Landsknechts a'Plenty part 1 (A thing a week 2021, week 2)

This year we're doing something a little different.  I generally paint faster in batches and I have a lot of stuff that could be themed if I'd put any real thought into it.  So big chunks of this year will be themed around something hopefully fun with a snappy title and spanning at least two weeks, sadly starting somewhat inauspiciously today.

This week we've got Landsknecht missile troops from Warlord's Pike & Shotte, a game that I notably don't play but own a lot of figures from.  For those not familiar, Landsknechts were career mercenaries in the 16th century known for their flamboyant attire.  I bought a pair of sprues on sale which produced twelve figures, six featured here.  These guys sat fully assembled and zenithaled on my workbench for months last year.  Because of their historical accuracy, these guys are excessively fiddly which makes everything hard.  

The short:  I do not like these figs.  I didn't paint them in assemblies which made them even harder to paint.  Furthermore, despite having spent many hours scraping mold lines, I for sure didn't get them all most notably on their bollock daggers which I painted incorrectly.  

I wanted to sell the flamboyance of the historical figures so I painted them in multiple saturated colors.  In fact, this was a terrible idea.  The more colors you use on a fig the longer they tend to take and the less wins you get out of batch painting.  On top of that, it's difficult to ensure proper highlighting across blocked colors on the same volume ostensibly made of the same material.  

Knowing all of this, they were intended to be done with a speedy "simple glazes over a strong zenithal" operation to make them a quick job.  I don't know where that all went wrong, but I ended up layering these guys like crazy and doing a lot of experimentation with Daler Rowney inks.  I am not happy with their inconsistent highlights and chalky basecoats.  I didn't even get all their colors on--the off white parts of their armor was supposed to be green.  The metallics are also super flat because I just wanted to be done.  

I did not look forward to painting these guys which is why they sat on my desk like a Sword of Damocles for so many months.  They look OK in groups on the tabletop but they do not hold up well under scrutiny despite the ~40 hours I've put into them so far across the batch of 12+4 I've had kicking around.  This kind of investment should yield a much higher quality paint job.  If I played an army where these guys played a prominent part, I could see bringing these figs up to a higher quality but that's not the situation.  Tune in next week to see if I can resolve some of this week's issues.

2021 finished mini counter:  13/100