You need to see this!

http://macpheesminiaturemen.blogspot.com/2021/

I don’t wish to start a post with advising my readership to go elsewhere but what a painter! Using mostly craft shop paints Mr. Macphee produces miniatures by the bushel and they look so good too! How are we mere mortals supposed to keep up! Well I’ve tried taking inspiration rather than sinking into despondency.

Firstly, I was amazed by how many figures Mr Macphee paints in one batch. You must find the post where he sits down to paint 180+ 15mm Napoleonics! And there I think I can learn something. If you can only spare an hour, why not just paint one colour and if that is just the shako plume highlight on 180 miniatures then so be it.

I had a few bits and pieces of SAGA minis to get finished but they had to wait until they won the colour lottery so to speak. I applied contrast paints to all these figures over a white undercoat and used the tan wash to hide any awkward difficult to reach places. Time is of the essence!

So last month I did twenty 28mm Royalist cavalry so this month I did , in addition to the above fifty Bactrian phalangites. No messing around, white undercoat and a limited pallette.

Whenever I came to a choice, it was take the fastest option. They were Eastern phalangites with gaudy trousers but I gave them just one of four colours. Did they all need patterned trousers? Certainly not the middle rankers.

I was very pleased to get them all done! So it’s not revolutionary but I think the moral is not to sweat the difficulties. If you can avoid it, avoid it!

Next month I start on the Companions and the elephants so we shall see if the technique works. First job is thirty spear shafts : it hasn’t got boring yet ( well maybe a little!)

Thanks for reading: do feel free to comment!

Michael

CEO of Cardiff Dice Studz