At this point I woulden’t consider me a foreginer to this forum. I have been here about 1 1/2 year. However, about a year ago I sold my entire (large) collection of big hats. I regreted it pretty quick and tried to gather me a new army which I sold, and so on.
However, now I have started up again. This time I thought I would start a blog. Partly because I am using RA as my core, and I think some of you would like to see what they look like in numbers, partly to keep my entusiasm lid, while collectiong, before the point I am ready to battle. At this time I have decided to sell the force when I’m done. It’s just a project of mine now. It devolpes my painting skills, and as I really can’t justify to myself, having multiple forces lying around as a student, I would rather have one I can use in all tournaments. Also I like to find alternative miniatures, so I think it would be nice, to be able to just start forces up every time I’m done with one.
I started out by buyin Karrings small force. I decided to only use the two cannons, the wolf riders and the heroes from this lot. Afterwards I ordered:
30 Warriros Hw/Shield from RA 30 Warriors with GW from RA 20 Harequins from RA 3 Command groups 1 BSB
I know I will never use 60 warriors, however I could imagine using 2x25 units and since I often use GW I wanted some of both.
I diden’t want to spend my time converting 80 hobgoblins this time around, so I decided to go with night goblins (at least until RA releases their range). The reason why I went RA instead of FW, is that I actually really liked the old tophat range, but I would like a more dynamic look for my army, instead of the monopose, mono cast range that GW used in the 90’s (all respect to 'em, but somehow I have been there and done that, and I would also like to have the possibility to expand my army in whatever way I wanted, without having to scourger ebay).
At this point Im trying to get my hands on the rest of the stuff for the army (Renders, DS, Iron deamons and so on), I have found alternatives for almost everything, but would still like to use forgeworld, but it’s a hard find.
Yesterday I want to my local wargames shop, where I spend around 60 pounds on painting and stuff (aroudn 50 more than I thought I would, so that was quite a shocker, but they will be put to use later today).
I’ll try to upload pictures regualy, so you can follow the progress.
Please tag along - kind regards!
The miniatures from RA was send of last thursday, and arrived yesterday (to Denmark, Europe) - very speedy delivery. The miniatures seems to be of high quality, though the pins and holes for weapons and arms dont match, but nothing a little greenstuffing and hobby knifing cant handle.
So far I dont have pictures of the night goblins, but they haven’t been painted yet, and hounestly is pretty plain, so they are not a priority right now.
I’d not seen those Russian Alternative models before. They look really great. I think they’d go quite well as character models in a classic big hats army too
I have purchased that model you are linking to, with the thought of using him as the bsb. That’s the only character I will be buying from RA though. I have a avatar of war dwarf lying around, witch I will be using as a deamon smith and the deamon smith from the 2011 FW happening. As a prophet I am considering one of the other FW deamon smiths, or the scibor wizard, for the moscals http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=1048. This would also be a great choice because I think I’m gonna use his bull for prophet on bale: 28mm/30mm Moscal General on War Bull 28MA0029. This is most of all a price choice, since im not ready to pay over 60 pounds for a choice I won’t be using that much. But it is a beauty though.
Okay, so now I’ve started to paint the RA GW miniatures. I must admit that my painting skills is much worse than I had pictured in my head, but here they are. I would love to get some critic on them:
They consist most of hashut cobber and leadbelcher grey, as I liked the idea of them being capsled in by armour. It lead to little diversity. What do you guys think?
The brown leather, the copper metals, the flesh tone, and the bronze are so similar that they wash each other out. Monochrome is a fine theme but then you have to rely on a lot of highlighting to emphasize edges. I’d mix up the colors a little bit to try and add some contrast. I’d recommend…
- mix in some really dark blue into your Chaos Black beards
- make your leathers very dark brown with lighter brown highlights
- either edge-highlight those weapons or add some blood so they stand out
- try and sneak in some trim colors on the cloth bits.
More colors are the way to go. Blue, red, yellow, purple, green or what ever you feel like. You can always use devlan mud to get a gritty look, but with a variety of basecolors, you will not need as many highlights to let the army look good once its on the battlefield and not under a painting lamp
Thank you for the comments. When I woke up this morning I took another look at the miniatures. I was a bit in distress about their armour, as I tried to do some highlightning yesterday by mixing white and cobber but it came out wird. The beard actually have a blue glace, but I can also see that diden’t pop out right. I have been doing some high lightning today and also adding eyes (first time ). I think the result is much better. The generally couler scheme stays as it is I think - I quite like it. However, the sleeves on the miniatures are going to be changed to blood red for a contrast - also there will be added blood to the weapons. I am thinking about changing the brown as I can defently see your point in it blending in too much. Here is how they look today, a huge improvement to yesterday I think:
As said, the sleeves are gonna be changed to blood red and added some to the weapons (maybe a change of brown).
I think that’s an improvement, though they do look to have a rather wide-eyed stare going on. That’s a common danger when trying to do eyes - I don’t bother, because you can’t really see the whites of someone’s eyes at the distance where they would be the size of a miniature.
I like the metals, but I’d suggest that you stick to using metallics for highlighting - perhaps mix in some gold or silver instead of white (if you can’t find a ready made lighter colour).
So the first unit of 30 is done. I will defently look into the metallic high lights, the next time I am at my local store.
I really like the models but there is a couple of problems I would like to pass on:
1. The arms and weapons are glued together at the wrists. This and the fact that they ends is rather bumpy (plus the postitions is turned), makes the gluing unstable and the weapons is likely to fall of with little bumps.
2. Because Ra feels that the GW models should be wider than normal dwarfs and the fact that the positions is very dynamic, makes them very hard to line up. It takes some time.
Congratulations on finishing the unit - and in a very fast time. Good work ethics their Honeym123.
this is the first time I see so many Russian Alternative models together in a unit, what a beast. But I’m actually rather disappointed. I think the unit look too chaotic, cramped and those axes are ridicules in size. Seems to me that this miniatures actually need to go on either 25mm bases or work as hero models.
They are great sculpts, but not in a unit. Don’t have that can be fixed, perhaps it looks better in real life.
Again: compliments to the stuff you’ve done and accomplished. My critique has nothing to do with your work.
Thank you bloodbeard. I totally agree. It is way to chaotic. Its wierd how RA havent thought of this when producing the minies. I understand from RA that the ones with HW/S is smaller in size and width, so I hope they will be more “orderly”.
However, in spite of the chaotic look, I feel that one only fielding 25 with a command group in front, I can choose from the more orderly models, and hopefully get a better look.
So, I have been working more than usually the last month, but I had the last two days off, so i decided to continue my painting. I have painted 28 HW/S. I still need to do their bases, though. A problem have occured, that I was hoping you guys could help me with. If I thought the GW models were hard to line up, this time around my patience have really been putted to the test. I can’t line them up tight through all the ranks. At this point I am considering taking their hands back off, and using a pair of pliers to force the arm down to a more convient location+cutting of the “wood”-end of the weapon. However I am worried about the implications to the model. Hope you have some advice! Here are som pictures:
I dont completly agree with Herby, some of the eyes look good. And eyes are a great thing to add om miniatures. Last picture, 2 from left is good, 3 from left is good, 4 from left has big hanging on the cheek. Here’s a though on how to fix it.
First add a small line of a dark flesh tone underneath it. Will make the eye thinner an not mess up the detail.
Secondly apply a black wash (can be done with thinned up black). Just dap the ey and let it flow down around it. Will make the eyes be smaller all around. Plus it adds a nice 300-style persian look.
The unit look way better than the GW ones in large numbers! Regarding the basing problem, here is how I would do.
Start building it from left to right. One miniature and rank at a time.
Put the first mini at the upper left corner of his base at a good angle. Paint a small “1” on the front of his base (will be hidden by movement tray).
Go to the second place in the front rank. Put the miniature as close to the first one, and as close to the front of the base as you can. Make sure he lines up okay, glue him in place. Paint a small “2” on him.
Countinue. One model and rank at a time. Add some point this might not work anymore. It’s rock time! Get some cheap cork (hot pot heat protectors of cork (bordskåner) from Ikea) or bark from a pine tree (it’s often has great texture and is easy to peel off). I use bark. Make a small rock for him to stand on. Just high enough (stille finding the right space on the base) to get out of trouble. If he sticks too high it’ll look weird. But with many miniatures sticking up at different height, it’ll just add life to the unit. Continue with next model.
It takes a little time, but is worth it. When you pack them in your army case, put them down in numerical order, to save time when getting ready for battle.
If you still get a minature that acts annoying, consider doing the arm pose change or cut of weapon and put in a better angle. That was the trick with the old plastic big hats.
Thank you for the comments! About the eyes I will defently try to fix the ones, that have their eyes hanging on their check, but I will defintly not stop making them for two reasons:
1: I think (even though, some of them got a creepy stare going on) the regiment looks better and more alive with eyes.
2: If I don’t paint them, I will never get any better at it. I can follow you reasoning Herby, but I think that the phrase “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it” don’t apply to painting. I dident know how to highlight in the beginning, but you have to learn it somehow.
About the bases. Thank you for the advice. I think I will start by making the command group and see if their poses makes more room in the first two-three ranks. Afterwards I will make a filler, maybe a 40x40 om kind of hilly thing? and then I will raise some of them as you suggested Bloodbeard.Thank you.
Also thank you to thoose of you who just complimented them
I got some RA Dwarves too and have similar difficulties to solve so your experiences really help me a lot. I think they can be ranked up, expecially with different ground level (Bloodbeard) and 40mm bases to give them some space. It is definitely worth the work.
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