My collection of Prussians is finally Unbased. This is an occasion for serious elation.
Two and a half years ago when I began this adventure into historical wargaming, the painting wasn't nearly as good, the miniatures were definitely not as good, and the basing honestly probably detracted from otherwise serviceable figures. Having enjoyed seeing many other's collections, I think one should never underestimate the impact of good basing.
Here we are in June 2012, painting my very first unit, some Warlord Games Landwehr. The figures and paint job are not that great and neither is the basing.
Fast forward a bit to the third (or so) unit I painted, the 12th Line. Paint jobs getting better, the figures are amazing Calpe lead (which makes serviceable painters look better!), and the basing... it almost takes away from the figures.
Today I ended my struggle with what I believe was E-600 and Superglue. I am a very slow painter. The time per figure is probably atrocious by most standards. I don't paint every night or every weekend, but in 2014 I believe I painted somewhere in the neighborhood of 44 Cavalry and 48 Infantry in a year... of about a figure every 4 days. In general when I am painting it's about 12 figures per month. So when I was starting out, and got some of these figures over the "finish line" there was a bit of "never again" and they got glued with permanent intent. The cavalry was the worst with its large surface area and tough glue; much frustration and ill feelings flowed in the direction of my painted lead and ever growing lead pile.
And its All Over Now:
Everything that is getting rebased is now unbased (the warlords games plastics were determined not to be worth the effort or time). The liberated lead will be placed on Litko bases with heavy duty magnets and then off for rebasing in an improved style (by local mercenary brushmen). I have also taken the opportunity to touch up some of the early units and add in easy upgrades, including Vallejo flesh wash.
A great, if not particularly photogenic, victory against the lead pile!
Malefric, I feel your pain! A few thousand figures into my Waterloo collection in 15mm and gazing at beautifully presented figures like Paul Provan (Napoleonics in Miniature) and JJ's Wargames I finally resolved to cease doing a dis-service to my figure painting and take up...static grass!
ReplyDeleteI've bought a variety which I'm testing this wkd - hoping to get aTMP blog up today - easier than I'd expected... Good luck and well worth it I think - your figures are great. Ru
http://malefricmusings.blogspot.com/2015/02/bremen-volunteers-part-3.html
DeleteJust got the first rebased troops back and posted some pictures. The improvement is huge. My friend von R. came to the same solution as well (static grass). Hope your troops turn out well too.