Monopose spearmen

Fed up with being in the shadow of the halberd, its thinner cousin, the spear, has finally regained some attention with the release of the-ninth-age rules, the fan made rules system for Warhammer Fantasy. With marching spearmen, from the Altdorf Company of Honor image, also being one of my main sources of inspiration, it seemed an ideal time to paint a bunch of spearmen. And by a bunch, I mean 40.

Choosing monopose plastics

I’m not in total refusal of using the latest edition of plastic state troops (yes, the ones in pyjamas, with monkey face), but when given spears or halbards they’re pretty much impossible to rank up and align properly, so I will mainly be using them as sword and board troops. Instead I have my eye on the 5’ed monopose plastic spearmen. They come in four poses, of which I will only be using three, as the fourth variant (shown to the right in image below) is, well.. has an ugly helmet and funny trousers.

Assembly

To ensure a bit of variation, I will be doing the occasional head swap. But firstly, I had to collect 40+ usable models. Luckily, they’re easy to pick up on the second hand market, however, many of them come with glued on shields, that leaves a nasty scaring when removed, others painted to a standard beyond recovery. So I probably ended up buying 60 or more to get what I needed.

Painting

This seemed like an ideal project to use my airbrush and so I planned on spraying all the spears blue, whilst base coating the bodies red. However, at the time of this project, Games Workshop had yet to release their ‘airbrush ready’ paint series and several failed attempts of thinning down Kantor Blue and Memphiston Red, for use in my airbrush, I used Vallejo blue and red instead.

Probably as a combination of me being a novice airbrusher and using the slightly off tone Vallejo colors, I ended up re-painting most of it by hand. But lessons were learned for next time, and I suppose this kind of try – fail – try again experience, is what makes us better painters in the end.

Colors used

• Kantor Blue (base coat) -> Drakenhof Nightshade (ink) -> Altdorf blue (highlight) -> Calgar Blue (highlight/drybrush) -> Calgar Blue w. White (edge highlight)
• Memphiston Red (base coat) -> Car. Grimson (ink) -> Evil S. Scarlet (highlight) -> Wildrider Red (highlight/drybrush ) -> Wildrider Red w. White (edge highlight)
• Averland Sunset (basecoat) -> Reikland Fleshshade or other brown wash -> Yriel Yellow (drybrush) -> Yriel Yellow w. White (edge highlight)
• Armor: Black Vallejo (base coat) -> metal -> Nuln Oil (ink) -> metal
• Kislev Flesh (base coat) -> paint eyes white -> Reikland Fleshshade (ink) -> paint eye pupil black -> Kislev Flesh (highlight)

A note on drybrushing

Be carefull with drybrushing, it works best on fur, hair, stone, wood, and other textured natural materials, but do not use it as your sole means of highlighting as it creates a dusty, dull finish, that can end up looking too rough. And by sole means, I refer to those who use only drybrushing with a single color, usually way too bright, that end up with a weird dusted look. Clean your drybrush in between models, as with normal paint, or you will eventually get lumps of paint coming off the brush! Buy a dedicated drybrush – don’t be a cheapskate and use old discarded brushes, you’re better than that!

All done