SCW 1936-39 International Brigade Group 1

Hi folks I've been pretty busy lately so I've started to fall behind on both my posting and commenting. I'm not a prolific poster, but I do try for at least one every week to 10 days and more if things are going really well. So I'll try and pick it up some again.

I like to do small projects in between my larger ones to give me a break and skirmish games often are ideal for this like the SCW and others. For example I'll paint a few figures and then back to the big project and then back to small project's for a short break etc.

The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 is kind of a niche period, but is growing. I like the feel of the period and the large selection of very different type of troops, unusual tanks, trucks and vehicles. The range of uniforms varies from civilian clothing to completely standardized issued uniforms with much of it falling in between which can give a real visual feast on the gaming table!

 Since I enjoy working in earth tones so much it's not surprising I was drawn to the International brigade which was by and large outfitted with whatever khaki or brown coloured clothing they could manage to get their hands on. This gives me a real opportunity to experiment with all the range of browns, greens and khaki I care to try as the International brigade seldom had any two soldiers look exactly alike. For example:

After painting up a decent size force of International Brigade troops I'll  probably begin painting some of the Militia next. When I've built up the Republicans I'll move on to the Nationalists as I prefer collecting for both sides on most projects.

As to backgrounds I'm trying different coloured ones as photobucket's ability to adjust white backgrounds isn't very good at all any more and frustrates me to no end. I now do all the work from my computer and just use photobucket for sizing,smudge corrections and distribution. Of course I will still do white backgrounds, but will for sure continue to add others.

I'll be adding terrain to the pics when I get some painted up to add some more period flavour, but until then it will be this brown background for this range. Another thing is sometimes I like my figures to "pop", but with this project I wanted the figures very "warm" and so I tried to keep the tones subtle and not too dramatic on these. Hopefully I got it right.

Remember how I said the period is growing well I think Empress miniatures can take a heap of credit for it in regards to the 28mm crowd. The figures shown are all from Empress as are all my SCW figures and let me say they really are nice figures. Very nicely cast with excellent detail. My only critique are they are small for 28mm which isn't a negative if you like that, but I've been moving up to large slightly exaggerated figures like  Redoubt, Bicorne, Artizan etc. as I generally prefer that. However, thanks to the casting and sculpting being so good I'm able to enjoy painting the Empress figures as the detail is raised enough that I can get to it.
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Empress