Undead Army - Third Unit Completed

This weeks challenge entry was a unit of 26 skeleton warriors armed with hand weapons and shields.  As with the Grim Reapers the command element will be added later using metal figures.  I've also managed to paint 12 figures for the second unit so these should be finished next week.

I decided to go with a red and bronze aged look for the shields as these colours complement the bone of the skeletons quite nicely.  The red was a real pain as the coverage of the old 'Blood Red' paint is not very good.  In the end I mixed some Blood Red with White and painted the shields pink initially and then went over them again with the red. A wash of Rotring brown ink followed by Blood Red highlights completed the look I was after.

I need to try and get some consistency with the initial wash mix as it currently veers between black and dark brown.  I'll pay more attention to the mix on this going forwards as it would be good to get some consistency I think.

Finally a couple of pictures of the completed figures so far, they're already starting to look like an army.

Next up will be another unit of Skeleton Warriors.

Army Progress

29 Skeleton Warriors with Hand Weapons, Shields, Musician and Standard Bearer @ 341 points.
23 Skeleton Warriors with Hand Weapon, Light Armour, Shield, Musician and Standard Bearer @ 325 points.
23 Grim Reapers with Scythe, Light Armour, Musician and Standard Bearer @ 350 points.
10 Skeleton Archers with Hand Weapon and Bow @ 120 points.
9 Death Riders with Hand Weapon , Lance and Shield @ 207 points.
9 Death Riders with Hand Weapon, Light Armour and Shield @ 207 points.

Total Rank & File =  1550 Points.

Undead Army - First Units Painted

Its been a while since I posted on here.  In order to get back into painting I've been taking part in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  This is a friendly competition where everyone commits to painting a number of points worth of miniatures between early December and late March.  I've committed to painting 1,000 points split between 6mm Napoleonics and 28mm 'Oldhammer'.

I've just posted the following on my main blog - Comes Britanniae.  I'll add a more in depth update on this site over the next few days.  I'll also start to include army shots after each submission so that you can see how the army grows over time:


I always planned to paint a number of 28mm figures as part of the competition, I brought forward the start of these as I'm spending so much time away from home during the week and need something light to transport and relatively simple to paint.

I have a load of old Citadel figures and paints from the 1980's that I'd like to get painted over the next few years.  This started during the revival of Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition or 'Oldhammer' as it's now been called.  I have hundreds of the plastic skeletons and had always wanted to paint up an undead army. I planned to start this a couple of years ago but never got much beyond designing an army and undercoating a few skeleton cavalry figures.

Given that the undead are light and do not need too many paints, I've decided to try and paint as many rank and file skeletons as I can before the competition ends.  I'm restricting myself to the original citadel paints for the figures as I still have all of these and they are still useable after nearly thirty years.  I will be using modern day tufts for the bases though as these are so nice compared to old static grass.

I started painting the skeletons a couple of weeks and submitted a couple of units to the Analogue Challenge last week.

I painted up 10 archers initially as I wanted a small number of figures to practice painting bone.  I like how these turned out.

Next up was 20 Grim Reapers, skeletons armed with two handed scythes.  I'm really pleased with the way the wooden handles turned out.

The bases consist of three different colored tufts highlighted with Miniature Paints Cream.  I chose these colours as I want the vegetation to look like it has had the life sucked out of it by the Undead forces as they advance.  I think this has worked out quite nicely.

I've really enjoyed painting these figures, it took me back to when I first started painting and had to experiment with paint mixes to get the colours I wanted as there weren't too many shades around initially.

I should be able to complete another skeleton unit before next Thursday, I have 14 figures already complete so only need another 12.