To give it its full title:-

Painting Wargames Figures - Allied Forces in Northwest Europe 1944-1945, British & Commonwealth, US and Free French

This is the fourth book in this series by Andy Singleton (and the fourth that I have reviewed on this blog). Generally, I find that they make a good introduction to the subjects covered and if not a complete guide, they are a good starting place.

This book is no different, giving a great insight into where to begin when painting your allied troops.

This is the third of Andy Singleton's painting guides that I have reviewed ( Early Imperial Romans and WWII in the Desert). As usual, they are well researched and give some useful background on the period and theatre of war.

I have always had a hankering to put together an Early Imperial Roman army, let's face it when someone says Romans these guys are what most people think of, and I still have fond memories of playing with my old Airfix 1/72 plastic Romans and Ancient Britons back in the 1970s.



So when Pen and Sword Books offered me a review copy of Painting Wargaming Figures - Early Imperial Romans by Andy Singleton I could hardly refuse, could I...

The book is an excellent primer for anyone wishing to start an Early Imperial Roman collection, although probably better suited to for the beginner than the more experienced painter.


With chapters covering basic preparation and painting techniques and then moving on to separate guides on painting weapons and armour, shields, clothing, skin tones, horses and then basing, it does cover all the essentials. However, an experienced painter will probably find that they end up skipping large sections as there is quite a lot of repetition. The guidance on colours to use is fine, although, personally I would have prefered to have seen some illustrations such as those found in the Osprey Publishing Men at Arms and Elites series.


Personally, I think most readers following a painting guide get more from the photos and illustrations than they do from the actual text. This is where this book is somewhat of a letdown. There certainly are plenty of photos throughout the book, however, the photos are quite small and most feature the clamp holding the figure taking up even more page space than the actual figure (see above). This means that on many of the pages it is almost impossible to tell what has changed between one photo and the next, especially when it comes to some of the subtler painting techniques.



I feel that the photos could have been improved a lot by "zooming in" on the actual part of the figure being painted. To illustrate this I have mocked up a couple of pages from the book below. On the left, we have the actual page and on the right, we have my mock-up with better-scaled photos. As I simply took smartphone photos of the pages the improvement is not really visible, but I think you should get the point. Larger photos (or more "zoomed-in" photos) would show more detail and illustrate the painting process far better than the photos in this book.


As you can see from these two photos just removing the clamp from the photos is enough to increase the size of the figure to allow a better view.

I have not been very active over the last couple of months (hence the lack of new posts). The summer holidays have affected both my hobby gaming time and my design time. I have been painting up my Aliens Vs Predator: The Hunt Begins miniatures, which are nearly finished. I have also been experimenting with my new camera, this will hopefully lead to a bit of an improvement in my miniatures photography. Beyond that, there has been a fair bit of re-organising my collections and plans to thin things out a bit.
However, as any miniatures collector will tell you, there is always something new to catch your eye, which just has to be added to your collection. In this case, a friend of mine (Jeff) pointed me in the direction of a Cthulhu statue that he had spotted on Ebay. It was an instant buy on my part. I am not sure whether I am going to paint it up as a statue or as a living being (or somewhere in between). The price was, a very reasonable, £12 plus £2 postage.


It comes in three parts. A stone plinth with sigils up the front and a couple of watery type molluscs around the base, the body of the beast itself and the wings.


Standing between 120-30mm this is a sizable piece and will make a great statue for Cthulhu/ pulp games or possibly Frostgrave.


The detail on the kit is lovely and it should be a joy to paint. The cast was very crisp, with not bubbles, flash or mould lines.



The kit is made by Infinity Engine, and it was sold by them through their Ebay store. It can also be purchased via their website:-

http://www.infinity-engine.co.uk/product_detail_CT001.html

I would point out that the kit is slightly more expensive on their website and appears to come with a different plinth...