How to Paint 6mm Normans & Saxons

Do you want to try painting 6mm miniatures, but find yourself intimated to start a new scale? Today, Little Wars TV is joined by Christopher Grau of Feldgrau Productions for a beginner painting class in 6mm scale! Inspired by our 1066 series of pocket-sized armies and battles, he's tackling Dark Ages armies. These are Baccus 6mm miniatures, but the same tricks, tips, and techniques apply to any 6mm models you may have on your painting bench.

Christopher covers the prep, painting, and basing for your first 6mm army. Do you want to see more painting tutorial collaborations on the channel? Let us know in the comments! Or perhaps you want to see more of Christopher's painting? If so, check out some of the videos on his channel, covering all kinds of 10mm and 15mm models!

[carlm]

Important!
When you are washing your 6mm models in the sink, make sure you CLOSE THE DRAIN before you start!
I've done that before when cleaning my 15mm miniatures and lost one down the drain lol!

Excellent video, thank you Little Wars TV and Chris Grau for all your hard work!

[flgbanjo]

I don't have anything in 6mm (yet) but this is a great tutorial for painting smaller scales and is very valuable!

[kimera_]

As someone who got into 10mm, and wargaming in general, in part thanks to Feldgrau Production videos, I got really stoked when I saw who was in the thumbnail.

[charlessapp]

I have been working on Great Northern War armies for a while now. I too prefer the inside-out approach. A fine tip is definitely necessary for painting. I do reuse my paintbrush, but I always clean it after every use with 90% isopropyl alcohol and a paper towel. Fortunately, my horse loving sister was able to help to get great horse colors. I mainly do chestnut, bay, brown, & grey with a few blacks. The horses really look nice. For my basing, I use .030 styrene painted green and covered with Woodland Scenics green blend turf. Then I print out the name of the regiment with the national flag and glue it to the underside.
I created paint holders for the painting process using some garbage from work, and some old Vallejo caps. (A pvc pipe would work as well). So all I have to do is place a dab of hot glue on the top the Vallejo cap and place the set of minis on the cap. Then it is easy to remove the glue when the painting is done. I then created a holder for the paint holders. Having a dozen stands led to easy bumping on the floor, and very inconvenient for moving them around. (I like to paint when watching tv). So I used an old 1x4, and then drilled holes every 2" so I could glue wooden dowels in the board. Finally, I glued some felt on the underside. Now I can move all my minis with ease and I don't have to worry about someone bumping them to the floor.

[RonBlankenbeckler]

Chris is one of my favorite youtubers, awesome to see him on here!

[steveholmes]

Excellent tutorial.
We all develop our own style with experience, but Christopher provides an excellent introduction here.

If I were presenting "6mm 102", I would add the following.

The success factor for 6mm is the mass effect at 2 feet distance or more, everything below derives from this.

1. It will take you a few sessions to "key in" your painting technique to 6mm, begin with your militia, lien infantry and larger items like wagons or elephants.

2. Resist the temptation to pick out every detail: That's great in 28mm, but is the way to madness in 6mm.
For reference that 2 foot viewing distance is 600mm (100 times the height of a man_ - consider what detail is visible at 150 to 200 yards.

3. Some features are more visible than others: Heads, headgear, weapons, front rank shields and horses.

4. Horses are much bigger than people, and worth the effort to get right. Pay attention to a realistic mix of colours, tail, mane, nose blaze and socks.
You don't have many cavalry in Norman Conquest force, and you won't regret the extra effort.

5. Controversial, and applies mostly to mass infantry bases. Try to focus on one or two dominant colours in a unit.
My first attempt at 48 men per base ancient Britons was ruined by using far too many colours.
The effect varied from kaleidoscope to dazzle camouflage, and disguised all details of the figures including shields and weapons.
Almost all armies of ancient and medieval will be using natural dies with a fairly limited colour palette.

6. Often mentioned with smaller scales. When modelling small means "far away", where colours appear paler and more neutral.
You won't go wrong using slightly paler versions of the intended colour.
I do recommend ignoring advice to make everything greyer; it's realistic, but I find it sucks the joy out of painting and displaying the little guys.

[davidcollins]

Worth mentioning he mounts the figures using blue tac (also gray poster tac) to affix the figures to a regular plastic bottle cap. For speed do all the same colors on same type units so you're not constantly switching tasks and colors. An optivisor or similar magnification glasses are handy for those of us with older eyes.

[joesturn]

Thanks for the tutorial, Chris! And thanks for the introduction to this channel, Little Wars!

[BillsWargameWorld]

Everyone is truly blessed if they can see 6mm to paint them well done and awesome video!

[Oskar_]

We need more 6mm painting guides. Baccus has some fantastic new Great northern war sculpts!

[zenlizard]

Excellent, and I will emphasize the point: don't be afraid to mix your paints, if you don't have the exact shade you want!

[ElderlyJoeDuffy]

I have some 6mm French Napoleonics on the way from Bacchus, and this made it seem very approachable. Thanks Christopher! And thanks guys for getting him on!

[michaeldecarlo]

For a quick & easy basing paint job, I pre-spray paint bases with Rustoleum Textured paint in either tan, dark brown or green. When dry, the surface is “pebbly”. Immediately after spraying and while the paint is still wet, I lightly sprinkle the static grass or flocking of choice right on the wet paint, knocking off ant excess. The bases look great and the finished figures are glued right to them. The base of the figure(s) can be painted &/or flocked to hide and blend it in. I generally work in 15mm and haven’t tried 6mm yet. Great video!

[SobotRex]

Please continue to make more painting videos!

[PhilipMackie]

Another time saving tip is to use put a small amount of the basing material - tile grout, fine Pollyfilla, Tetrion or whatvever - into a small airtight container and mix in your base colour paint. You can then apply this with consistent colour across your army without the need to over-paint once the mix is dried.

[GreyhawkGrognard]

This comes at a perfect time, as I'm in the midst of painting several 6mm Ogre-GEV armies, and have been hesitating about doing the infantry.

[dennishogan]

ive been struggling with my microworlds 6mm fantasy elves and this really gave me the tips and steps to paint at this epic scale

[simonwilliams]

Thanks for putting this up really great seeing a painting tutorial on this subject.
Currently just over half way through painting up my Vikings 👌👍

[BlitzH]

Thank you for introducing me to his channel. This is great!

[Redleg]

Thanks for the guide! It is super helpful, and a great starting point. I would love to see more of these for 6mm…. Specially Napoleonic.