From KevinH - Fortnight Challenge - Victorian - Steve Saleh's Ratcatcher

Here is my entry in the "Victorian" Fortnight Challenge for the 2015 Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

Amongst the figures I bought from my friend's Estate sale, was the beautiful Wargames Foundry, Limited Edition "Victorian Ratcatcher" model by Steve Saleh.  Wow, this is a great model!  Nice, crisp detail, great proportions, cute "character."  It's a bit bigger than most 28mm's (maybe a "29mm" if you like), and sort of a bit more "heft" than most 28's, but those things don't harm this model at all.  When I found it among the figures I'd picked up, I knew I wanted to paint it for the Challenge - then, I noticed "Victorian" was one of the Fortnight Challenges!

I like the little rat poking it's head out of the cage, and the one crawling up over the shoulder.  I was tempted to start Googling pics from the movie, "Willard" but decided against that.  When I started cleaning the model earlier this week, I was thinking about clipping off the cast base, and sculpting a "sewer" base for this guy.  Then I noticed the one additional rat on the ground, between his feet.  Rather than trying to cut around the rat, and maybe risk ruining the rat, I decided to just glue the figure to a GW base, and do basic Liquitex Resin Sand groundwork instead.

This was a pretty straight-forward paint job.  I was a bit rushed on it, as "Life" threw me a curveball today, but I think it turned out OK.  I stumbled on a nice trick for the gold buttons and top hat buckle - I base-painted those items with a "dark yellow" (basically, the colour of  WWII 'Late War' German armour).  I'm never quite happy with how Gold paints onto a model - often the paint itself is a bit thin, as it's really just "carrier" with Gold flecks.  The dark yellow base colour helps unify those flecks, and I didn't get the "streaky" Gold I usually get!  Maybe this isn't something new to most of you, but it was something I tried on the spur of the moment, and it worked great!  I'll have to try using a Grey base for Silver and Gun Metal paint next!

When I was poking around for some "rat catcher" reference pics to give me some inspiration, I came across this old illustration (surprisingly, there seem to be very few pics of the miniature out there on the Internets!).  So for my final pic of this post, I added in a couple of dog models my friend had painted.

I think it makes for a nice grouping!

Thanks for looking!

Analogue Painting Challenge - Theme Round #1 - COLD

40mm Sash & Saber "Retreat from Moscow" Napoleonic French

Another Analogue Painting Challenge is underway!  For the "Cold" theme (and my first post of the Challenge), I went with a couple of 40mm, Sash & Saber "Retreat from Moscow" figures.

•   Sash & Saber

 

These are (I think?), my first Napoleonic figures (unless you count "War of 1812" figures...), as well as my first 40mm figures!  They are painted largely with Vallejo Game Air paints (that's right, the Airbrush paints!). I recently started to try learning to do more Airbrush work, and I found the Game Air paints work quite nicely with bristle brush painting as well.  They're fairly thin, straight from the bottle, so require almost no additional thinning.

I did the common "black & white halftone" undercoat with the airbrush, then started in with traditional brush painting. (ps: not sure how well the "halftone" undercoat works with brushed on acrylics, but at least it gives a decent starting point, and gives brighter highlights than just a straight, Black undercoat.  The "halftone" undercoat probably works much better with Oil paints).  The bases are laser-cut MDF, courtesy of Byron from SG2 Creations, one of the Sponsors of the Challenge (Thanks, Byron!).

I used Liquitex "Resin Sand" texture gel to build up the bases, and once all the painting was done, I spread thinned white glue over the texture gel and covered with Baking Soda.  That's right - no need for fancy, expensive "Snow" basing material, just plain old Baking Soda.  Cover the bases LIBERALLY in the Baking Soda, don't just sprinkle it on - the white glue will suck down LOTS of the Baking Soda, and give nice, natural "mounds" like real snow.  I think it looks quite good!  I did some WWII "Winter War" Finns with the Baking Soda basing treatment as well, and they look pretty sharp (if I do say so myself).  I might include a few pics of those in a later post, as I'm working on some of those for the Challenge also.

Here's a shot with the ubiquitous Space Marine, to give a rough idea of size/scale.  For 40mm figures, they don't quite seem "all that" next to the Space Marine, but then, the French are hunched over against the cold, blowing winds of the Russian winter!
 

 

One final shot to show the backs of these figures.  I must say, considering the size of these figures, the detail and sculpting seem a bit "primitive" - considering what is available for 28mm figures, you'd think 40mm figures would be super-detailed!  Oh well, I'm not a sculptor, so I can't complain too loudly.  I know Curt has some of the Perry "Retreat from Moscow" figures, and they are, no doubt, much nicer sculpts.

 

(I snapped these pics on my iPad.  They didn't turn out so great...  Back to the little digital camera I've used in the past, I think...)

I picked up a couple of dozen of these figures from the Estate sale of a friend who passed away in 2013 - more French, some Russian infantry, Russian peasants, and some "dead" figures.  I think I will try and get more done from this range, and maybe try a skirmish game at some point.  I may need to order some of the Wolves and mounted Cossacks too!