October 3, 2021John@justneedsvarnish

Octember!

I frequently find September to be “Slow September” but this year it’s been “No September”, at least as far as my blog’s concerned (my last post was at the end of August)! Despite my apparent lack of activity I’ve been busy enough with painting wargames stuff, although maybe not getting bits finished or photographed. As far as blogs are concerned, I’m still enjoying reading and finding out what everyone else is up to!

I’m still concentrating on my 20mm Paraguayan War troops, but the latest pilot figures (shown above) have slowed me down a bit while I sort out their uniform details. These two are the first of my late-war Brazilian cavalry and early-war Argentine infantry and I’ve painted a test figure of each to use as references for painting up the rest. I can hopefully take the infantry to our caravan to paint, while I concurrently paint the cavalry at home (they’re more difficult to transport around, despite being magnetically based).

Hopefully, I’ll cover these figures in more detail when I get the units finished, photographed and posted. Hopefully in October!

43 comments

    • Thanks Ann, I appreciate that! 🙂 I’m afraid I rush my horses a bit, since I just do not like painting them. In this case, though, the fiddly detail on the Argentine infantryman meant he took as long to paint as the horse and rider!

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  3. Both look great John, can understand the not posting all the time, but you do follow along all the time with everyone’s blogs, keeping up with what’s going on can be like a full time job in itself some weeks ! LOL

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  4. Slowtember might just be the most accurate way of describing it…let’s hope it doesn’t flow into October as well.

    Both those troops look great and are evidence that your slow is still not stopped. 🙂

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    • Thanks Dave! 🙂 There are six cavalry in the unit and I have managed to introduce at least a small variation in horse colour. There are 10 infantrymen, all in the same uniform (OK, the officer’s slightly different) but all different poses.

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    • Thanks Roger! 🙂 My substitute figure for the Argentine infantryman is not bad (a French Crimean War chasseur) although the skirts of the tunic are too long but the closest I could get. There’s confusion in the reference material about uniform details and some show white equipment belts – these would have made him look even more colourful, but I opted for black since it is less easy to spot where the brush wobbled about a bit (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it)! I almost considered not bothering with these Argentines since they are fiddly to paint (I have two other units already) but I’m pleased with how this test figure turned out!

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    • Thanks Jeff! 🙂 To be honest, I’ve been busy enough preparing stuff and I’ve even finished some bits but not got any pictures taken. Colder weather and the onset of autumn are probably more of a hindrance actually, since it tends to be wetter and windier and both of those stop me from varnishing figures (although I can paint stuff and blog it, remembering to add that it just needs varnish)!

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      • I can relate to what you’re saying! Truthfully, I have a ton of miniatures that I need to prepare and I’ve been procrastinating on that task myself. It saves a lot of time to get them primed with a rattlecan and if I don’t get it in gear, I’m probably going to regret it in the cold winter months!

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        • Well, to be fair Jeff, the wedding and that truly outstanding elf mini have been keeping you busy enough (and note the order I’ve put them in, in case anyone’s reading this over your shoulder)! You can always prime with a brush if needs be!

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          • A wise move for both of us, John 😉 That is true. For your typical minis, that will certainly work well. I’ve got some MDF terrain I’d be wise to prime soon but other than that, I can always brush prime them!

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  15. Keeping up with others blogs in a serious way does indeed take time, and I always appreciate your thoughtful comments on mine. I’m glad to see you back posting and these figs are excellent as usual. What needs emphasis is your approach with test figures. Sound and worth highlighting. Your attention to detail is one of the reasons I love your posts. Great work.

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    • Thanks Mark! 🙂 To be honest I didn’t go into any detail on these two figures, since all I wanted to establish was the uniform colours, mainly for the Argentine infantry. They’re painted no differently from my usual figures i.e. a minimum of base/shade colours followed by single layers in the final uniform colours. The main reason for wanting to get a test Argentine figure done was so that I didn’t have to keep looking up details in books and could then use the single figure for reference. This was particularly useful since I’ve been painting the Argentines while I’ve been away at our caravan and they’ve taken a lot more effort than I thought they might! The good news is that the 10-man unit is very nearly finished, with just scatter grass and varnishing left to do. The Brazilian cavalryman didn’t need to be done as a test figure, but I changed my approach to cavalry and decided to finish figures one at a time to feel like I was making progress (my dislike of painting cavalry is well documented). The six-man cavalry unit is actually finished and I just need to get them all photographed for my next post!

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