Taking (it) On the Qin

Is it a new project?  ...Sorta?  I originally bought into the Kickstarter over a year ago, so I am going to say that these still count as tackling the lead pile.

Having received my kickstarter last week, I felt compelled to at least slop some paint on a few to see how I like them.  To that end, I decided to paint some of the special characters and a unit of archers.

As mentioned previously, the special characters are like the evolution of the Watchful I's technique.  First we have the Swordmaster, a single piece casting.

I am going to need to repaint the face.....

Most the versions of this I saw on-line are done in all black, so I opted to be a little different.  The majority of my Qin army will be in black, so I decided the unifying colors I want to focus on will be Crystal Blue and Wine Red.  (I.e. use at least one or both colors on every model in the army)

Next up, the Drunken Master is a multi-piece model with separate arms and a wooden staff or cudgel tucked into his belt.  I opted to leave the stick out.  The arms for this model are done with actual socket-plugs molded into the torso and arms, so pinning was not necessary.  

Lastly, I have Huang Guigu, a rather obscure Qin general one of the big spenders on the kickstarter paid to have cast.  Every source I can find on her is a cut and paste of the wikipedia entry:

The seam on her left side was too pronounced to file off without wiping out the facial detail. 

"In the late Warring States period (246–221 BC), Huang Guigu acted as a general for the first Qin emperor. She commanded three military units and led campaigns against the aggressive Xiongnu and Xianbei nomad tribes in China's northern frontiers.^[1]"


She is also done as a multi-part model with separate arms from the torso.  This is where I think the effect of 3D printing is most noticeable as the arms and torso connections are flat metal surfaces.  This is great for plastic models where the glue/solvent actual creates a welded bond, but it is a pain with white metal as it necessitates drilling and pinning if you want the model to have any sort of strength at all.

For the first unit, I chose to go with the Ancient Chinese Light Infantry Archers Firing as they were all one piece castings, and so would require less prep time to get them to the painting table.  These are tabbed figures that go in slotta bases, so I have not cracked the nut how I want to base them for Impetus yet.  Overall the detail is good and you get two different castings. 

 One consideration is that these are 'realistically' proportioned 28mm models, which means that the facial detail is very fine, and requires a more skillful hand than my own to retain.  The firing archer especially has very shallow facial detail, that was easily washing out.  In addition, the weapons have very narrow connections, as you can see from the one I broke while painting it.  I considered using these figs for Lion Rampant, but I am concerned they are little to fragile to handle individually on the game board.  I have yet to drill and pin the bow, because the connection point is about the same diameter as my smallest drill bit.  

Overall, I am happy with these figs as they are well sculpted and from a time period I have long been interested in.  That said, the arduous task of drilling and pinning all of the infantry may affect my demeanor.  I tried just using Gorilla glue and accelerant for the heavy infantry, with predictable results

%&^$!!!