These ten plastic 6mm scale Bloodletters used to be manufactured by "Games Workshop" for their tabletop wargame "Epic", and disappointingly are now long Out Of Production (OOP). However I was fortunate enough to stumble across a small tub of these diminutive Slaughter-kin from a second-hand stall whilst visiting "Colours" at Newbury a few years ago, and thought a couple of bases would make a nice subject for my penultimate, self-imposed Weekly Challenge.
The tiny figures were initially all super-glued onto two thin strips of wood, and primed using a double-helping of "Vallejo" Heavy Red. They were then shaded with "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade and dry-brushed with (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Red. I subsequently 'picked out' their loincloths and horns with some “Citadel” Abaddon Black, and applied a layer of Heavy Sienna to their Hellblades.
Lastly, I pigmented their hand-weapons using a combination of "Vallejo" Brass and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, finished the blades off with a delicate dry-brush of more "Vallejo" Brass, and assembled them in groups of five figures upon two separate small "Flames Of War" rectangular stands by "Battlefront Miniatures". During this process, I spotted that the sculpts are wearing brass bracelets on their wrists, something I had never noticed before, and was momentarily tempted to pick these out.
However, as I already have twenty Bloodletters already painted, based, varnished and flocked, such a move would necessitate my returning to these other figures and ‘touching them up’ too. Considering that some of these models were now rather inaccessible due to their position on their stands, I felt that that was asking a bit much of my skill with a steady paint-brush tip, so ultimately decided to simply leave well enough alone…
In addition to my ever expanding “crimson death”, I have also primed some other “Epic” miniatures in preparation for the imminent Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (AHPC). Unlike many of the 6mm scale models I aim to pigment for that event, my collection of second-hand Space Marine Land Speeders, bikes and robots were never primed by their previous owners, allowing me to consider having them represent some of the more colourful chapters of the Adeptus Astartes.
Moving away to the last of this year’s Weekly Challenges, randomly chosen by the turning of a playing card, I have been steadily progressing ten more 15mm scale plastic Confederate soldiers by “Warlord Games”. These figures actually came free on a sprue accompanying Issue 393 of "Wargames Illustrated", and once finished will actually allow me to field a complete twenty-man stand of soldiers for the Nottingham-based company’s "Epic Battles: American Civil War" tabletop game.