Now that the terrain bug is thoroughly out of my system I return to painting miniatures. Miniature painting always seems easier after some time off doing other hobby stuff, so I was able to finish off these 12 miniatures rather quickly for me anyway. Maybe not for others.
Here we have the first of what is gonna be many many 'American' colonial militia.
Militia in MPC Coats. What the Hell is a MPC Coat?
When I bought my miniatures from Brigade Games I purchased many packs of American Militia described as wearing "MPC coats." At the time I had no idea what an MPC coat was and assumed it stood for something like Massive Pastry Crumbs. For what it's worth, I think Brigade Games are the only ones who offer Militia in this selective wear.
I did some internet research:
Turns out that MPC stands for Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the coat is the one that the congress decreed should be offered up as a 'bounty' for enlisting in the militia. (as an aside, can anyone spell Massachusetts without a spell check? I don't think so.) This happened 4 days after the fighting at Concord and the congress wanted to equip the men who had started to surround Boston.
The MPC resolved that each man who enlisted for a year should be given a coat as bounty. Each coat was to made of brown wool, with no lapels and working pockets. It was based on a simple working man's jacket of the period. Samples of the wool were sent out to each town and they were responsible for making a number of jackets equal to the men from that town who had enlisted. When done they were collected and sorted by shade and regimental marked buttons attached. By 28 December 1775 13,000 coats had been made. These so called "bounty coats" served as the first uniform.
By the way, once you know they were called 'bounty coats' the search for info got much easier. And I must add that the folks on TMP were very helpful
So basically it's a plain brown coat. That made painting easier as it's something of a uniform. Reminded me of painting ACW confederates.
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| 12 Militia. Like 12 angry men |
And now for some close ups, just so that you can actually see the miniatures, and not really show off my painting and photography skills. I know I am not the world's best painter, but I am probably in the first top 10.... (thousand).
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| Here is a fine pair. Wait, are those miniatures in the same pose? That makes for a less dramatic picture, I'll be sure to not do that again. |
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| Same pose again!! how silly of me. These guys could probably double as ACW confederates. |
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| I really like the tricorn hat. I might have to get one. I'm always wary of painting pants blue, even though I do it and I'm sure they had blue pants back then, But I always think the guy is wearing blue jeans. |
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| Last pair, you get the idea. |
Overall I like the way these came out and it's a good start to the American forces.
The Plan is More Miniatures. But isn't it Almost Always?
Yes it is. Currently on the paint desk are 12 more Colonial Militia in MPC coats. After those I think some Continental infantry might be in order just to get some more snazzy AWI uniforms done. Because that's part of the appeal of the AWI, all the facings and cuffs and turn-backs. Otherwise might as well be painting ACW Union miniatures (I have a number of those to paint as well actually).
Here is how I usually try to crank out 28mm infantry:
1) Get 12ish infantry based (glued to base, texture added, some rocks perhaps) and primed black.
2) Select 4ish of the miniatures and batch paint these to completion (ie, do all the coats, then pants, then straps, then hats, etc..). In the end the miniature is painted with a base coat and highlight, but the base is still just primed.
3) repeat step 2 until all the primed miniatures are done.
4) Using a brush, paint on the army painter 'Quickshade Darktone' to add shadows. This ruins the brush so it's best to do several miniatures at once. Let sit for at least 24 hours. Maybe while I'm waiting for those to dry I can do up the next bunch of 12 ish infantry. Who am I kidding? Usually by this point I'm obligated to spend a night not doing hobbies but spending time with my selfish family. Wasn't 20 mins at dinner enough?
5) Paint all the bases.
6) Using a brush, paint on the Vallejo Matt Varnish to take away that Army Painter horrible shine. Let dry. This also ruins a brush, so I have a collection of cheap brushes that are basically throw away brushes after this step and step 4.
7) Add flock and stuff.
Taadaa!
For me, the key to keeping up motivation / desire to paint stuff is to see steady progress so breaking the process up into bite sized pieces of 4 miniatures at a time, until basically a unit is done makes it all so much more doable.
That's all for now and thanks for reading.
Halloween is this weekend, so I leave you with my favorite Halloween-y saying:
"Intelligence is knowing that Frankenstein is not the monster, and wisdom is knowing that he is."
Be safe everyone.
