writes:
A long, long time ago, some kind TMP'er (if anyone remembers who, would you remind me?) proposed a Christmas project to paint up an army for yours truly. This was back in the days before Supporting Memberships existed, and there were some people who wanted to do something nice for me as a reward for running this website.
I was asked to select a period and scale, and chose 25mm Ancient British (Celts) - and proposed using the DBA army list. That great Australian and perennial TMP'er, Scurvy, took on the role of coordinating the volunteers to get the army painted.
The volunteers pointed out that there needed to be a basing standard, and we went with 20mm square bases, painted green, with no flocking. (My thinking was that if I did the final base treatments myself, the army would look more unified - and I'd have a chance to put some of "myself" into the project.) The volunteers were encouraged to paint their names (or TMP names) on the backs of the bases.
Time passed, and the figures slowly arrived, by ones and twos!
Now the ball was in my court (and I'm notoriously bad at balancing projects!). The figures went temporarily onto a display shelf - which was a mistake, as any visiting TMP'er (and many another guest!) wanted to handle the figures. Some figures had already lost shields or weapons in shipping (or the painter had wisely left them unattached for shipping); now they got a bit more scattered, and a bit more handled.... (So if a figure has ended up the wrong spear or shield... sorry!)
At last - after many helpful prompts from the volunteers - the project adjourned from the shelf to my workbench, and I started to think about the final base work. I had wanted to keep these figures flexible, so that I could use them with multiple rulesets and basing systems - so they were a DBA army with WAB basing! Had I created a monster?
Moving forward, I made sure that all of the figures were mounted uniformly on 20mm bases. Most of the unbased figures were glued down to Gale Force Nine magnetic bases; figures that were already based had magnetic strip added to their undersides, where practical.
I also had a change of artistic heart, so repainted most of the base edges from green (the original instructions) to black. In many cases, the back edges were left in the original colors (with the names of the volunteers).
The individual figures were then spackled and flocked. (With the exception of two figures which already had base treatments.)
Then it was time to come up with some movement trays, so that these WAB-based figures could be used as a DBA army. Of course, these are quite tiny movement trays - more like "overbases" (underbases???).
And now it's time to show off the final results, and thank once again the volunteers who provided me with such a treat - a truly unique army, autographed by many of our old stalwarts!
I'll be posting a few pictures every Friday for a few weeks, showcasing the volunteers and their work.)