Old Skool Goodies, Baddies and Whatever

I was debating whether to Start a new project for this topic as the majority of the minis are hardly traditional Old Skool ones but as a few are from the AD&D Battlesystem range I think it’s close enough!

I recently purchased the new Army Painter Speed paints and was looking for a new project to test them out. At the same time I re-discovered a box file, shoe box and a large photograpic paper box all full of 15mm fantasy dating back many moons, so decided that I’d get an army sorted for Fantastic Battles.

The majority of the figures used come from the Chariot Minis range but also include some old Grenadier 15mm and I have recently started work on a Demonworld Elf Hero on Dragon, but this will not be covered in this update.

All the minis were given an undercoat of Halfords grey primer followed by a drybrush with white to give a rough Zenith effect. I then applied the speed paint as follows straight from the bottles.

Crusader Skin… All flesh.

Grim black … All armour, some hair

Dark wood… Belts, boots , some hair, some horses.

Zealot yellow….some hair, horse detailing.

Highlord Blue… Uniforms, feathers part shilds

Orc Skin…Horse archer uniforms

Fire Giant Orange…. Trim to quivers

Blood Red … Spear hafts

Other colours were used on the captains but too many to mention.

I was pleased with all the colours used except the Black for the armour which didn;t give the right feel for Elf armour so I highlighted this with silver. I then gave them a coat of matt varnish before tidying up any over paint on the grey/white primer layer and then highlighted this up with some Citadel Skull white. I had done a test with Holy White but this gave less tone than just leaving the original base layer ! I guess this is due to the scale of the minis as it does seem a lot better on 28mm!

As I wanted the characters to stand out I also gave them all a slight highlight just adding a little Skull White to the original base colour. I then used some Demonworld Elf transfers on the shields and banners.

I still have to complete the basing but I think you get a good idea of how well AP Speed Paints work.

As a foot note I completed the foot Archers and characters in just over 2 hours! A similar number of 15mm figs would normally take me twice that at least!