers on the fetlocks and make them Gypsy Vanners) but it doesn't work here. I had intended to give them a wash of sepia, but even that is going to leave them too blaaah!, so I'll probably do them over in the same mahogany as the rest of the harness (reins, martingales, girths, etc).

I wanted to go with a more 'military' color for all the bags and blanket rolls and groundsheets, to distinguish them from the harness, but a darker brown is really going to work better to set off the palomino horses.

Very grateful for the constructive criticism- I hope to get some painting in later tonight, after finishing up Christmas cards!

Check 4bo color. It should be what you looking for. And it can make you bags looks better.

Thanks for the advice, kabaakaba- that will be the next step and one that I think I will take: tonight I tried washing the khaki bags with sepia and- while it's 'okay'- I don't think it's what I'm looking for. Which means the next step is trying a darker brown, more 'leather-like' color.

Here's pics of tonight's work:





Hmm- that second one isn't really useful at all.

But in the first you can see the washed saddle bags, and I got the base color on the coats. Which, naturally, I changed my mind on since I did all the sleeves, which are khaki and now these coats, which are Mossy Green, so I need to go back and repaint all the arms. Everything gets washed with Athonite Camo Shade (gonna have to figure out what to replace that with, now that GW doesn't do 'washes' any more).

You can see I also base colored the ground sheets/shelter halves at the front of the saddle bow. These are too dark a green to get a wash, but will get drybrushed for contrast and the straps will get painted khaki and washed a little with sepia.

That string of ammunition pouches you see at the horse's neck are definitely going to be mahogany brown.

I'm fixing to do most of the rest of the equipage in that same (Model Color Russian Uniform) green, but use different shades of wash and drybrushing to give everything a darker or lighter color, depending on how much weathering it can expect to get based on its location on the saddle and frequency of use.

Thank you for looking in, I truly hope to get some more done tomorrow night. I really feel like things are starting to move, so long as I can maintain momentum.

So, we're at the fun stage finally, where some solid work shows (visible) solid results:



All 10 riders got their uniform trousers done and the casque and rain slicker painted (the casque is the cylinder behind the saddle- it dates to at least the Napoleonic Wars and is semi-rigid and intended for breakables that might not survive a trip in the soft side saddle bags, which many cavalry didn't have anyway, until the First World War). The rain slicker is the roll attached under the left-side saddle bag.

The casque and rain slicker are done in Folk art Graphite Blue, which is a very fun color to work with: by itself it looks more whitish, next to something blue or black it looks blue and next to something brown looks grey, which is what I wanted. I'll hit it with a grey or black wash, and they're done.

You can also see in the pic that I got (on only 2 riders, as proof of concept) the boots done (black) and the turnbacks on the overcoats- Sunny Yellow, same as the coat cuffs. The turnbacks will get some sort of wash, possibly a light brown, to dull them down as they would look on a piece of clothing that gets worn much and washed seldom. I was going to do the boots the same mahogany brown as other leather items, but there are a lot of them in one place on the figure (girth, stirrups, lacing straps on the shin guards) so wanted a different, but not flashy color that could still stand up for itself in a very crowded environment- black's your best friend for this.

The shin guards themselves will get the same armor colors as the horse's chamfron and the breastplate- but I'll have to modify the color layering scheme as none of the armor pieces have a lot of relief to make the brown base layer with multiple washes and drybrushings stand out. I think I'll try a base of wine red with a black wash and see how that looks.

More follows on Monday- I'm back to the farm (my actual home) tomorrow and won't get a chance to return to this until then. Thank you for looking in.

Excellent results, so far!
I will continue to follow your work.

Thanks very much for the encouragement, yangelis! I hope to have more to show soon!

Progress tonight:



Everybody's coatee turnbacks are done, although a couple will need a second layer to smooth out the color- I'm finally learning that the first coat doesn't have to cover entirely, that several thinner coats are actually to be desired not just because they obscure less detail, but because you can work some interesting blending tricks between layers.

Ditto all the ammo pouches and straps around the horses' necks. These were a right pain, as I won't be washing the horse bodies as a final step, so can't slop paint around with as much disregard as I usually do- had to be very careful. These will still get a light wash of probably black, then some very light brown or cream drybrushing and to make them pop I'm going to add a dot of black and then a dot of brass inside that for a button (used to do this all the time for Napoleonics), this should bring up the straps that are actually molded onto the pouches but aren't high enough to catch a good line of wash.

Everybody's boots are done, so next is the stirrup leathers and irons and then I can think about beginning to base coat all the armor pieces- breastplate, chamfron, greaves, helmet.

And the horse furniture- straps everywhere! On the one hand, Station Forge castings/printings have a metric crap-ton of detail , on the other hand, you have to do something with it! Bridles, girths, cruppers, some straps to hold the panniers, some others that I suspect don't do anything.....

Thanks for looking in, more follows soonest.

Good work, Meer'.
Have a good Christmas break.

Merry Christmas Dr H! Thank you very much for looking in.

I surprised myself with some good, head down, two hours worth of work tonight- I didn't think I'd get near everything done that I did:





As I worked I saw a lot 'oops' and missed items from earlier work, as I changed colors I set the pieces aside and then hit the touch up. What all got painted is the cuirasses, helmets, greaves, chamfrons and the riders' protective masks. I used the Wine Red from the previous infantry (on them it was a drybrush highlight color) as the base color- everything gets hit with black wash and then probably a lighter red drybrush at the edges- that or a gunmetal.

Washes for me are a final step, I tend to do them all at once at the end, but there is so much depth to these figures that I may have to wash as I go, to avoid having to do a billion touch ups later.

And, madness that it is, I reckon to freehand the Japanese kanji character for 'lightning' on every breast plate. Perhaps sanity will prevail, but I doubt it.

As needed, I'll make a wash of the armor base color to smooth out the finish.

Next up are the respirator packs on the riders, the gas mask hoses for both horse and rider, and lot of straps. The greaves look sloppy at the moment, but they will gain definition as I get the stirrup leathers painted in.

I welcome your observations and constructive criticism. Thank you for looking in.

More follows soonest.

Another solid two hours of work tonight:



These will probably be the last pics until completion of the project, as there won't be any more striking changes in their overall appearance- a ton of straps to do and then many, many washes and dry brushes. I wanted to include this one to show of the protective mask lenses for both the horses and the riders.



So, all told, tonight I:
*painted all the protective mask hoses black- they'll get drybrushed with brass next (vice my normal silver)
*painted the respirators on the riders' backs- they'll get a green wash and be about done
*painted the stirrup leathers
*painted all the mask lenses- still need to add some gun metal/thrash metal drybrush to the grills on both
*repainted the casque and poncho from the Graphite Blue to Russian Uniform Green- the blue was just too bright
* painted the straps on the blanket roll carried over the front of the saddle

Once all the fiddly painting is done, I can finish up the arms and think about moving on to the next project!

Thank you for looking in, more follows soonest.

Back! After a lovely two complete weeks at my family's farm up in Pennsy, followed by a week and a half on the road for my work, back to split-based ops between Pennsy and Virginny and recovered enough to get a little painting in tonight:



The bridle leathers are done and the brasswork on them plus the neck and belly bands. The lower, larger leathers ring forward of the saddle I've painted brass and they will need touch up with the Mahogany Brown I used, but the ring the joins the headstall and cheek pieces of the bridle is smaller and not nearly so well cast: I painted them in as solid conchos, but I don't like the look. It occurs to me that they are about the size of the rivets I used on the Kittyhawk, so I'll probably glue rivets over them and paint that brass.

So the next step is to finish off the arms and weapons and glue those on, and then start in on washes, of which there will be several.

More follows soonest, thank you for looking in.

That's great. Amazing contrast of blue and red over all khaki and ochre.

Thanks very much, kabaakaba! A little bit more done tonight, small things, one more good push and this set of cav will be done. I've got a hankerin' to do a grubby vehicle next, I think!

First Squadron, 5th Imperial Cavalry Regiment (The Lightnings), are finished. Overall I'm pretty pleased with how they came out- I put a lot of effort into using all the tips, tricks and techniques all y'all have tried to teach me over the past 10 years, and the few I had before I got here.

One massive error affected the final overall look, and that was not picking out arms carefully enough at the very start, and then not keeping track of where the extra bits got to as I worked. The three riders with their lance held in the left hand and laying across their saddle bows are because I picked the wrong arms to begin with (the vender supplied almost half again as many arms for both sides as needed, so definitely my own fething responsibility). And then when finally gluing them on, realized that they were for the left, not the right, forget I had extras, so converted a bunch of rein holding arms into free arms and stuck those on. Eh, like I said, overall I'm pleased with the outcome.

Clearly the only answer to resolve this contretemps is to order another squadron, paint them up and do have with lances in a 'rest' position and do the other five in couched 'charge' postions and have two squadrons of cav- one at the charge and one at rest.





















If you're still here after all the pics, here's a couple of notes:

- The weathering on the saddle bags is from me painting and then handling the miniatures; the saddle bags were a convenient and sturdy place to grip them whilst painting everythign else. They have a wash, but the lighter coloring is from handling, not drybrushing.

- The base are from Cobalt Keep and have a spot molded into them for a 3-5mm disc magnet (I use 5mm as the figures are pretty heavy).

- The flocking is from Huge Miniatures- what they call 'Bog'.

- These are Station Forge figures, and cast to look very much like Krieg Rough Riders; I added the kabuto helmet ornaments to keep the unit in line with the Space Samurai theme and made them by clipping 8mm lock washers in half with snips.

- Never was able to straighten the lances out without breaking them, even with the careful application of heat. I'll pay closer attention to the lance component next time and apply wight over a period of time to gently flex them into a new normal.

Thank you for looking in. On to the next.

Very nice cavalry group, your Shogun would approve!

Thanks very much, Tommygun1918! I've seen a series of steampunk figures on Etsy that include a seated warlord with sashimono (back banners) that I'll just have to get to act as the Officer Commanding for this army!

I'm hoping Resin Munitorum bring back the Doom Pixies (Nekomimi Winterguard), but until they do, this'll keep me busy.

Here's something a bit different, and a fair bit overdue.

I've mentioned here several times the degree to which my wife supports my 'toy soldier' hobby: she scavenges interesting bits of plastic off parking lots, saves other interesting bits as she comes across them in our household activities and when I asked for three #0 and three #00 brushes for Christmas (she asked!) she got me three complete sets of brushes of all common sizes and including drybrushes and powdering brushes.

We also still set up a Christmas Village of porcelain buildings, people and especially horse-drawn conveyances, given our interest in real horse rescue. She likes a series called 'Dickensvale' and I also enjoy setting things up and trying different arrangements.

My wife also thinks I can fix anything, which is very flattering but not always true.

So when she came to me with the following 'rescue' piece (It was only $2.00!) I could only try my best:

Before:





After:





I'm overall pleased at how it came out- I was able to match colors very closely and maintain the original finish and style of the piece. I had to restrain myself from overworking it, trying to add too many flourishes and change the nature of the figurine- it wouldn't look like 'Dickensvale' if I got too carried away.

One thing I really wanted to add, that the original piece never had, was a singletree to run between the traces and the wagon body, as a real wagon would have. Would have been easy to do, but not in keeping with the look of the series.

I'll be presenting the hay wagon to her tomorrow, and will report on her reaction. For all she's done for me, I wanted to do this for her.

Thank you for looking in, more follows soonest.