AHPC IX - From Mike W: 28mm Mountain Men (96 points)

Well, week three of the challenge! It’s been a funny old week, two days away, travelling for work and the two day unwell, with no inclination to lift a paintbrush...

15 x Mountain Men on foot

Luckily, I had got ahead of the game last and done a lot of work on another eBay lot I’d acquired some time ago - this time 15 x 28mm Mountain Men on foot and an additional two mounted.

2 x Mounted Mountain Men 

The figures looked great, full of character, so I wanted to do my best in bringing that out on the finished figures.

My plan is to use these figures to supplement the volunteer forces fighting for Texas against Mexico in the Texas Revolution.

Batch #1,with 2 Scotsmen and Chinese gentleman 

Batch #2 Two of these figures I added rifles to their empty hands, can you tell which ones?

Batch #3, guy at right end has military trousers on with red strip, added by using a red pen

There were a couple of interesting figures in the group, two Scotsmen, one in a kilt and a Chinese man armed with a machete!

I decided I could warrant his presence by him as a cook or labourer who’d got caught up in the Texan excitement.
As most of the figures would be in buckskin, I used a variety of browns to paint these guys, I used contrasting browns to paint the numerous fringes on their jackets and trousers and I gave a couple of them sky blue military trousers, just for effect.

Scotsman #1 

Scotsman #2 

A couple words about the Scotsmen, I painted the kilt as follows, a base of bright blue, then horizontal and vertical green stripes were added. When thoroughly dry I got out a black and a red pen, drawing in a black line, horizontally and vertically through the blue stripe. I repeated the same, using the red pen, to add lines on the green stripe.

I then used the red pen to draw in the dicing on the base of the Tam O’Shanter,I finished off this guy with firey orange hair to affirm his Celtic roots, I used the same dicing method around the top of the kilted chap’s socks.

I’ve discussed how I paint horses before, so won’t bore you again with this. The learning from this week’s batch came when I started to varnish them.

I decided to try something different - mistake!

I usually varnish my figures as follows - apply Army Painter Dark Shade as a painted on varnish, this drys rock hard an is very glossy. I then spray with Army Painter Matt varnish and job done.

This time I decided to use a different Matt varnish that be painted on, when I say different, I mean cheaper....

Mounted Mountain Men

I varnished one mounted figure as a test, (the one on the dark horse), as the varnish dried it created a white, powdery residue all over the figure. Disaster!

Luckily, I remembered reading somewhere that if this happens, simply add a new coat of varnish from a ‘good’ manufacturer and it will fix the problems, if the first coat is not fully dry. I had a bottle of Army Painter Matt varnish, I applied a new coat very quickly and the was resolved.

The new bottle of varnish is now in the bin.

Calculations: 15 x 28mm Foot @5 points each = 75 points, 2 x 28mm Mounted @10 points each =20 points. TOTAL = 95 Points