More progress - COS #6

I have done some more building and painting this weekend, but not  much as I had originally planned to do.

I have finished assembling the last unit of Bretonnian Men-at-arms (except for the shield arms that will be glued on after painting). And with that I have finished all the Bretonnian units. I still have a couple characters left though (the Green Knight and some ladies). 

I have also done some priming, so now I have lots of units to paint up. I have started on some figures to get an idea of how I want my color scheme to be, and have landed on most colors I think.
All pants will be Morghast Bone as I think I have mentioned before. Then the tunics and hats will be Caliban Green. I was considering making the hats another color but I think matching hat and tunics makes sense. 

After visiting Warhammer Oslo on Saturday to get my last mail order with more troops for the army I got a tip on how I could paint the feathers. They will be painted Celestra Gray first, and then Ulthuan Gray. Thet way they will get a slightly blue/grey color instead og being white, as I would not be happy with all white fethers. Then the officers will have the quite bright blue Caledor Sky on parts of their feathers to show rank. And the rule is the higher rank, the more blue it will be.

I have also decided atfer talking colors in store that the brigandines of the Bretonnian forces for the most part will be painted Khorne Red. There might be a few variations if it looks more like they are wearing other kinds of a garment though.

Three of the Knights have gotten their colors now. I have one red, one Caliban Green and one light purple. I will come back to the names of the colors of red (used contrast pints) and purple when I have chosen colors for more of the knights.  

With the archers there are some barricades made of stakes and chain that come in the boxes, and today I have figured out how to assemble them, so I made one base up, and for my next sitting (hopefully tomorrow afternoon) I will make the remaining seven. I will place some clusters of arrows ranomly on the bases, and also "pauldrons" of hot coal (to make flaming arrows) and some chopping blocks with axes on to look like they have been used to make the barricades. 

I have also made a little more progress on my first Steamtank.So now the back part is done, and I will start on the front next time I build on it.  

Another weekend is almost over - COS #5

As this weekend is comming to an end I think it is time for another Cities of Sigmar update.

This weekend I have managed to assemble two new units. The second (and last) unit of Bretonnian bowmen, and the first of two units of Bretonnian Men-at-arms. I hope to ssemble the second and last unit of Men-at-arms on Monday or Tuesday. 

I can not complete the Men-at-arms because if I glue the shield-arm to them, then it will be impossible to paint half the front of their body. So I will prime the shield separtely and glue it on when painted. 

small archer painting update COS #4b

 I just learned that was I thought was a protective leather coat probably isn't. It is actually something called a Brigandine ans this is many small metal plates studded together against a cloth to hold it together. This means if something is broken, one can change out just the damaged little plate instead of an entire chestplate. So it is much easier to repair and also much easier and cheaper to produce.

Also the Brigantine gives you a lot more mobility and flexes more than the full plated armor (chastplate). So it is much easier to wear that when you use your arms extensively like you would do as an archer.

And one more thing, being metal plates studded through fabric, it means you can have it in almost any color you would like, as you dye the cloth to the color you want just like regular clothing.

What does this mean? Well, it means I will not be painting this in leather, so I will see that I can come up with. Perhaps the archers will have the green tunics with a blue Brigantine outside? Or maybe I will use a variety of colors making the two units look different. I will start to think about it and see what I can come up with. I need to prime the models first before I can paint them anyway...

A new unit is built, and painting has started - COS #4

 After almost two weeks there has been more progress on the Cities of Sigmar army.

I started to build a Steamtank, but then decided I needed to see how the Bretonnian units look so I could start to plan how to paint them. So I assembled a unit of Bretonnian peasant bowmen. This unit was rather static, as 12 of the figures were monopose archers, but the remaining 4 could be assembled with the arm I wanted to use. They all needed to get their heads glued on though, and there were several extra heads in the box to choose from. One of the characters looks like a warrior monk, and I made him the standard bearer as I think he can't use sharp weapons as part of his religion. Since the unit is archers they don't want a big banner flying over them that can get in the way of the archers shooting arrows where needed, so he is carrying a little shrine on a short pole instead. For the second unit there is a bird-like figurine to use on the banner pole, so I plan to use that. Then for the two units I have of old Bretonnian men-at-arms (don't remember the exact name on the box) I plan to use the big banners. I might also use the spare banners for some of my Freeguild units as the banners look great and it will both unify the army and make them stand out a little from other peoples Freeguild units. I will have to see how the arm connect to the shoulders though, as there are some differences from set to set here.

I decided to try my paint scheme to see how it would look so I started to paint one of the Greatsword soldiers. For the pants I used a color called Morghast Bone, this is a base color so it covers very well with one coat over a light primer. I think that color looked great, and I am exited to see how it will look after I give them a careful wash of Agrax Earthshade and then I will see if I need to layer up or if it will be okay with just a drybrush.

I painted his tunic Caliban Green as I like the contrast of light and dark. Also I know that both these chosen colors will look good together with the brown I will use for leather, and I can use a pink or a purple to give color to some of the feathers in their hats to separate rank-and-file from officers. The idea with the feathers is that all troops have light colored feathers (Same color I plan to drybrush the pants with) and then officers will either have parts of the feather in pink or purple or depending on their rank the entire feather (or some of them if they have more than one). 

The archers seem to have a proetctive coat of some sort on top of their long tunics, so that will probably be painted leather. To get some color variation I was thinking of painting the tunics dark blue for the Bretonnian units. Since they look a little different when it comes to armament they might as well look a little different in uniform as well, and then I will say they are from another area than the Freeguild units but they are all fighting as part of the same army. But to make the units look more unified, I plan to use the same color pants on all units. I was originally planning a more Swedish look with dark yellow and dark blue, but at least for now I am so happy with the color of the pants that I think I will use that for all troops.

I have also started to paint the general on foot and his standard bearer, so far they have gotten the pants painted, and the general has a light green cape that will match his Caliban green tunic. I wanted to check how a red contrast paint would look, so I painted the bardings on a knight horse red (Sir Phineas the Fortunate), the dragon on top of hi helmet and also the tunic of one of the wizards. I also decided on what color to use for the horns of the knight that has antlers on his helmet (Sir Samuel the Huntmaster, although his name and title might change), and here I have used the same contrast paint I use over the metal parts of my Necrons. I also think I will use that color on all the longbows, as it looks rather nice.