Keep Your Powder Dry

As painting season is now officially open, here's my latest paint discovery. Russeted armour? What's that I hear you ask? Russeted armour is armour has been allowed to rust (don't ask how it is encouraged to rust - trust me) and is then oiled and polished.   Russeted armour at Broughton Castle (just ignore the blackened English pot in the foreground) In between bothering tour guides and volunteers at stately homes and cathedrals across the land, I often longingly admire russeted armour, wondering how I could replicate the colour and finish on my 15mm figures. I know that I am not alone. Close up of my first 'new recipe' finished figure Well dear readers (hello all nine of you), I think I have hit upon a paint recipe that almost captures the colours of russeted armour. I have previously shared my first attempt at russeted armour in the e quipment painting guide post . But I always thought that I could do better. Here are the results of my experimentation For this exp...

 Time for another high production value ruleset: this time, Foundry's Rick Priestly penned 1644, originally written in the mid to late 80s. As you can imagine, any ruleset published by Foundry Miniatures is going to be an advert for their figures and painting system. This volume does not disappoint: lavishly illustrated with 'battle' scenes featuring their beautiful figures, and 'how to' paint guide utilising their paint triad system. My copy is the second edition, which is identical to the first with the exception of front cover and some of the many illustrations inside. Approximately A4 sized, this soft cover book is full colour throughout. Out of print, new copies occasionally turn up at Caliver, Foundry or on eBay. Running at 112 pages in length just 25 pages are the actual rules. The rest is devoted to history, tactics, painting guides, flags, army lists, summary sheets and marker tokens. Whilst written for 25mm sized figures, I've simply swapped inches to ...

Having spent quite a bit of time, not to mention a few thousand words, prattling on about the colours (and paint codes) that I use to paint my toy soldiers, it is probably only right and proper that I discuss the hardware carried, and worn, by soldiers. This is an excuse to share lots of little bits of information that I have come across whilst researching my armies, and wider questions such as coat colours. Don't be surprised if there is a digression or three. For those of you new to the blog here are the other posts: What Colours To Use? What Colours To Use Part 2: Paint Coat Colours Part 1: Parliamentarian Regiments of Foot Coat Colours Part 2: Royalist Regiments of Foot Coat Colours Part 3: The Scots Coat Colours Part 4: Others - NMA, Dragoons & Horse The Trained Bands Caveat: these are my observations, with a smattering of references thrown in for good measure, they are in no way definitive. They could never be. The best we can ever aspire to, when modelling soldiers of th...