FULLY PAINTED Bolt Action US army

So looks like it finally happened:

after few years of gaming my US army is fully painted and ready to spread democracy among gaming tables, with fire, explosives and air raids!

I had little somthing to write about every unit in the force but now, looking at them presenting together I am just glad whole project is finished. 
Can't remember I've been taking army pics every before but really like that crawling mass, reminds me good old Sudden Strike RTS. If anyone's interested buildings are from Black Grom Studio. And if you want some close ups check the labels under post or on the panel (there's 200 letters space limit under posts).

Hope you like the family shots:

And some pics from the painting station. Finally got the reason to clean it up...

I wonder if such a mass is sellable at all...

US Rangers (Bolt Action)

Heya,

Looks like we've reached end of the local COVID panic.

Must say it was rather annoying period with whole that bullshit being streamed by media (mostly official media) and lots of people acting stupid.
Positive side of staying home for me was saving some models from the Pile of Shame, which for a wargamer is always something to be proud of.
And the last project labeled COVID-19 was unit of Rangers for my Bolt Action US army.

This unit is actually the last piece planned to consider US army project finished.

Sure, there are still remains waiting for some care and attention (eg. gen. Patton, M40 GMC), but those are contest pieces, gifts and other similar stuff - definitely nothing on the must-have war list.

The unit is mix of models from different brands: Artizan, Black Tree, Stoessi's Heroes and West Wind. To make them look coherent altogether I was painting whole squad same time - for the very first time in my hobby life actually. Wanted to check the painting quality drop caused by "speed painting" (which wasn't really fast in my case to be honest). 

I also practiced using airbrush for painting uniforms (like on US light mortar crew).

I think results are at least acceptable, which is good news for someone considering starting mass French army...

What I learnt is being careful (very careful!) with applying dry pigments on intantry models. From my experience the more of this stuff you put on vehicles the better, but in case of infantry pieces tuu much pigments may screw the paintwork. These below are supposed to be dirty (Rangers lead the way! after all) but colors were much more vivid before I blessed them with magic powder and pigment binder. 

Oh well, apparently it's never too late to leart something useful...

US mortar section

Back to olive!

After all that colorful recent Rackham stuff finally my trusty Bolt Action force got some support. This time it was light mortar: cheap, reliable, pain in the ass unit (already love it...).

Last night there was a brutal combat between the US boys and German invaders at my place so finally I got opportunity to see long awaited light mortar in action. I also tested new way painting on that team:

it's not only about the color choice (way brighter) but the fact uniforms (trousers and jackets) were painted with airbrush and washed with oils. The general idea was to make painting as fast as possible without loosing much of desired quality. 

Must say I am pretty satisfied about the result and hope to paint whole 10 men strong similar way shortly which would make US army project closed.

Below you can see whole mortar section serving in my force. Papa Nurgle is clearly standing behind the project...

And some close ups of the light mortar - freshly fried. Looking at the photos I think some stronger shading on the trousers should have been applied but apart from that my likey. 

If anyone needs more shots of other mortars can be found here (heavy mortar) and here (medium mortar). Now back to planning...

Dasyatis clone (Rackham)

"Only a Syhar could concieve them..."

I still cannot get myself to start painting US army stuff although one more nasty mortar is something my trusty Bolt Action force would definitely benefit from...

That was bad news. Good news is one more model from fantasy range left the painting station and once more it's Rackham beauty:
Dasyatis clone from  Alchemists of Dirz faction.

Back days (when Rackham was still alive...) painted models from this range were making my jaw drop every time I was looking at whole that georgeous NMM and freehands (check Trovarion's stuff for example). Obviously I didn't try to match or beat Rackham's vision of this faction but rather have some fun. The model is quite unique for what I usually deal with because it's mostly bare flesh and it's alive ^^

So the idea was to make it look rather warm than dead, and standing on bright, striking base. At first I was quite scared of painting huge amount of flesh but all in all oil washes and patient glazing were more than helpful. I don't have many occasions to paint fresh blood on my minis but this one was definitely worthy few drops of Tamya's Clear Red.
The sculpt is totally badass!!!

As mentioned before next time I hope to paint something from Bolt Action range once again:

while painting recent Rackham stuff I got some ideas about painting US uniforms which requires testing. If that works I might wanna refresh and repaint the basic infantry so about 30 them might hit the black market shortly...

Black troll (Rackham)

"They call me the Shipwrecker..."

Hey again, once more I had opportunity to paint something nice from long-dead Rackham range. Working on Goreth the Massive was so much fun I dug out another piece from Goblins of No-Dan-Kar faction: the mighty black troll.

Just like in case of the previous Rackham piece I didn't try to reach or beat official paintjob, but rather to paint something radical different then US stuff for Bolt Action.

Fantasy stuff (especially big like this one) gives opportunity to learn and practice some new things. On this one I tried to work with oils on the armour but for me you need larger and more flat surfaces to get the right result - all in all I ended up weathering and rusting the plates.
I also tried darker pigment on the base which was imo good idea: stronger contrast with bright flesh.

Hope you like it! 

I like rusty spoons...

And the official, supercool paintjob:

Bile thrall (Warmachine)

One more COVID-19 lockdown victim but this one is special.

The model is gift painted for a friend who moved recently. I'm quite sure he'll gonna have some closets in the new place so I decided to bring him the first skeleton to put in there.
I mean - there's a skull so I'm quite sure the rest of skeleton is somewhere there under folds of fat and guts...

The piece has been painted at the very beginning of April but I couldn't post it earlier  - there was a risk he might visit and ruin the surprise.

As for painting - it's also test model:

- tried new way of binding pigments (failed that);

- tried new color combo for the corpses - that I actually like (you can see it also on Goreth the Massive model).

I hope to see something similar on the whole bile thralls unit or on mid nor dwarves...

Also hope his wife won't mind custom made box: it's a corpse after all!!!

Unique model and occasion require unique packing...