After the Lord Mayor's Show...

...or Salute as everyone insists on calling it - OK I was stuck for a name for this post and this was the best I could do.  

I'm not going to do a review of Salute as many people have done a fantastic job of this already.  I had a great day out with some of the Ancible team (Kenny, Mr B, Si), spent a fair amount of money, saw the Frontline Gamer from afar, and caught the Angry Lurker and Ray at the end.    I forgot my camera, so no pictures I'm afraid.  The venue itself was pretty good, but it was a bit of a pain having to get across London to get there - but good for the South East and European visitors I imagine.

Purchase wise, I came away with the following list:

• Feldherr carry case (small) purchased from Wayland Games, Si had a good old chat with one of the Feldherr chaps as he'd reviewed a case for the Ancible in a previous issue
• Azumi by Studio McVey - quite frankly Studio McVey blew me away, the miniatures look fantastic on the website, but those pictures do nothing to prepare you for how wonderful they look up close. O...M...G...  I didn't know which one to get (I limited myself to one), so it was a bit of a random pick, but the pose of Azumi just grabbed me for some reason
• Mizuchi from GCT Bushido - A dragon, for Bushido - 'nuff said
• Big Boris Mk2 from Heresy - Armoured Boris was sold out, but this was my second choice
• Hasslefree: Wolf, Ferrus and Valaska Syn
• MicroArt Studios:  Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage, and some forest bases for my stalled  and about to be restarted "Wood Eldar" 40K army
• Plus some other stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head

There were a couple of free miniatures too - A Wayland the Smith miniature because I spent over £20 at Wayland Games (quite appropriate as I live not too far away from Wayland's Smithy), and the Salute 2012 miniature, which I wasn't sold on, but it was free, so didn't need to be...

Now for some painted stuff:

Pretty much the same colour scheme as for the Lawyer.  The coat was the usual Charadon Granite basecoat, for that greenish-brown tone.  I was surprised and rather happy to find a pot of unopened Charadon Granite on a shelf - that should keep me going until I've finished everything I need it for.  A word of warning - despite the GW conversion chart, Stormvermin Fur is NOT a good match for Charadon Granite.  As far as I can tell there really isn't one now, so it's time for me to drop the crutch (let's face it, I use Charadon Granite a lot) and look at some alternatives.

The gold trim was a pain, I really didn't enjoy painting it - I can see now that I've missed bits and it's not as neatly painted as I'd hoped. For the rest of the models I think I might do the trim before I paint the coat.  The gun and axe blade were painted normally, but then I added some Charadon Granite and P3 Cryx Base as extra shading which works quite well I think (feel free to disagree!).

The base is another Malcontent Sewer base - painted in a similar way to the base for the Lawyer, I used some Chestnut Ink for rust on the metal and some Thraka Green on the stonework to change the colour in places.  To be honest I'm as pleased with the base as I am with any other part of the model.

Up next will be some more characters for Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies, a Freebooter's Fate Assassin and the millstone that hangs heavily around my neck at the moment...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!