Whats on the painting table - 2 January 2019

I have done the occasional how to do it article in the past  I thought a more regular update on whats on the work bench might give me an incentive to clear things off it!  Feel free to comment with constructive criticism, suggestions on techniques or to ask how (or why) I do things in the way I do.  If you see a review of a purchase that doesn't crop up in one of these posts it will probably be sat in the lead (or resin) pile waiting it's turn, and not in any way shape or form represent a project that has just stalled.  My projects don't stall they just sit patiently waiting for me to get my ass in gear!

At the moment the next job is terrain items. I have a small village worth  of Leven Miniatures buildings I need to finish off.  These consist mainly of Dark Ages period stuff.  Plus a Roman Villa which I couldn't resist as it was such a lovely design.  For those who haven't yet seen Leven Miniatures in the flesh, they are lovely castings.  The range is entirely 6mm and covers most wargaming periods.  If It's not in the range contact them and ask if it could be added, Mick (the owner) is very helpful and will seriously consider creating items to fill gaps in the range.  His customer service is first rate too.  I ordered some Small Saxon Roundhouses and received the Orc Huts from the fantasy range in error.  I contacted Mick who sent out the correct items by return and told me to keep the Orc Huts rather than send them back.  I'm sure I will find a use for them before long.

Leven 6mm village awaiting my attention

The buildings are cast in a resin which holds the details really well.  Apart from the very occasional small bubble I have never had a bad casting from Leven and they do paint up really nicely. Compared with the Timecast buildings I have the resin is slightly less weighty which may be why there is such good detail as I expect a thinner resin would allow a mould with more detail to be used. I like the fact that the buildings dimensions aren't changed to match game ground scale.  I have a church model which is an extreme example of this it looks tall and thin because of the distortion.  While it may mean that troops weapons ranges stay realistic compared to the footprint of the building it just looks wrong.  Take a look at the image below to see what I mean.

That church is just weird

I prepare the buildings by washing in hot water with a little washing up liquid and then pat dry to get the worst of the water off.  I then put them to one side for 24 hours to give them time to thoroughly dry out (that's the hardest part of the process as I'm itching to get to work on them by that stage).  I start off with an undercoat in white.  I use white because small scale stuff needs to reflect as much light as it can.  To me black undercoating dulls the colour too much.

I read a long time ago that the smaller the scale the brighter the colours need to be.   The logic is that a real person is still the same size no matter how small they seem to appear due to distance.  So the surface area from which light reflects is always the same and that is what determines the colour you see..  A model is trying to look like the actual thing but has less surface area to reflect light from (everything we see is light reflected from the thing we are looking at).  We have to enhance the effect of colour to offset the smaller surface area hence white undercoat and brighter colours.

I start by block painting the main areas and then add the details.  I go over and touch up any paint that has gone over the edges of the casting area I want it to be restricted to and then ink wash in a brown.  Lately I have gone over to Agrax Earthshade by GW.  The reason being it acts as a filter rather than just a shader.  Meaning it gives a very thin cover to everything rather than just pooling in the low points.  That ties the colour schemes together.  As a nod to zenithial lighting I hold the casting upside down while I apply the wash.


My two favourite models so far are the Saxon Great Hall and the Roman Villa.  It may not be a coincidence that these are both larger buildings.

Saxon Great Hall

Roman Villa - part painted