Saga Project: The First Point Defines Them All
When my Saga order finally arrived I set to work immediately. In my haste I had to make decisions that I now realize I am stuck with for the rest of the project. Fortunately I am happy with the choices I made.
Batch Painting
I have painted miniatures in batches before. My first choice was how large a batch I wanted to paint. Too large and I would feel rushed and frustrated. My rule of thumb is to size my batches based on what I can paint in a week. In the past this has been 4-6 miniatures. Any more and I quickly fatigue and slow down. My last project felt fast at one week per miniature.
For Saga I made the strange decision to paint 10 miniatures per week. I noticed that the 4 point starter box actually came with 20 warriors, 10 hearthguard, a standard bearer and the warlord. While I only need 16 warriors, 8 hearthguard and a warlord I try to make it a habit to paint all of the miniatures I buy when I buy them. On the upside if I pull it off, and paint the Warlord and Standard Bearer alongside the Hearthguard (so 12 miniatures that week) I’ll be done in three weeks. I like the sound of that.
Painting Shields
The next choice came during assembly. How did I want to tackle the shields. The fastest, and perhaps smartest, way to paint the shields would be to leave them separate, use some wonderful Little Big Men Studios transfers, and glue them on at the end of the painting process. Of course that would have meant ordering the transfers in advance and forfeiting the ability to be creative and practice my freehand.
It occurs to me now that I could have probably received an order of transfers by the time I was finished painting all the miniatures and applied them in one big batch. It didn’t occur to me last week so I am committed to freehand. Personally I am happy with my freehand and although it significantly increases the painting time I am happier knowing that I painted the shields myself, however great the LBMS transfers look.
I must admit that I took a lot of inspiration from the available LBMS transfers. I had tried to find some historical sources but our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon shield designs is very spotty.
The Next Point
My next batch of miniatures for the project is another 10 warriors. In Saga 8 warriors costs 1 point so I’m painting an extra 4 warriors. So far I am on target for a three week completion, assuming I don’t decide to paint the Warlord and standard bearer by themselves.
Painting 10 figures a week seems pretty fast to me, since I average about… one. Ha.
Anyway, glad to see you tearing into this project.
10 a week is pretty fast for me. I’ve been slowly ramping up. BMG miniatures took a month each on average. Guild Ball was a week per miniature.
I’ve been really paying attention to what is necessary. If you start with your darkest colour for the shadow do you need to apply 3 coats to make sure it is “smooth.” If you paint the entire section dark, then add your mid tone and then you highlight by the time you’ve reached the highlight you’re already up from black. I can do this faster than most people could put 2-3 coats of a mid tone, apply a wash, clean up the wash by re-applying the mid tone and then adding highlights, even if you don’t consider the drying time of a wash.
I should probably write an article about it.
Well you know I would read it. 😉
And it certainly sounds faster, since you do not have to wait as long for paint to dry as for washes, giving you the possibility to really hammer some units out over a night.
The next batch I paint will be the core of the article. Either a bunch of WWII Canadians with a super easy uniform, or some 1812 Brits with an only slightly more complicated outfit.