"ACTA 54mm / 1:32 Inniskilling Dragoons" Topic

Overall I like the figures, but anyone sensitive about scale issues will not like them. They're far too small both in terms of the horse and the riders to be heavy dragoons in 54mm. I also changed the pose of the one rider so his sword wasn't sticking out to the side. I'm personally not that bothered by size problems in 54mm, but if you are, A Call to Arms is known to be on the small size and their Napoleonic cavalry are the worst offenders.

I decided I'd do my 54mm Napoleonics with bright green bases. I'm trying to get painting to be cleaner, but I'm also trying to paint at a rate of a miniature per day and with 54mm, that's a lot of surface area to cover at a quick pace.

They got block painted, gloss varnished and then a watercolour wash. Then touched up and some matte varnish (though it looks like I missed part of the arm on one of them) and then gloss over any metal or anything that should be shiny.

Very nice!

Are those metal fender washers as your bases?

The bright green bases look great.

Awesome! Your work really shows the strength and charm of 54mm.

Nice, I think you can ignore the size issue, its a shame you have to but they are nice figures.

dBerczerk wrote: Are those metal fender washers as your bases?

The bright green bases look great.

They are just flat washers, but there are two of them for adding heft and height. I just discovered that the cheap washers from eBay I got are not ferrous at all. They simply don't stick to any magnets. I may have paid only a third of what I would have had I bought them locally but in my thrift, I lost the magnetic advantage.

The green is growing on me as well. I'm going to have to get a brighter ground cloth to go with them as well.

allthekingsmen wrote: Awesome! Your work really shows the strength and charm of 54mm.

That means a lot coming from you. It was actually your painting article that inspired my approach. For anyone who hasn't read it, you can find it here:

link

I found with the water colour wash for the blacklining, I had to touch up very little with the micron pen. The only place I used it on these figures was on their shoulders. Though I did some touch ups on their cross belts with just black paint and a fine brush. My results though, are simply not as clean as the entirely manually applied blacklining as it relies on a wash to accomplish it.

I also have a copic brush marker I like, but you have to wait a full day for the ink to dry or when you varnish it, it'll lift off and turn the varnish into a dark filter over the whole model. The Pigma Micron pens are definitely better.

Green Tiger wrote:Nice, I think you can ignore the size issue, its a shame you have to but they are nice figures.

I'm actually finding that it makes less of a difference across the table in 54mm than it does in 28mm and smaller. A few mm shorter and larger here and there is only a few percent compared to the same difference in smaller figures. It will also only really be apparent when they are next to larger figures that are also on horseback as even the very large Armies in Plastic figures on foot look smaller as they're simply not mounted.

When it comes to A Call to Arms, they seem to have a distinct advantage in terms of both price and availability. They are also far more realistic in their proportions and stature than many of the more traditional toy soldier style options. I actually prefer the toy soldier look to the historical modeller figure look, but I totally get why that would not be a universal opinion.