Quickshade Soft tone versus Dark tone

I decided to have a dabble with the Army Painter Quickshade products. I chose "Soft Tone" and "Dark Tone" (at £18 for each!). After checking various websites for examples of miniatures painted using Quickshade, I came to the conclusion that the Soft tone would not be effective on dark colours. So I painted up 4 Empire Pike men in very bright colours as test models. Basically this went something like:

• White undercoat.
  
• yellow & green for the tunic/pants.
• brown for the pike shaft, boots, straps.
• Chain mail for the breastplate, helmets, pike point.
• Elf flesh for skin.

I used very bright Bilious Green and 2 slightly different yellows (John Inman Lemon and Freddy Mercury Sunburst I think). After this I applied Dark tone to 2 of the models and Soft tone to the other 2. I used a brush to apply the QuickShade (I'll post another article about the "dipping" method). I'll let others judge the results from the above pictures. What I learned was:

• Apply good coats of base colour as the quick shade will show up weak coverage.
• Quickshade darkens everything, so use brighter/lighter colours.
• You need to brush away excessive pools of Quickshade that form on the model.
  
• Thin Quickshade with turps or white spirit - NOT Water.

Overall I think the Dark Tone is the better shade, although the Soft Tone will take the edge off flat areas of bright colour. Dark Tone exaggerates recessed detail - not a bad thing for miniatures (especially for cartoon/Manga stuff). QuickShade is definitely good for painting up large lots of rank and file troops to gaming table standard.

Nothing for sale

I've not put anything up for sale this week due to the impending Royal Mail strike. As soon as I can work out the impact, I'll probably put some more items up. I was hoping the strike could be called off through negotiation, but it looks like both sides are set on it.

I reckon anybody striking should be charged with treason as its still the "Royal" mail;-) Everybody has the right to strike, but at a time of increasing unemployment, the strikers will find it hard to get public sympathy.

Since the implementation of letter, large letter and packet sizes for inland mail a couple of years back, there's not a lot of difference between Royal Mail and courier prices. I think we are just a year or so away from the government giving out general postal delivery licences to TNT, bundesposte, DHL etc. (Especially if the treasury can raise money from them like the G3 mobile phone licences).

Mr.Sniketty

OK, this is Mr Sniketty. He is an incredible model, yet from a budget range. (I'll do another post about the supplier, Ramshackle). This mini manages to convey the fear of somebody very menacing under that coat! His lethal blades hide themselves nicely against the folds of his coat, meaning his victims probably let him get very close before realising their fate. He is everything Edward Scissorhands should have been.

On the other hand, he might just be some unfortunate person mechanically augmented with blades for a life of toil. He would be good at topiary, hair cuts, meat preparation and cloth cutting etc. (He would also have to be very careful when going to the lavatory).

To prove a point to somebody about wargaming on a budget, I painted him using some recovered dried-up yellow, silver and black paint. Click on Mr Sniketty for more detailed pics.

Confrontation miniatures for sale

I've acquired a collection of Rackham Confrontation blister packs. I will keep most of them as they are difficult to find these days. However, I've got a few duplicates, so I'm putting a few on Ebay. I might also put a few loose single miniatures up for auction (Where I can't resist keeping one from a set of three etc). The blisters I have consist of mainly limited edition mercenaries, and elementals/small minis like Pixie Tricksters. I guess these will become rarer and rarer as from what I've heard:

• Rackham have sold their remaining stock to 3rd parties.
• Those 3rd parties seem to have almost sold out.
• The sudden flurry of stuff on ebay seems to be from people who bought items from the 3rd parties to make a quick profit.
• The moulds and tooling have been destroyed according to several sources.
• Rackham are now producing plastic pre-painted stuff!
  

Anyway, these are simply the best miniatures around in my opinion, and I'll be selling a few over the next few weeks. (Check the "FOR SALE" list in the left column of this blog). Regrettably, I will not be selling the "Carranche the Bomblayer" figure pictured above.

Harry, Destroyer of Worlds

Once in a while, you find a miniature that resembles somebody you know. In this case, a Hasslefree produced miniature of an elderly man looked the spitting image of a guy I knew called Harry. Harry lived in an old peoples home who used to hold social functions in the same community centre where my gaming group held our games night. Harry, would wander in and watch some of the games, telling the younger players wondrous stories about his own military service as a younger man.

From other people I learned Harry had seen active service in Korea and was also in Malaya and Palestine for a while. However on games nights I recall Harry visiting nearly every table and recounting tales of his involvement with the battle being recreated by the players. It would appear Harry had been in major conflicts spanning a 200 year period, and he had served with the Army, Navy, Air Force and even had the honour of serving alongside Catachan infantry (in Cyprus for some reason).

Sadly, Harry is watching us from above these days, but I'm sure he'd love the idea of a miniature depicting him. The garish colours are intentional. Harry always wore a turquoise sweatshirt that seemed to have been badly tie-dyed. I think this was useful for the rest home staff when rounding up "wanderers" like Harry. His trousers seem to have been sculpted as leggings or "Max Wall" style trousers (Google Max wall if you are too young to remember him). These are pretty close as Harry always wore green Umbro tracksuit bottoms.

Once again I seem to have painted something other than the Brightorian Guard I should be painting.