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Lost in Transmission

Winter Kriegsfuhrung

As everybody knows Germany invaded the USSR on 21st June 1942 in Operation Barbarossa and was spectacularly successful in terms of enemy killed/captured/acreage but fell short before Moscow and Leningrad due to some combination of starting late due to the Balkan Campaign or early autumn mud "glueing" German units in place. From here the story goes that thanks to Hitler believing it would all be over by Christmas after the whole rotten communist edifice collapsed there was no

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Rapidish Rauchtarnmuster

I recently had a commission to paint some SS infantry wearing the rarely painted Rauchtarnmuster camouflage, sometimes known as smokey or blurred edge camo. It is a version of the much more common plane tree camo which i painted a version of here.... https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/single-post/2019/11/12/how-i-paint-waffen-ss-oak-leaf-camouflage-and-pea-dot However the difference is basically the blurry edge of Rauchtarnmuster - not easy in 28mm and therefore as alw

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Infamous - Captain Zipp crew

A recent and very enjoyable commission from a USA customer, Captain Zipp and the Infamous crew plus a few extra bits as you can see in the Team Photo below. This blog is not a tactical guide for two reasons, firstly I don't play and have never played against Bayou. Secondly I'm genuinely rubbish at Malifaux so completely unable to give any advice beyond be lucky with cards. Instead it will be a stroll through the gallery with commentary. First up the ever popular Gracie and h

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Chi Ha Shinhoto - painting guide

The Shinhoto Chi Ha was apparently just a normal Chi Ha but with a 47mm Anti Tank gun instead of a 57mm infantry support weapon. I think that this came about after meeting Soviet armour in 1939 and coming off worse. In any event this is Warlord's Shinhoto painted up in a slightly later version of the Japanese three colour camo. Reading other people more knowledgable than myself (almost everyone in this case) the nice yellow stripe and black outlining was dropped in 1942 so do

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Ebay to OK - Aragorn and Faramir

A couple of weeks ago I bought these Aragorn the King and Faramir the Knight miniatures off Ebay for not much money due to the fact they looked like this.... Poor old Eomer - who is there under several milimeters of paint - had no actual face visible and the other two had paint similarly blobbed on and lots of the little metal flash 'tails' still attached and painted. This is a really common feature of Ebay LOTR stuff as many people bought it as kids, banged on whatever paint

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Gondor speed paint

Lat week I rashly decided to run a Gondor force in an upcoming game. This wasn't rash due to any Gondorian shortcomings but was very rash due to me not having any Gondorians painted save a solitary banner guy. I needed 18 guys. The decision was Sunday morning and the game Tuesday morning leaving me...Sunday to paint them up! Decided to go speedy and to be honest I could only have done this with Gondor or Uruks as they are basically 2 colours. Here is how I batch painted 18 o

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Knock knock...JSIII coming through - step by step painting guide / painting update 9

The JSIII just missed WW2. Apparently some were en route for the front when Germany surrendered so saw no combat but were prominently on display in the parades which followed as a message to the Western Allies not to get any ideas. This painting guide goes through the basic steps of painting up this beast of a tank from Warlord. First up stynlrez black primer as above. The next steps below take the basic 4B0 and first darken it to go inthe shadows and then successively lighte

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Painting update 6 - Ziterdes / Thomarillion Terrain

More foam terrain from Ziterdes/Thomarillion, A sort of ruined tower/stairway and a Dwarven fortress. These are great value and paint up nicely with an airbrush and a bit of drybrushing This is the reverse or the obverse i suppose. Either way its a cool statue carved from the rock Mount Rushmore style. LOTR Gandalf again appears 'Wheres Wally' fashion for scale purposes. These were painted in the same fashion as the fortress described in more detail below. Now the Dwarven For

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Theodead - Lord of the Rings - back from the dead

This is a reblogging of an earlier blog whose pictures were bodged by Wix.... Updated: May 31 Theodred, son of Theoden does not have a big part in The Two Towers. He plays an almost corpse, then an actual corpse and screen time is less than a minute with obviously no speaking. The best bit of his appearance is when Eowyn pulls back the sheet to look at the wound and pulls a face no patient ever wants to see on the face of their doctor/nurse... Nonetheless here we have Theodre

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Steppe by Steppe Dothraki (Redux)

This is a repeat of an earlier Blog which unfortunately Wix has maimed by removing the fotos so I've redone it..... Just completed the Targ starter set for a customer and amazingly managed to remember to take some snaps on my phone of most of the stages. In truth i got a bit ropey taking snaps towards the end when doing details but the bulk is sorted. I used a mix of the guys as I was obviously painting them all as a batch so whatever was in front of me at the end of each sta

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Stormcrow mercenaries - step by step

Just been sent a commission involving several units I hadn't yet been asked to paint amongst which were these Stormcrow mercenaries and some Stormcrow archers. Unusually I remembered to take enough snaps to get a reasonable painting guide unlike my normal trick whereby I start well then get wrapped up in the work and forget to take pics half way through. Priming was a mix of Stynlrez dark brown and black to give a solid dark brown base as much of the figure is brown. Next up

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Haqqislam Ghulams

Salam Alaikum. Today's effort is all about painting up some of the lovely Haqqislam minis from Red Veil. I have already done the Yu Jing and they are painted up here .... https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/galleries in the Sci Fi gallery - along with the rest of the Infinity stuff I've done. First step was to undercoat and I used a mix of Stynlrez black and brown in the ratio some black: some brown to get a dark brown base as all the colours used were going to be brow

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Armour plated

Recently I've been painting quite a lot of Burrows and Badgers and Lord of the Rings minis many with significant areas of plate armour. There are lots of methods for doing armour out there on the internet but most are really time consuming in achieving a nice result. Obviously as a commission painter charging by the mini/hour time is of the essence. As Napoleon said in a very different context "Territory I can regain but lost time never. " As a result I have developed a basic

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Bare ruined choirs

"Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang." Sonnet 73 Another Ziterdes piece, this time a ruined monastery/church etc. Another really great centrepiece for a whole series of games. I can see this in Frostgrave, Burrows and Badgers as well Lord of the rings and more obvious fantasy systems. As with all Ziterdes pieces it could be used straight up as can be seen in the picture below - probably not with the Daleks from

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Pyramid step by step...

I recently painted up a terrain piece from Ziterdes. ( https://www.ziterdes.com/ ) This is a German company which produces some really interesting pieces in a lightweight but sturdy foam and they come sort of painted and flocked. The step pyramid here came in the basic browny grey textured paint with the bright green flocking you can see below and would be ok straight up to play but one of my regular customers believed there was room for improvement so here we go. As usual

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Badgers and foxes and beavers, oh my!

One of the cool things about being a commission painter is getting to paint stuff you would never ever normally buy for yourself. This article is an example of that as I look at a selection of miniatures from the Burrows and Badgers range by Oathsworn which I had not heard of and in all honesty would never have looked once at had I not been sent a selection to paint for a commission. As a spoiler I never comment or review miniatures I don't like as I feel its unfair to people

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Just like you...rapid mimicry

Just this week I was asked for the first time in several years of commission painting to paint up a D&D miniature. The mini in question being a Mimic and its quite a large miniature being about 10cm tall i guess - including tongue! It looks like a 3d print and i have no idea of the manufacture (rpg prints?) but it came to me clean of flash or 3d bits so I popped it into the rota and decided to take some snaps. Step one is always stynlrez black undercoat which always comes out

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Ha Ha

I have just completed painting the Jokers Clowns' Party box as my introduction to BMG 3rd edition. I already own the core box but hadn't actually wanted to start in on it yet for no good reason...I had painted up the Teen Titans for a customer some months back and enjoyed them but wasn't yet drawn to the actual game. I had also bought the 'all in' Batman Gotham city chronicles from Monolith - all unpainted but now had the itch to paint some Batman. In the completely illogical

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Burn them all!

I recently had a dinky T26 Kht 130 to paint for a commission and actually remembered to take some snaps of how I went along. First of all though I need to acknowledge that almost everything I do when painting WW2 armour was learned from the master Ruben Torregosa on his Heresybrush website. In fact if you want to skip the rest of this guide here is the link to Heresybrush https://www.heresybrush.com/en/ If you're still with me what I've done is to adapt all that I learned fro

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Paint it black

Painting stuff black is quite difficult as like white more often than not it isn't the colour you imagine it to be but a whole range of shades. To be honest that makes it the same as every other colour but somehow in our heads black is just black. To complicate matters black also comes in both shiny and matt more than say green. Baddies always have shiny black leather or armour or black sweeping robes...or both and sometimes the goodies This adds to the challenge of painting

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First commission painting

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Lost in Transmission

Winter Kriegsfuhrung

Rapidish Rauchtarnmuster

Infamous - Captain Zipp crew

Chi Ha Shinhoto - painting guide

Ebay to OK - Aragorn and Faramir

Gondor speed paint

Knock knock...JSIII coming through - step by step painting guide / painting update 9

Painting update 6 - Ziterdes / Thomarillion Terrain

Theodead - Lord of the Rings - back from the dead

Steppe by Steppe Dothraki (Redux)

Stormcrow mercenaries - step by step

Haqqislam Ghulams

Armour plated

Bare ruined choirs

Pyramid step by step...

Badgers and foxes and beavers, oh my!

Just like you...rapid mimicry

Ha Ha

Burn them all!

Paint it black