Sunday 25 July 2010

Raetian Auxilia II

Here are the Raetians, again, primed and ready to go.  I hope to be able to paint them in around 7 sessions, as they should be the amongst the simplest Roman figures to paint because of the whopping great cloaks.  But I still have 2 or 3 sessions basing sessions remaining to complete the British Auxiliaries, so I hope that they will be finished  in around 2 weeks time.

On the subject of primer, I used a can of Army Painter and an not at all pleased- despite my best shaking,  the minis have an unfortunate gritty texture. I actually had to wash them to get surplus powder off them! I'm going to do some careful testing to establish whether is the product, or the heat. 

I'll be using the excellent LBMS transfers and have some here, left over from an earlier project.

6 comments:

Scullmeister said...

Thanks for the tip on the AP primer. I was going to get some, but I might ask a few others what they think before changing from what I currently use.
I'm looking forward to seeing how your new unit progresses.
Do you have pictures of the rest of your army?

BigRedBat said...

Hi, in all fairness I need to do a further test on the AP primer on a cool non-muggy day.

I haven't taken pictures of the army as a whole, just some of the units. All the Auxilia are on this blog, but only 1 of the 8 finished legionary cohorts is pictured. I don't want to take a pic of the whole legion until I finish all 10!

There is an old pic of the legion here, though:-

http://www.displacedminiatures.com/BigRedBat/image/2362/22820/

Consul said...

I have about 6 or 7 different colours of AP spray and can say that all of them react in this way, giving a 'gritty' texture. I've since gone back to GW sprays and these give a much smoother finish.

This pic makes me want to continue with my Roman project (I may repaint the shields of those I've already painted and make some modifications with green stuff on my other unpainted figures.

Consul.

BigRedBat said...

That doesn't sound good, Consul!

I love EIRS; I blame Airfix.

Richard Lockwood said...

I have used AP primers a few times.

First using Leather Brown to undercoat a couple of hundred Classical Indian 15mm infantry, and the Destert Yellow for the chariot vehicles (and these two plus Skeleton Bone for the horses, as well as GW white and black and a couplemof car primers red/brown and grey). See my review in Slingshot of the Chariot 15mm figures.

Later I used the Human Flesh for my 28mm Old Glory and Gripping Beast Gaesati (sans clothing). I then went further, using the red, blue and green as well on a Warlord plastic Celts box set, copying the method described on the AP website.

I can report no gritty finish at all. In fact, I find the finish almost too smooth compared to a matt white or black from GW!!! Washing over the Human Flesh works really well.

Are you shaking the cans enough? Are you storing them at room temperature? Stupid questions, I know, but I once had problems with the GW Purity Seal varnish spray because (I think) it had been stored too cold.

Richard

BigRedBat said...

Hi Richard, it was a new can, and I recall that I did give it a good shaking for this reason. The can hadbeen in the house at room temperature.

Looking at the minis, the backs (which I sprayed at 11ish on quite a warm morning) are bad, but the fronts (sprayed later in the cooler evening) look better. It was, possibly, the heat. I'm going to try again on a cool day batch of minis I won't lose sleep over!