Draconis does….. The Silver Bayonet

26th August 2024

Managed to finish this chap up today.

I had tried out several shades of green, as mentioned in an earlier update. For this model (jokingly named Richmond S Harpe for now) I used the old Dark Angels green for the jacket and tunic, and went with AK bronze green for the trousers.

The greens all had a dark wash, followed by a couple of highlight stages.

I got out my small brush to paint on the black braiding on the jacket, and then pick out the buttons. Plus add in the white piping to the edge of the cuff and collar.

The red sash was painted in a similar way to the redcoats of the infantry, with a few small added highlights up to Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Then it was basically lots of little extra bits to try to make him look tidy overall. Quite happy with the final result.

26th August 2024

I had worked on the Artillerist model alongside the others, before concentrating just on the redcoats. The basic conversion was mentioned there too.

He was painted in the same way, except he was given the blue jacket for the artillery, and I gave him grey trousers, to further differentiate.

I chose the bandaged head as I believe the artillery soldiers (possibly) wore helmets rather than shakos.

I’m not overly knowledgeable on the Napoleonic era, so just worked with google searches really. Since I don’t have a helmeted head, I went with one that I thought would work here.

I also realised that I had forgotten the Sergeant’s stripes. So painted those on too yesterday.

25th August 2024

Yesterday I finished up the British line infantry.

Didn’t realise how close to finished they were last week.  With the lack of ‘hobby’ through the week I kept thinking I was missing something too ?

They had some more highlights and some basing, and they are ready to go.

I feel that they don’t look very ‘gothic horror’ but have to remind myself that they are meant to be normal soldiers in a bad situation.

The junior officer had an extra highlight stage on his jacket, going up to Evil Sunz Scarlet.

While watching Peachy’s latest Silver Bayonet vid I realised that I had missed the tie back parts on the officers coat. So went back and painted those in.

I still need to add some more variety yet.

The Sergeant could potentially be used as a sapper or veteran hunter at a push.

The chap with yellow collar and cuffs could be used as a grenadier.

I have an Artillerist minor conversion and several riflemen to add still.

But I do want to have some cavalry and a highlander for my full sized force. Need to source these still, and don’t want to buy a whole box for just one – so will be searching for sprues online.

22nd August 2024

Well, I haven’t been able to get much hobby time in since the last update due to work, and some central heating work being done at home – so I thought that I should post a new update. I have been working on five more infantry, the junior officer and the artillerist (a bit). Plus poking around a bit with ‘Richmond S Harpe’.

One infantryman was worked on more so at the start, to try to refine my steps and process from the first test model.

I must say that I am still finding the straps and bags a little frustrating, but have worked it out a little better now. When I get to those I used a slightly thinned Black Templar contrast to try to make a better edge to them, then overpaint in white, give a wash, and highlight again. Sometimes the highlight covers too much, but overall they still give the correct impression at play distance.

Near the end of the process I decided to change the colour of the collar and cuffs on one of the infantry. In The Silver Bayonet the troops do not all have to come from the same unit. So I decided to go with yellow for one. That way I could potentially use him as a Grenadier or such, and still have it easily recognisable during play.

While working on the Junior Officer I accidentally snaped off the sword ☹

I have glued it back on with superglue, as it was quite a small surface area. If it breaks again I will need to cut off the whole hand and snip one from a different model I think. I also then worked on highlighting the jacket. I may go one stage lighter on the officer than on the troops, but not sure yet.

Hopefully I may be able to get in some work on them over the coming weekend….

12th August 2024

Since last update I started working on some colours.

Source images for the green jackets seem to vary quite a bit from a ‘forest’ green to almost black.

I decided to go for one of the more green shades so that it would ‘read’ on the tabletop. Tried out some bronze green I’d used on my tanks, contrast, some mixes of contrast and even found an ancient pot of Dark Angels green that was still usable.

I think that I will go with the Dark Angels green with Nuln Oil wash and highlight. More work than the others but I feel it gives a better end result.

Same thing with the red. Tried out some contrast paints, some reds, combination with washes etc. Will go with red, agrax and highlight. Although I may thin it somewhat for the trousers.

I like to then roll out the scheme on a test model, get the order of painting bits, any steps that can be simplified and such. However, I forgot to get many pics on the way, and realised towards the end….

9th August 2024

Last weekend, after building four British Riflemen for my wife I thought to myself….. ‘well, there are still another 28 in the box so I’ll build a few for myself’.

These then got a quick black then grey spray and I started testing out shades of green from my somewhat limited selection. Applying to the base rims.

Looking at the pts costs I realised that I couldn’t actually field an Officer and 7 riflemen ?

Then I recalled that I had a box of Victrix British infantry somewhere…..

So it was on to building up some of these. I did a few initially, then ended up having to do the same number as I had of Riflemen, because… reasons.

I also did a minor conversion on one – cutting off a bare hand, drilling out a socket and using a pistol hand (that seemed to have no reason being on the sprue, since there was no socketed arm for it…). This can be an Artillerist, so I gave it the non Shako head.