Quote from: FierceKitty on 09 March 2013, 12:06:29 PM
True or false: the US letter deliverer is known as a mailman because the official who first did the job in the 1680s used to wear a mailshirt as protection against archery by aboriginal east coast inhabitants disgruntled that their thanksgiving cards had arrived late.

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Mail isn't actually a great deal of use against arrows. Too much air between the rings. Works better against blades but not as good against either as plate. They lost more china that way.... 

I wash the bare metal with brown and near black inks.

Dry Dallimore style surprisingly works well, black undercoat, dark grey, light grey over higher bits and if u want to be finicky a spot of white or 2.

So, what happened to plate mail then. Anyway, enough of oneupmanship I know more than you wargame bores. Here's what I do and it's dead simple. Paint them silver then paint over with Tamiya X-19 Smoke. This dulls the silver down, darkens the hollows and remains shiny. Works well on mail and plate and is really all you need at this scale (unless of course you want to enter them for the painting competition). I prefer to varnish my figures by brush, so I just leave these areas when using matt.

For iron armour I use gun-metal enamel, allow to dry for at least 24hrs, then polish with a soft toothbrush or thumb. Done before painting other items, as it smudges. I haven't tried this on 6mm.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Soldiers

An old friend of mine preferred silver with a black wash.

Chad

Quote from: Hertsblue on 09 March 2013, 05:32:47 PM
Mail isn't actually a great deal of use against arrows. Too much air between the rings. Works better against blades but not as good against either as plate. They lost more china that way.... 

Do remember the frequent Crusader practice of wearing doubled mail, of course.

I use vallejo natural steel with a either a very watered down AP strong tone ink or a watered down W&N nut brown ink

Quote from: FierceKitty on 14 March 2014, 12:26:55 PM
Do remember the frequent Crusader practice of wearing doubled mail, of course.

I take it there's no record of Crusader losses to heat exhaustion? 

Just a bit sarcastic there Ray.

It's why they adopted the surcoat.

IanS

Anglo saxon method, for the rich

Silk undershirt, leather, mail over the top.   The silk helps get the arrows out.

The Mongols used the same trick with silk, as I have heard did duelists to help extract pistol bullets.

As for heatstroke, I recall that the only Hospitaller casualties in the final battle against the Ottomans on Malta were from heatstroke, though those were were plate, not mail, I suppose, and so must have been baked all the more.

Black undercoat, heavy dry brush Vallejo Natural Steel for a more natural finish although Silver also works well because you need bright colours to make 6mm look good. Sometimes going with the 'right' colours means they look drab and dull. It doesn't matter where it goes if you do it first as you can then just block in or dab on the other colours. I am talking about the blocks here rather than the individual figures.