Cheese Board Checkers Grid Painting

This week I am trying my hand at batch painting with a grid approach.

Typically, an approach like this has rows and columns, with row determining the colour of one portion of the miniature and colour the other. It is a handy method for doing irregular units like Afghan tribesmen. Normally if you have more than one variation of colour you would overlay row and column meanings at different stages of painting. I could have done this, but instead I stole an idea from another part of my life. When I make a cheese platter to enjoy, I vary cracker type by row, but cheese type by a diagonal pattern. By applying this philosophy to the Afghans, who only have three places of color variation (Clothing, Sash, Turban), I am able to have the whole colour scheme readied in a single planning layer in my head. It is not that impressive all things considered, but I am pleased nonetheless.

PHASE ONE: COLUMNS

PHASE TWO: ROWS

PHASE THREE: DIAGONALS

The lines on the final image should help illustrate the idea. On a square grid it is possible to wrap these diagonal lines across edges to fill out the chart, but since I am working with a three by four that is not the case. The reason I chose twelve is because I had already done four models for this unit earlier, and the command sprue that comes with the Perry Afghan kit contains a further number who I intend to split across this unit and the next. You might also notice the relative abundance of blue turbans compared against red. This is because those four already-completed miniatures have exclusively red turbans. The command sprue miniatures will be given more interesting patterns like blue clothing and striped turbans to help stand out as musicians, flagbearers, and of course as hill chiefs.