Since I’m not buying very much these days I’ve been trying to get stuff I already have lying around painted. One such project is my Soviet Bolt Action army. They’re my first army and I picked them up a while ago, it burned out for me a bit in the assembly stage. I just don’t like assembling models when I’m not converting them and Bolt Action figures (well at least the Soviets) are particularly difficult for me to put together with two separate arms holding a weapon that is a third separate piece it’s nigh on impossible for me to get them built with my hand tremor. Thankfully I can laugh at it rather than getting frustrated and with much hard work I managed to assemble the 55 infantry in the Soviet starter army. Now all I need to do is paint them for a game next weekend.
I suppose what the Soviets lack in being a pain in the ass to assemble they make up for in being quick to paint.
After spraying a light brown, I pick out the skin in Bugman’s Glow, the rifle with Cygor Brown, then the boots and metallic parts with Black Templar. Any straps, pouches and visible hair under the helmet I paint with Snakebite Leather. I cover the helmet and base with Tamiya’s Dark Green and then give the whole figure an Agrax Earthshade wash. Finally a quick light drybrush with any bone colour I have to hand covers all the highlights.
It’s a scheme I can churn out quickly and hopefully I’ll get them all done in time. There’s nothing like the deadline of an upcoming game to get you painting stuff.
As an end of January update:
I painted my VASA starter force costing £40:
And a House Baronor force for Deathzap for my upcoming campaign valued at £8.40.
So that’s £211.50 painted against £55.40 spent as I bought those wooden blocks for my campaign map.
The map for the campaign is coming along nicely too, painting directly over that bad print out was a good idea:
Deathzap 
Nicely done Soviet Infantry, like the Airfix OOHO Russians and Japanese being rereleased, Generic enough that they could be used for ImagiNations troops.
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There are several interesting YouTube videos out there of tips about painting with handshake, obviously an issue as a whole generation of gamers gets older.
Looking good, I liked the work you did on the Soviets. They’ve come out very nicely
I’ve got a whole load of Soviets to assemble myself and I’m not looking forward to it at all now, thanks! I do like the way you’ve painted these, though, that gives me hope that I might be able to churn them out quickly, but this is me we’re talking about so it’s unlikely.
The drybrush with bone gives them a nice worn look, which I really like, and will probably copy that, thanks!