On The Bench

On the bench as of today, I have some French Dragoons that were primed before the holidays, but sat here while I spent my time a little more wisely visiting my two daughters in Grand Rapids, MI. When I paint figures, so far I have been doing a unit at a time (i.e., an infantry battalion, cavalry regiment, or artillery battery), and this is an example. Unfortunately, with this bunch, there is one missing because I have a maid that comes in to my residence once every week, and loves to dust EVERYTHING - somehow one of these guys was knocked off the stick and is still MIA. But here they are, on the sticks, and partially painted.


One thing I like to do is finish one figure so I can copy the colors and/or techniques on the other figures, so I finished this figure to use as a model for the rest.



As with the British Hussars in a previous post, the horses get the first treatment. By now, painting horses is pretty routine in procedure, so these are less challenging than trying to paint a new uniform. Not only that, but painting horses is a fairly quick procedure, and provides me with the illusion that I'm actually making progress! Below is a stick of figures with the horses finished. When they are based, I think I'll use the Silfor technique instead of GW static grass, just to see which lengths and/or colors of tufts work best with cavalry figures in 15mm.


Below is a recently completed battalion of British Foot Guards for perusal. The bases have the GW static grass on them, and I'm thinking of adding some Silfor tufts to see what the mixed effect is. When I do this, I'll be sure to post a pic for reference.






That's it for here and for now. I'll post the Dragoons as soon as I get them completed. Happy gaming!

Silfor Report

I ran across this stuff on another painting blog - it's great stuff that makes the best, most realistic grass tufts available. The name of the product is Silfor Mininatur Prairie Tufts, and the process of purchasing and using the product is incredibly easy. I went online and purchased the material from Scenic Express (http://www.scenicexpress.com/), and the service was reasonable. No real hassles with shipping, I had the product in less than a week, and the product came with catalogs that are very useful, like this one:





When it comes in the mail, the tufts are adhered to a plastic or vinyl sheet, packed in a plastic box. This stuff comes in different lengths and different colors. Given that I do 15mm, I prefer the brighter colors due to the scaling effect, so I pick the bright green "spring" color. Also, for the 15mm figs, I choose the shorter tufts because if they are too long, they won't look right and will obscure the figure.

To apply, one only needs white glue and tweezers. Simply use the tweezers to select a tuft, grip it with the tweezers, and pull it off the plastic sheet.



Next, use a drop of white glue, apply to the bottom of the tuft, and place it on the stand of figures like so:



I've gone so far as to abandon static grass on a unit of French Legere, just to see what it would look like. Following is the pic of the Legere battalion done completely in Silfor tufts without the GW static grass I usually use.


It is also worth noting that Silfor makes great products for 25mm figs as well. For a diversion, I bought some 25mm Norman knights from Crusader Miniatures. Below is a pic with tufts that are longer and a less bright color, but you can see that it works very well for 25mm as well.


That's it for now. Happy painting, and happy new year!