Rogers’ Rangers by Crann Tara Miniatures

 

Rogers’ Rangers - Crann Tara Miniatures.

Graham Cummings, the major domo of Crann Tara Miniatures, sent me some samples of the new ranger figures from his French and Indian War figure range. These are 1/56 scale figures which approximates thin 30mm figures. Richard Ansell sculpts both the Crann Tara and the Fife and Drum Miniatures/Minden figures.

It took me but seconds after examination to decide that I wanted to paint these figures IMMEDIATELY! And I’m glad that I did because these ranger figures are both easy to paint and fun to paint. I could hardly put my brush down once I started.

There are ten different figure poses so you get a lot of variety right out of the gate. There are two “officer” types, one is standing and carrying his musket while pointing at some target or foe; the second officer is kneeling on one knee and has one hand in the air as if he were on point and telling the other men to stop advancing. 

Next there are two firing poses, one standing and one kneeling and two standing loading poses. There is one fellow reaching into his haversack and another pulling the hammer back on his musket. Finally there are two Rangers on the move: one advancing and one who is about to break into a run.

Rogers’ Rangers. The officer is on a larger round stand of 1.5 inch diameter while the men are on 25mm rounds. Bases and movement tray are from Litko.

The figures are easy to paint because the whole uniform is dark green, so just slap on the paint to cover the figure and then clean it up with the details. I used P3 paint Gnarls Green for the shade color and Reaper Leaf Green for the highlight. I usually use only two color tones on my figures rather than the popular triad color method. I feel that the third color doesn’t significantly add much to the overall look of the uniform and just adds more time to your painting of the figure.

After the green colors are layered down I paint all of the equipment ( muskets, hatchets, belts and haversack) black. Then I will go back and paint the weapons brown, leave the belts black, and put down the base coat for the pouch/haversack.

For the skin, I lay down a base color of red brown because this tones down the transition of the skin tones better than if I started with black. I use Reaper Rose Shadow as the base skin color and Rosy Skin as the highlight. The Rosy Highlight color in this Reaper triad is too bright for my taste. After all, these Rangers are spending a lot of time in the back country and shouldn’t look too clean. I leave the red brown color in the eye sockets and between the fingers. I used to paint eyes on all of my figures, but now  I just place a sliver of black in the eye socket to suggest the eyes. Oh, the hair is Reaper Ruddy Leather on top of black. Sometimes I will do some hair highlights with Reaper Oiled Leather (part of the triad Ruddy Leather-Oiled Leather- Burnt Orange).

The gun stock is Reaper Ruddy Leather and the barrel is Reaper Aged Pewter. I don’t highlight the gunstock anymore because you aren’t going to be able to see the wood grain unless you are nose to nose with your opponent.

The bonnet is painted dark blue Reaper Breonne Blue and highlighted with Ral Partha True Blue. Shoes remain black because you aren’t going to see them after you flock the base with grass.

I hadn’t intended to do a painting tutorial when I started to write this blog post. However, I think that it illustrates how few colors you need to paint the figures. In the end, these are great looking figures sculpted by Richard Ansell, they are very easy to paint, and I think that you will have fun painting them.