Unarmoured Early Byzantine Skutatoi Second Unit Complete! 18/04/2021

[Atheling]

There are more images of the unit  from various angles on my just Add Water Blog here:
https://justaddwater-bedford.blogspot.com/2021/04/second-unarmoured-early-byzantine.html

Happily I now have the second unit of Unarmoured Early Byzantine Skutatoi complete. I decided to stick with the test models with the green and yellow from my earlier Unarmoured Skutatoi Unit Two- Experiment with Different Colour Schemes post for the basics on the tunics and trousers, though it was suggested that there was a striking resemblance to Norwich City's football kit! I'm not much of a soccer aficionado so I can assure you that any resemblance is purely coincidental! As a life long native of the North, be that Scotland or the NE of England it did make me chuckle!
The miniatures are, like the rest of my Justinian era army thus far, all from mighty Aventine Miniatures.

I has some problems with the varnish. I tried a tin of Humbrol Gloss Enamel Spray to see if it could help speed up the varnishing process but after leaving the unit for the requisite week for the gloss to fully go off, when it came to matting down with the usual Windsor and Newton Artists Professional Matt Varnish there an unusual interaction between the two opposite layers. Disappointing as I tend to be very anal about these things but not to the extent where I was particularly worried about the unit making an (eventual!) appearance on the wargames table. I'm not sure if I got a bad batch of the Humbrol Gloss or whether it is best to avoid using a gloss spray altogether in the future thus I would be very interested in hearing what experiences any of you may have had. I may yet just return to the brush on version but if I have missed a trick it would be interesting to find out what that might be(?). I intend to take some close ups of the bases so if anyone has any ideas about how the two layers of varnish might have interacted the annoying results will be clearer in those pictures. Probably in my next post.

As the army has now reached 108 miniatures, not including commands and war machines, I am hoping to get some  shots of the army in its entirety in the very near future. I still have not managed to get my damn wargames table put up yet. It is still buried under a whole heap of stuff, most of which needs chucking away. I really need to pull my finger out!

So, without further ado, here are a few sample pics of the completed unit:

[jamie]

Outstanding as always.

Re varnish I've used GW munitorium varnish (ok, but has frosted in me the odd time) so I'm looking to try out other/ cheaper matt/possibly semi matt alternatives from paint factory or the likes. Though I might add extra coats of brush applied Windsor and newton gloss over 'metal' areas to give them back a bit of sheen

[nikgaukroger]

Outstanding as always.

I can only agree with this sentiment 

[Atheling]

Thanks Jamie and Nik for the encouraging words 

Outstanding as always.

Re varnish I've used GW munitorium varnish (ok, but has frosted in me the odd time) so I'm looking to try out other/ cheaper matt/possibly semi matt alternatives from paint factory or the likes. Though I might add extra coats of brush applied Windsor and newton gloss over 'metal' areas to give them back a bit of sheen

I don't use Windsor and Newton brush on varnish so that's a no-no. I also prefer to keep the metals fairly matt too. One only has to look at a reenactor's kit once they have been out in the field for a short while to see how quickly metal "dulls". Well, that's my excuse anyway 

I am convinced that the problem was using the Humbrol Gloss spray instead of my usual Humbrol Enamel brush on- somehow it has reacted with W&N Artists Professional spray- the fist time that has happened...... it's not speckling nor frosting, it really does look like the gloss has gone on too thickly in places.