Getting My GNW Figures Painted Abroad

When I decided to start a 10mm GNW project, I knew one problem I had was time.

Nobody else games it at my club, and nobody would want "in".  So I would have to do it all myself (Russians, Swedes, Poles, Cossacks, Saxons, Danes).

I decided I wanted the following core armies:

Sweden
16 infantry battalions, 12 cavalry regiments, 10 guns (batteries).  These would include the 4 battalion guard, and a couple of generic 2 battalion 3/4/5th man regiments in grey.

Russia
UP to 30 infantry battalions, at least 12 Dragoon regiments, around 12-15 guns. This would include both guard regiments, two twin battalion grenadier regiments, and a couple of horse grenadier regiments.

I spent some time working out the basing scheme I would use to achieve the minimum number of stands per unit to move while retaining the ability to show line/column.

I worked out I would use 30 figure infantry battalions, and 20 figure cavalry regiments.

I'll let you do the maths on the sheer scale of what I am looking to achieve...by the end of 2018!!

So a figure painter other than me was essential.

I was aware of Fernando Enterprises, based in Sri Lanka.  Their prices are CHEAP, and their company seemed to have good worker conditions and ethics.

So I decided to go with them.

What I am doing is sending batches of figures to them to be painted using their basic "wargamer" standard @ £0.40 for foot and £0.80 for horse.

On arrival back to me, I am putting on a conservative, thinned coat of army painter dark tone to give them depth, then spray varnishing batches, and then basing them.

So the plan is to utilise their basic rate to get figures cleaned up and block painted, then I add the tone and base them.

IT WORKS!  And it saved a ton of time!  The first 14 Russian infantry battalions were finished within two weeks of me receiving them back (I'll post photos in a post soon).

I highly recommend Fernando Enterprises.  The turnaround is around three months and the painting is good.

To make sure they come back as I want them, what I do is paint a single model and attach it to each bag as a sample to be copied for colours.  Works brilliantly, and for horses, they randomise the colours for you.