Let's Make Historex

Many years ago I discovered Historex figures. These are wonderful plastic kits of Napoleonic (mostly) figures. Each kit comes with a staggering amount of fiddly little parts with every details possible. By combining kits, you can recreate virtually any uniform worn by any combatant from that era. Of course when you are starting out with something new, why buy one when many will do? Alas my modelling and painting skills were not up for the challenge at the time and for decades they sat in my collection in their special box...someday, someday...Well I guess some day arrived and I decided to dust off the old boys. This figure represents a drummer of the 2nd Regiment (Dutch) of the Old Guard Grenadiers. I'm pretty happy with the way he turned out, though I definitely learned some lessons during the construction and painting phases - for example it is a good idea to leave the pack off next time until the paining is complete. It was a bugger the get at the straps and the queue. I will definitely be putting a few more of these kits.

Rathor of Kings

This brute is called a Rathor from the Nasier faction of the game Wrath of Kings. This is the other piece that comes in the box with the Longhorn I did earlier.I didn't stray too far from the box art for colours, though I went more brown than grey for the skin tones. I really enjoyed painting this, with the well defined musculature. Also, really good value for the money considering you get two "monster" size figures.

Dummer of the 42nd Line

This is a 54mm figure from Metal Modeles representing a drummer from the French 42nd line regiment around 1809-1812. The figure is pretty straight forward with the head, pack, arms, sword and drum as separate pieces. A strip of lead foil is supplied for the drum strap. Metal Modeles casts its heads as one piece with the headgear and all which can make painting in the eyes a bit tricky but otherwise I enjoyed painting it. I'm continuing to practice painting yellows and I tried to get a variation to the whites. There are many wonderful pictures of Napoleonic re-enactors which show a variety of white tones, not only on an individual uniform but from one soldier to the next. I love these photos because I think it gives a real sense of what it must really have been like. I think we forget sometimes that these uniforms weren't being mass produced in factories with each one identical to the next.

That Would Be a Giant...

 Here is the Reaper Bones version of Krug the Hill Giant. I took my inspiration from the giants in Skyrim. I read somewhere that you should always try something new in your painting so for this figure I tried to add texture to the wraps with cross-hatching. I also tried applying a verdis effect to the brass/bronze metals. My one regret is not doing a better job of sealing the join of his right shoulder on the back. All in all I was pretty happy with the result.

The Devil's in the Details

Here is another plastic mini for a miniatures game. This is Nasier Longhorn from the game Wrath of Kings by Cool Mini or Not. Beyond that I don't no much else about the game, though I did buy a Heroes Box for one of the other factions. I picked them up because 1. the figures look great and 2. they were on sale 😊 The plastic was firmer than the Rum and Bones models and much firmer than Reaper Bones - more like Games Workshop - which made it easier to clean up. The Specialist Box 1 includes 2 figures which are actually kits. Assembly was straight forward and I really appreciated the thought that went in to how the pieces fit to minimize seams. I more or less followed the colour scheme on the box art but I went with a warmer red, The base is homemade from a chunk of cork with flocking and skulls from Games Workshop. The base bottom is actually a slice of a walnut that a friend of mine gave me. He paints too so he collects them from his yard and makes a bunch of bases at a time. I think they look great and have used them for several of my projects

The Queen of Crazy

Knight Models make excellent figures in a variety of scales. Their Marvel/DC superheroes and Star Wars characters are amazing. This is a small (28-30mm) scale Harley Quinn is from their Batman Miniatures Game. The figure represents Harley from the Batman animated series (which is awesome btw). The figure is deceptively simple looking but painting was not with out its challenges mainly due to the fine details. Also the figure is very delicate meaning you want to be careful during clean up and mounting. I almost broke her ankle fixing her to the base. The base is a simple homemade job made with a piece of tread-plate patterned plastic card and a slightly thicker smooth piece which I roughed up a bit to look more like concrete. The colours for the pistol where inspired by a Nerf gun which I thought was appropriate for the character.

Foxy Lady

This is Vivienne the Sea Fox, the second of three figures from the Rum and Bones "La Brise Sanguine" heroes box. Rather that follow the box art, I took my inspiration from some steampunk fashion I found on Pinterest. I aslo took a lesson from the amazing painters at Big Child Creatives and experimented with varying colour tones and shadows by adding purples and blues shades. The deck is homemade from craft sticks roughed up with my x-acto with plastic rod for the nails.

Scourge of the Seven Seas

I saw these figures on Pinterest and was quite intrigued by them. The images were of the playing pieces for a game called Rum and Bones which has a core set and several expansion sets. The figures looked gorgeous thanks to the amazing painters at Big Child Creatives and I really like the whimsical style of the sculpts. I picked up a heroes box for the "La Brise Sanguine" expansion which are "French inspired" pirates. A heroes box contains 3 figures made from different colored plastic. I chose the character "Mademoiselle Defarge" from the set. The quality of the figures shown on their Kickstarter page seem to be of higher quality and I've seen on some online commentaries that they may be resin prototypes. On initial inspection the detail appears soft. The plastic itself is softer than DML/Dragon or Tamiya figures but harder than Reaper Bones. However, I found that clean up was similar to Bones in that sanding or scraping was not very effective and seam lines were best removed with a sharp blade and a steady hand. I also recommend you wash and rinse the figures before painting. Unlike Bones, I did prime the figure first and had no issue with its application. I really enjoyed painting this figure and found that looking at the figure out of the box was deceptive. The details really stand out when painting and I was really happy with how she turned out. I'm looking forward to painting the other two characters from the box.

You Can (Not) Pass

This is a very cool little mini from Cool Mini or Not. It is 32mm and titled "Space Girl" and as of this post there is 1 left in stock in their webstore. My colour scheme inspiration came from Asuka Langley's plug suit in the incredible Evangelion anime series.

Officer of the 2nd Ulans, Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 1812

This 54mm figure is by Pegaso (54-060) from their "Elite Series". It was originally an officer of the 17th regiment but I wanted to try painting yellow and decided on the colour scheme of the 2nd regiment. I just had to remove the 17 from the plates on the pouch and czapska. Yellow was a challenge but there are several great tutorials on YouTube which helped tremendously. I used a combination of Citadel and Velejo paints.