Something old, something new, something blue…

… and a ten foot polearm by your shoe!

I finally managed to secure enough oldschool metal halberdiers to make a regiment of around twenty. I love the simplicity of these Perry sculpts and the simple but elegant poses. I also think its pretty obvious to see that in many cases, that the new designers and sculptors have found a great deal of inspiration in the old school models. (have a look at my old and new archers for instance). Being solid cast monopose miniatures, there was little assembly except for removal of moldlines and of course… layers of old paint.

Stripping paint

The models were soaked in alcohol and acetone for a couple of days with in-between sessions of paint removal using an old toothbrush. I have also recently bought a small cheap ultrasonic cleaner, which worked fairly well, but at the end there was still quite a lot of what must have been enamel base coat, left in many of the recesses. I decided to go all in, and used a metal tool to pry loose the remaining paint. Using metal tools is always a bit risky as you inevitably end up making marks and scratches on the models, in this case there was just no way around it.

Painting something blue

I originally envisioned painting them in an inverted all white theme, with blue and as secondary colors, but after a couple of tryouts I decided to go with a predominant blue and then use white for the slashes and socks instead. I set the bar high in terms of highlighting and color blending, as I wanted to test my skills. The blue and red parts were done using the following paints (all GW paints):

Blue

1. Base coat : Kantor Blue
2. Shade: Drakenhof Nightshade
3. Broad highlight: Altdorf blue
4. Highlight: Calgar Blue
5. Edge highlight: Calgar Blue tinted with white 50:50 mix

Red

1. Base coat: Memphiston Red
2. Shade: Car. Grimson
3. Broad highlight: Evil S. Scarlet
4. Highlight: Wildrider Red
5. Edge highlight: Wildrider Red tinted with White about 30:70 mix

Foolishly, I decided to paint all twenty models in one go!

However, after base coating twenty models, I realized that the task I had laid out was enormous, and would surely strip me of my sanity before I would ever finish all twenty models in one go. Valuing my sanity, I decided to do details and highlighting in batches of no more than five models. So I gradually broke the unit down in smaller batches and painted them to completion, before moving on to the next batch. I find doing smaller batches helps because the reward of seeing finished models, is great motivation for finishing the next batch. Having completed a few models first, also gives good insight into which parts of the model should achieve special attention when shading and highlighting, and is an opportunity to do minor adjustments in paint scheme. Even so, this project still took ages to complete. I started in early summertime, but by the time I had finished the first ten it was winter.

Doing slash and puff

Always paint the deeper layers of the model first. In this case I painted all the white slashes in a Vallejo Game Color Bone white and then did the blue. The bone white was then highlighted using Ivory white and finally Blanco white, both Vallejo Game Colors.

White

1. Base coat: Bone white
2. Highlight: Ivory white
3. Final highlight: Blanco white

Adding something new

As a small treat to myself in an attempt to reawaken my painting spirit, I did a custom banner bearer which I think sits really well with the old school halberdiers

The standard bearer is made out of bits from the Empire general kit, greatsword torso and legs, a demigryph knight swordarm and finally a mostly greenstuff made left arm.

And the rest…

Voila! All done. Finished the command group and actually had the will to do five more for a total of twenty five. I really like blending the old school minis with some of the new stuff and in this project I think it came together quite well.