Royal Marines Shore Party
What! Two blog posts in one week! After the excitement of completing the Moai I thought that I would round up my progress elsewhere. As you can see my first eight Royal marines are complete and ready to take to the table. Fortunately, my gaming buddies are very easy going and they wont object if I deploy a unit of Royal Marines along side the rest of my British Army. As I have previously mentioned they will be part of my Caribbean force although they will also see service as part of a detachment in my Peninsular army – when I get around to starting it!
I’ve photographed the final stages of these figures being completed as part of my batch painting process. Once they were block painted, I gave them a coat of Army Painter Quick Shade.
Quick shade Dark Tone applied
The next stage is to give them a spray of Army Painter anti shine.
Anti Shine applied sparingly
Once the Anti Shine matt varnish is dry, I add highlights to the figures. This often just entails repainting the lighter colours – white in particular, the red on the jackets and retouching the metallics with Gold & silver as they can look too dull in places. On this occasion I also attempted to paint in the eyes and added some highlights to the faces – not something that I normally worry about with rank & file troops. Looking closely at the picture, you can see why I tend to leave the eye’s… A couple will need retouching.
Highlights added & basing is started
The final touch is to finish the bases. I used my usual ‘recipe’ of Vallejo Desert Sand to cover the bases. Then painted them with Vallejo Chocolate Brown, highlighted and dry brushed them with Flat earth & increasing amounts of Iraqi Sand added. I then added some green scatter & some of the new Gamers grass tufts and they are done.
Basing completed
The final process of repainting sounds as though it is a bit of a chore but in reality it is quite a quick job. I think that it is worth the time as it also gives you the chance to correct any obvious painting errors. For some troops, it is just as easy to leave this part out and go straight to the basing. After all, these are rank and file troops to be used on the table, not painting competition entries. It all comes down to a matter of taste and of course, time. If you would like to read my blog giving details of all the colours used in the early stages of painting, click here.