28mm Lakhmid Arab cavalry (Sassanid allies) PART II END

 Hello guys!

Finally , since 2020, I managed to finish my Lakhmid cavalry for my Sassanid army.

Here you have the first post with the history and conversion process:

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2020/05/28mm-conversions-lakhmid-arab-cavalry.html

The miniatures are a mixture of Gripping beast plastic Arab heavy cavalry,  Armorum & Aquila Sassanids horse archers in armor. I painted them mostly in Vallejo and Foundry paints in triads.

I started the painting process in early March, but an eyes operation prevented me to finish the unit until May!  I tried to use earthy and warm tones, like the illustration above, I also painted a couple of horse saddle with leopard skin like the noble warrior of the illustration.

The shields are A&A with Little big men studios decals from their Sassanid range.

The plastic horses are nice and pleasant to paint, also the plastic rider, which , in my opinion, is a good miniature compared with other plastic kits from Gripping Beast.

The unit is based for Impetus or Basic Impetus, like the rest of my late antiquity armies.

I hope you like them!

Cheers

XVII c Civilians: Knight of Calatrava

 Hello guys,

I am (slowly) painting some XVII civilians for different games set in 30 Years War, Lace Wars... And I started with a miniature from Anno Domini 1666, he is a Caballero de la Orden de Calatrava or Knight of Calatrava... This order was one of the four Spanish military orders and the first military order founded in Castile, in 1164 to fight against the Moors

After the fall of Granada in 1492,  the military spirit had long disappeared. The orders had, in fact, fallen into a state of utter inactivity.  The last attempt to employ the knights of the three orders for a military purpose was that of Philip IV, in quelling the rebellion of the Catalans (1640–50), but the orders restricted their efforts to the complete equipment of one regiment, which has since been known in the Spanish army as "The Regiment of the Orders".

This knight from small Spanish nobility can be a wealthy man who lead his men into battle, or a duellist or just a civilian who defend his town during a siege.

The painting was veeeeery easy , almost entirely black , I tried to emulate some new techniques of drybrushing with big soft brush, and then some speedpainting of edge highlights in grey, nothing too fancy, just a quick and easy miniature for the warband.

Flames of War: Panzer II "whitewashed"

 Hello guys!

It has been a long time since I last updated this blog... I had some health (eyes) issues, and thank God, everything is fine now, and I was able to finish some  painting projects I had unfinished, like a 1/35 model diorama (not gaming stuff) and some ancients in 28mm , as well as some Flames of War miniatures like these here.

This time I painted 3 Zvezda plastic 1/100 or 15mm Panzer IIs for my Stalingrad project.

The detail of these little tanks is decent and good enough for gaming purposes, and they are quite light and small.  I really enjoyed painting them in winter camouflage, with the white wash over the panzer grey paint.  

By late 1942 (and almost 1943) Panzer II were clearly outdated and outgunned by enemy tanks, but they were still useful as rear guard actions or airfield protection.  As I am buillding a small airfield , inspired in  Gumrak airport in Stalingrad, or something similar, with a 1/100 Junkers 52 in the airstrip... I wanted to have some Panzer II as the defense force against Soviet hordes in my games.

I used  Ammo Mig Chipping fluid over the panzergrey paint, and the white paint over this fluid... then just brushed on some water, and the white paint began to tear off or "chip".

Then I applied the usual weathering on the tanks as follows...

Gloss varnish, decals, more gloss varnish to protect all the previous work... filters, oil dots fading,  pin washes, chipping, dust & mud, and matt varnish!

I hope you like these small tanks!