"A Call To Arms 1/32 British Infantry - My first 54mm" Topic

So I painted up my test figure for my 54mm colonial/VSF project. Normally I would have gone for 1/72 plastics, but for some reason I decided to go bigger on this one.

My process after I washed and cleaned up the figure:

1) prime with black liquitex acrylic gesso
2) block paint with acrlyics (mostly p3 and vallejo)
3) brush on gloss varnish (future/klear in this case)
4) oil wash with burnt umber and let mostly dry
5) clean up with thinner soaked cotton swab and let fully dry
6) brush on vallejo matte varnish
7) highlight and clean up with acrylics
8) varnish again

I'm going to base them on some 30mm or 1-1/4" washers.

The plastic was really hard. When I emptied the box contents onto the table, they didn't make the usual fwump sound like soft 1/72 plastics often do. They clattered. And they were too hard to remove mould lines with a knife, either by scraping or slicing. I ended up using files and still missed some.

Now that I've got the test figure done, the next step is to assembly line another 7 of them from the box (it came with 4 of each of 4 poses). The second half of the box will be painted up in different uniform colours. Haven't decided what yet. Maybe marines. Maybe the later khaki. Maybe some made up uniform for Victorian Science Fiction. Like the Queen's 1st Venusian regiment or something.

I think I'm happy with the results. In the pictures you can see some mistakes like the plate on the side of the gun missing. And some white and red bleeding over the lines with the straps from painting errors. I've gone back and fixed those since I took the pictures, including hard blacklining the straps.

Whatever this mystery plastic is (a really hard polyethylene, most likely) I hope my painting process works for it and everything stays in place.

That figure turned out quite nicely, one of my favorite sets of British Infantry. Keep in mind though, that the Call to Arms figures are noticably smaller and slimmer than other brands, notably Armies in Plastic.

Nicely done! ACTA Zulu War Brits are some of the best plastic poses available, IMO. And I've been thinking 54mm lately, too, so your post has my wheels turning!
Keep us posted.
Bob

Well then. Armies in Plastic was going to be my next stop for figures for this project. Although it might be a good thing as I want the cavalry and camels to be huge looking.

I'll probably still grab a set and see how they compare. I'm not super picky about it as I think a common painting style and uniform basing colours and textures can cover over a lot of scale mismatch.

Or maybe the next kit I will get will be the other Isandlwana kit. To get the other 4 poses.

One thing I've noticed is that unlike 1/72, I'm willing to use zoomed in pictures to identify mistakes and go back and correct them with 54mm. Normally I'd have a "good enough" or "it's too small to care" reaction, but this time as soon as I got the pictures off my phone and looked at the figure 10 inches tall on my screen, I went back and blacklined and fixed colour overruns.

I'm going to add a acrylic blacklining step to my assembly line painting of the rest of the figures.

54mm is a strange experience for me. I'm finding similar techniques that I use on 1/72 and 15mm are working, but they just feel like I should be handling them differently. I think maybe I looked at too many diorama/display figure painters who wet blend everything with oils.

I plan on painting a lot of them though, so I don't really want to spend the time needed to do this:

What I really want is a table full of guys that look like CorporalTrim's WW1 figures:

TMP link

That's the look and feel I'd like to get closer to.

Nathaniel;

Excellent start! You're right to want to emulate Steve (Corporal Trim), his style is minimalistic, but every detail is perfect in execution. Very "old school", very playable, and very impressive when a mass of figures are involved.

Now, if you don't mind a bit of constructive "picking"…

the plate on the side of the gun missing

There actually is no "plate" on the side of a Martini-Henry, any model. There were some Swiss Martini's with a removable side plate, but not these.

Martini M1871 from Wiki

I'm trying not to be "the condescending gun nut" here, but to offer solid advice. If you personally have handled the weapons of the period, this will not apply. Many have never handled such weapons, and probably never will. Get a source, it can even be a Wiki as long as it has good pictures attributed to a specific model. Just do a Google search on the make and/or model and you should find images.

In the case of the Martini-Henry, the receiver is solid steel, machined out vertically for the dropping breechblock, the lever and the inner workings (actually made up of sub-assemblies to some degree) There are three cross-bolts on the receiver and a safety lever on the right side attached to one of them. The barrel is threaded into the receiver and the wooden forend is attached and secured with a pin through a lug just ahead of the receiver, and by two steel barrel bands, one at a mid-point and one at the end of the stock. The buttplate should be steel unless the rifle was produced at the Indian arsenal at Ishapore, in which case it should have a brass buttplate similar to the ones on the P53 and P58 Enfields.

I've been handling firearms like this for over 45 years and have owned many of them. But I still double check before painting in a new era or nationality to make sure I know what I'm attempting to paint. As I said at the outset, excellent work! Just a touch here and there and they will be as close to perfection as a gaming figure will probably get.

Bill
Sir William the Aged

Excellent work, Nathaniel! If you're concerned with paint chipping, and are in the US or Canada, get a can of Rustoleum Grip & Guard spray paint. It's at DIY stores like Ace Hardware. I recommend clear. Color versions seems to have flecks of pigment suspended in the paint. After cleaning a plastic figure, spray it lightly with with this stuff. Apply your primer over that once dry. Hit it again with the G&G when you're done painting. That traps the paint between flexible clear layers. It dries gloss, but takes well to matte sealers. The plastic you describe may not be prone to chipping paint, but I offer this for completion's sake. If you delve further into 54s, feel free to check us out over at All the King's Men. 54s are all we do.

allthekingsmentoysoldiers.com

ATKM, Thanks for the reminder about grip & guard. I used it on 1/72 plastics years ago. I really don't think I'll have chipping issues as right now it has a layer of flexible primer (the acrylic gesso) and three layers of flexible varnish (1 of future, 2 of vallejo's polyurethane varnish). Though the Grip & Guard would guarantee the paint staying on.

I've also read your wargaming handbook and the civil war expansion and while 18th century in 54mm is on my to do list, the colonial/VSF project finishes first. I've tested the handbook 18th century game solo with proxy figures and absolutely love the turn structure with the changing command counters as you try to push the men to do more and more.

Bill, thanks for the info about the rifle. I had no idea it was a solid piece. If you look at the pictures of my figures, you'll see I missed the metal piece entirely. I was just going off the box art and some image searches but just totally missed it. Oops! I've corrected it now. I may pull out my really tiny brush and try to give the impression of the three bolts, but that's probably asking too much when I'd rather spend time getting close to Steve's style.

I'm going to paint the next batch as cleanly as possible with manual blacklining of everything While the oil wash and a highlight is super fast and gives reasonable results, I think I'd rather have the classic toy soldier look than just transplant my 15mm and 1/72 approach to a larger figure. I'll be happy if I end up somewhere between my wash & highlight approach and Steve's super clean, precise approach.

EDIT: I also have my first opponent for this project. I ran into a gaming club buddy at a local store where I put on a terrain building day and we talked historicals, wacky old Victorian speculative fiction and the like. So at the next club day I'm going to putting on a dino hunt and he's going to set up a small Greeks vs Persians historical battle in 10mm for us to finish the day with.

Well, I painted up another of the same pose in a different colour scheme:

The blacklining needs work and I need to fix his eye :D

It's definitely giving the right impression though.

I got inspired by some pictures of some Post Office Rifles and then some Bavarian Mercenaries and then some GNW Swedish Carolean infantry and ended up with a mish mash non-historical uniform that will work for my purposes.

In smaller colonial power vs colonial power skirmishes, they'll be Dutch or German mercenaries for nice simple red vs blue skirmishes. In larger games they'll be volunteer rifles like the Post Office Rifles, 1st Venus Regiment, fighting alongside the infantry in red.

Excellent job Nathaniel! That is a very nice figure from ACTA and your painting is highlighting that fact. very "gameable" while still being something you'd be proud to display.

Bill
Sir William the Aged

Love the painting and these figures look like very good value for money. let's see more of these painted up.