WIP Tatars

So, the weather here has been harsh, with temperatures outside between -15 and -20 centigrade so using spraypaints outside where I usualy do my priming has not really been an option.
Hence experiment with the QR minitaures tatars using white acrylic primer painted on with a brush.
 After basic colors and glaze I am at this point:

Small horde

Poor nomads, not able to get colors like the Poles.

 After painting with black primer, white feels ackward. All the mistakes and omissions seem much clearer. The proper darkness of glaze remains to be experimented - although I wanted a dusty, dirty look to these warrior it seems a bit too dark at some points.

QR miniatures - some 15 mm cavalry

Yesterday was assemby for Poles in here today I mounted them on cardboard for undercoating and possibly painting too.

Here are some pics and my feelings on the guys.

QR light cavalry with a member of nobility leading on.

Sold as light cavalry - these troopers have no visible armor. Could work as wallachians, volunteers or cossacks in my army. For Polish cossacks they might be slightly underarmoured. Nice mixture of bows and carbines.

Members of nobility

Nice gowns, seem to give good opportunity for opulent painting. No bows, quivers or carbines, but case of pistol holsters. Separate heads and weapons. I struggled with the weapons, but heads fitted easily.

QR Pancerni

 Commander with fur hat, leading a noble again. Carbines and quivers bows on those without. Separate weapons and right hands on some. Easy to glue on. My favorite is estoc carried by fourth from the left.

QR 30 Years War cuirassiers

Five wear closed helms, three have zishagge helmets, all in 3/4 armour. 3 with drawn swords rest with pistols. Will no doubt find a place in early 30 Years war army. Detail on zishagge is especially pleasing to me.

QR 30 years war Reiters

 Of the eight six seem to have breastplates. 2 of these have weird helmets of the type shown as Swedish early cavalry helm in Osprey, close to kapalina. The rest have hats. Pistols for all the armored troopers, drawn swords for the two guys in long buff? coats. Will nicely turn into a gruffy looking company of German Livonian or Curonian mercenaries I think. Could also work as early Swedish company.

New goodies

The mail brought some new stuff.
Osprey-book on Polish Hussars, giving some new ideas for painting the heavy hitters.
Batch of miniatures from Minifigs and Matchlock ranges and some figs from QR miniatures.

I mainly worked with QR stuff yesterday. The cavalry I was working with, different Poles and Tatars/Kalmuks from Russian range had horses and riders cast in one piece. Level of detail was pretty nice to my eyes, quality of cast was decent with pretty little flash.

Mixture of QR Lithuanian Tatars and Tatars/Calmucs from their Russian range

Some of the ranges had separate heads (Szlachta and lithuanian tatars) and some separate weapons on part of figures(Pancerni, Szlachta and some of the tatars.) I personally dislike gluing such minuscule details, although the estoc on one of the pancerni was very nice detail.

Generally these guys are a tad pudgier than by Fire and Sword  and Legio Heroica figures. It remains to be seen if separate banners of these guys stand up from the general lineup too much.

Pancerni finished and some WIP

The Pancerni have gotten their bases fixed and covering off matt varnish. Either cold or ambient moisture has given it some gloss though.

The Polish armies are not really known for their infantry, but it existed. Legio heroica Polish infantry together with Wargames Lan infantry.

Berdisches date the the companies on the left more towards the end of 17th century.  Troops on right have tiny hatchet that don't really show here. For a novice it was remarkable how much quicker it is to paint troops on foot with relatively uniform clothing rather than  ireegular cavalry.

Armored reiters - Finished

The squadron of armored reiters was finished last week.

I took these guys for the Christmas time painting challenge of Sotavasara forum. A nice little project and the deadline with these fellows helped in concentrating on actually finishing the group.

When making small inventory of what I have finished last year I marked that although I have painted relatively lot of troops to condition where they are recognizable on the table I tend to wander off precisely at that point.

Also, with lots of renaissance guys with very varied dress I have had tendency to work simultaneously with overly large batches with the result that painting monotonous stuff like pike shafts or doing bases has become a too tedious chore to be interesting.

I did not work only with these guys during holiday season. At the same time I had some Polish cossacks on the table and worked on getting mounts of larger batch to some kind of color. On the finishing run of these reiters I also gave finishing touch to the group of pancerni I have had almost finished for quite some time.

Reiters - almost there

After tasting defeat as part of Lithuanian skirmish list my reiters returned to painting table.
They received a wash of strong tone ink, new primary colors for highlights and some touchup.

They need varnish and some work on the bases.
Overall  I am pretty happy on how these guys turned out. Obviously I am need of practise in basic accuracy but with the help of second layer of paint after inking lots of the mess from original painting was eliminated.