SAGA Challenge

Mainly working on the Anglo-Saxons this week and some good progress made (pictures to follow). I have mainly use Contrast paints, but for some of the smaller details and where I don’t have an appropriate paint, I used Vallejo and other paints as necessary (some older “Foundry 3-set” paints for example).

This week I wanted to get the Warriors and Hearthguard done, the general levies will follow shortly. My son is still slowly working through his levies and warriors; hopefully they’ll all be done by next week.  (I suspect he’d rather someone else did the painting so he could get straight to the tabletop and gaming, but painting is also a necessity unless you’re exceptionally wealthy and can get someone else to do it for you!)

Some small points to mention on the pictures; I will probably do some additional highlighting on the figures at some point once all of them have their initial painting completed.  For example, the sword or spearhead edges could be highlighted with silver or similar to emphasize these, but there is plenty of time to consider this once we can at least get the whole army on the table and play through a few games.

The metallic elements were painted with Vallejo paints, while the other areas of cloth etc. were all done with the Contrast paints. Overall I like the way the Contrast paints work, but I’ll probably be more selective in their use going forwards as there seems to be a wide variable in how they look afterwards.

I also want to experiment a bit with painting the Levies who will be randomly painted to reflect their simple, inexpensive backgrounds, so with that in mind I’ll try preparing them with different coloured undercoats on different cloths. If I’m right, this “should” result in a different finish to the same Contrast paint over these different base coats. I guess we’ll see by next week.

The bases are completed to tabletop standard, and here again I might go back and add some “grass tufts” or similar to make the bases more interesting.  I like to paint the base edges in green to fit in better with the table, but other options are well known (e.g. Black edging) but to me I just prefer the look of the green edges.

These Warriors were painted with these Contrast paints: Darkoath Flesh (actually I’ll use this for all the flesh tones on the Anglo-Saxons); Flesh Tearers Red for the tunics (Why does GW have such idiotic names for their colors?); and the blue trim was Leviadon Blue.

I later added small highlights to the flesh parts with Foundry Flesh 5B.

All the metal parts – swords, shield trim were pure Vallejo Gunmetal (72.054), which I diluted slightly as a wash for the chainmail shirts.

All the leather belts, bags boots etc. were the same color Contrast Cygor Brown. It’s a bit dark and I decided to use other leather paints for the Hearthguard (see below).

The highlight on the scabbards was either white or Brass depending on the engraving and the cross strap was Iraqi Sand, Vallejo 70.819

The green on the sword and dagger sheaths was Contrast Ork Flesh (I’ll use a different paint next time) and the brass trims for the Cross and shield boss was Vallejo Brass 70.801. The shield was painted with Vallejo Camo Bright Green 70.833 and the cross in Coat d’arms Blood Red.

Finally the base rim (as with all the others) was Vallejo Bright Green

There are two groups of Hearthguard which have both been painted the same way.  I followed a similar path as I had with the Warriors, but used more variety of leather and odd additional colors here and there.

Tunics used the blue Contrast paint as above, but for the red leggings I used Contrast Magmadroth Flame.  I am disappointed in how that went on as it shows little contrast at all, but that might be me not quite getting used to how the paint works best.  I might give it some additional highlights later.

Metal parts as I did for the Warriors. The large axe handles were painted with another Foundry paint Spearshaft 13C.  Brass for the little metal piece, eg. belt buckles etc.

The cloaks were all painted with Contrast Ork Flesh and again I’m not super happy about the finish, but revisiting that will be for another time.

I used a variety of leather paints from the Foundry range to add variations in the look of the models. So Tan 14B and 14C and Buff Leather 7C for the belt bags. I over painted these with a wash of the Contrast Cygor Brown, but any dark wash would do – maybe Agrax Earthshade?

I painted three shields using a variety of paints. The simple shield (Blue/White) was first. The white was a base of Italeri Flat White 4769AP (a local shop has started to sell Italeri paints, which is great) and Foundry Deep Blue 20A.

The red/white shield was actually a base of several layers of Contrast Flesh Tearers Red (next time I’ll just use an ordinary paint) and many layers of white. In retrospect I should have done this the other way round!

The final green/red shield was a base of Vallejo 70.833 Camo Bright Green and overpainted in Coat d’arms Blood Red.

So, some progress. One set of Warriors and the Levies to finish. My son tells me he’ll be on to the painting asap, so we’ll see how that goes.

So that’s where we are.

Happy Gaming.