Landsknecht

Being busy painting this weekend, I'm now able to present my first finished figure, using 3-layer as well as washing techniques with Vallejo paints.

The miniature is a 28mm Landsknecht, which was produced in small numbers by Steve Dean. I also took his way of painting it as an example.

The figure is not based yet. Also, I took the pictures in kind of a rush, so they didn't come out that good. As soon as the figure is based, I'll post better photos.

To give you an idea...

... about what I'm getting at, here's a figure ( Gripping Beast Viking Egil Skallagrimson), that I recently bought from an auction.

Of course, as usual, the picture doesn't give the paint job credit, but maybe you can see what I mean.
This is the standard of painting, I'm trying to reach.

My first try...

This Sassanid Persian war elephant was the first figure I tried to paint.
It's an old Hinchcliffe metal model from the 1970s. Unfortunately, the detail of this manufacturers figures is not very good, but I gave it a shot anyway.

I used very cheap acrylic paints, that I had from earlier times, so the range of colors was very limited and I had to mix a lot. Also, I only washed and dry-brushed the paints, not having discovered the 3-layer technique yet.

To build a little diorama, I ordered a few more figures from that era from Hinchcliffe. But the details on them are so poor, that I kind of lost interest in painting them at all (maybe later some time)... .

Intro

Hi!

My name is Tom and I live in the southwest of Germany.

Recently I started an new hobby: Painting historical wargames miniatures in 28 and 40mm.

Coming from the model train hobby, figures were never really a priority, getting a very basic paintjob.

My interest in those little wargaming figures was sparked when I saw some beautiful dioramas at a local modelling exhibtion. By no means am I at all interested in playing table top games. It's just painting those little figures and using them to build little dioramas and vignettes for displaying them.

Having no experience in painting figures the way it's usually done in the hobby (3-layer technique, washing, drybrushing, etc.), there is a lot I have to learn. And since there is nobody around here who could teach me, I teach myself by trial and error... .

Coming from an educational profession, which involves extensive brainwork, I find all kinds of arts and crafts, including painting, very relaxing. It gives me the possibility to put my mind at ease.

In this blog, I want to present my work to show the progress I'm (hopefully) making over the time.
Another way to help increasing my painting skills is to use already painted figures as examples. Therefore, I frequently buy painted figures from others, which I will also present here, when they are worth it.

One more thing. I do not specialize in any particular era, anything from ancient armys up to armys of the early 19th century is what I like. The more colorful, the better. WW I and II, as well as other conflicts of recent history are not my interest at all (and will never be...).

Having said that, I can only invite everyone interested to visit my blog once in a while to see what's new.

Tom