15mm Forthnight: Painting For Hippos Ishoo Wun: 15mm Militia

Welcome to the first ishoo of Painting For Hippos. I will not pretend to be a great painter, so this will not be a very regular fixture of the blog, however I am a very fast painter, so I'll be sharing some speed painting techniques I've developed or picked up along the way.

When you start out in 15mm scale, the size of the figures can be a bit daunting. They're so small, but there's so much detail! You can't paint them the same way as you would paint 28mm figures - drybrushing really doesn't work very well at all on 15s. Fortunately, I've worked out a quick and easy 15mm painting technique which gives good table top results, and does it fast! With a little practice, you can get a full GruntZ squad done inside an hour.

And it goes without saying that it's easy! Take it away Grot!

And there you have it! A complete squad ready to take on all comers! They won't win any painting awards, but they're ready to win some battle really quickly!

I'll try to get some better pictures taken and posted so you can really get an idea of what these paint jobs look like - it's hard to get decent shots while they're all on the stick and on the bench.

Note: Throughout, I've used a mixture of Citadel and Vallejo paints. This is just what I have, you can use any paint brand you fancy (personally, I'm gradually replacing my Citadel with Vallejo as they run out) and just use one of the plentiful conversion charts on the internet to get the right shades. As to brush size, I use a 000 for the highlights, but you can use a much larger brush for the base coats - there is no need to panic at the tiny size of the figures and rush out to buy a 10X0 or a 20X0 brush.