Pulp Figures Anglo-Saxons Painted

Pulp Figures Anglo-Saxons with paint on them. The figures were very cleanly cast with minimal mould lines, and the deep details were easy to paint. The texture of their mail is very nicely done.

The shield arms are held a bit higher than some other makes meaning that the faces are partly obscured by the shields themselves. I did find slightly smaller shields for them in my stash but the difference wasn't really noticeable in the end. Because of the shields obscuring so much I painted them separately, normally I stick them on first before painting

Only half of them got cloaks, they will be part of the veteran unit I have in mind; the others will be dotted around other units so that their monopose nature is disguised a bit.

Here's a close up of a few - despite all basically being the same figure the variety of interesting helmet styles disguises this a bit, along with different shield patterns.

There are some nice details on the figures, like the buckling up the back of their hauberks.

Even the cloaks I added didn't come out too bad.

Shields

"...the guilty parties are Ailred the carpenter and Eoward the blacksmith, both men whose labour is required for the arming of those newly arrived who are destined for the shieldwall. Yet both men were seen in recent days partaking of ale when they should have been labouring with adze and hammer. It is not the first time that men required for battle have had their fitness to do so fall foul of these two miscreants, whom I suspect to be foul sodomites so often are they in each other's confidence and partaking of drink in each other's company.

"Do they not know that the ships of Fergus mac Urnach have been spotted off our shores in recent days? This is no time to indulge in perverted lusts or drunkenness - to work, wretches!"

A slight delay has unfortunately manifested itself with these Pulp Figures Saxons. A delay manifested in the addition of their shields, or more specifically in the tiresome task of painting of their designs....

Michael Perry's knob

Jumping forward in time slightly, to the days of St. Gurnard's gotterdammerung, I fancied painting some cavalry and dug out a pack from Perry Miniatures 1st Crusade range, so who are basically Normans.

One of the ball-aches of 28mm dark age miniatures is gluing in spears and shields which are usually separate items. No matter what glue you use there's always the risk of them getting knocked off.

I was pleased to see Perry trying something to alleviate this problem, namely a protrusion, or knob, on each figure's arm, and shields with a hole in the middle. 

By sliding the knob into the hole, so to speak, the knob becomes the shield boss and this makes for a much more secure attachment than just sticking a whole shield to the arm. An innovation which goes some way to counterbalancing the usual rough casting from Perrys. 

I handpainted a banner for them. The Normans, being practical souls, don't require fancy knotwork animals like other Dark Age armies, relying on straightforward Christian iconography, bless them. The surface wrinkled a bit, I think I started furling it before it had fully dried. Like a fool.

Here are the dastardly continental scumbags, riding about England's fair land as if they own the place.

Veteran spearmen

Here are the completed veteran spearmen with their greenstuff cloaks. I did half the Pulp Figures pack, leaving the other half cloakless. Those will be dotted around other units so that their monopose nature is disguised.

The basic cloak shape added. The fur was done previously.

My initial view about the order to add the fur and body of the cloak was wrong, it turned out that adding a cloak after the fur was much more hassle than the other way around. The figure already stuck to a base and with a spear is the one where I did the cloak first. He definitely was the easiest to do, and looks the best. 

Second stage, bulking out a bit.

I added the basic shapes of the cloaks first, then once that had cured, I added the deeper folds with small sausages of greenstuff which were smoothed into the surface of the cloaks.

In the photos you can really see some roughness in the surface. The greenstuff was curing very fast and I was still working it when it was really a bit too hard. I could try some of the liquid greenstuff that GW sell to try and smooth them out. Or just trust to the painting to disguise any imperfections. Ah, well, it's all a learning experience.

And so to paint.