Community Showcase: Paul Haynes’ Pike & Shotte Epic Battles

We came across Paul Haynes’ Pike & Shotte Epic Battles miniatures via the Shropshire Miniature Warfare Studio Facebook page. Suitably impressed, we just had to share them here. We also asked the man himself to tell us a little bit about himself and his approach to painting miniatures:

Paul: My name is Paul Haynes and I currently live in a small Shropshire village near Shrewsbury with my fiancée. I first became interested in military wargaming from a very early age, after spending pocket money and paper round money on Airfix 1/72 scale Napoleonics, Romans and Gallic Celts (though I always managed to lose those annoying plug-in shields).

Over the next few years, my interest grew to incorporate more and more miniatures: Essex Miniatures, Minifigs and Citadel back in the 80s, with both Warhammer First Edition and historical periods covered by these manufacturers really drawing me in. I joined a local wargaming club and enjoyed many evenings playing De Bellis Multitudinis and frantically trying to get the next army painted up and ready for play. Although I love 28mm miniatures, I grew to prefer smaller scales, as that meant more minis on the table and a far greater visual impact.

However, as is its wont, life soon overtook me. My career in catering and time spent serving as a chef in the military meant that I increasingly found very little time to play or even paint. Over the years since, I started various projects and never finished them (every painter/wargamer has that dreaded ‘pile of shame’).

In more recent years the introduction of hard plastic onto the market made wargaming affordable again. Big battalions were not such a big investment and if they never saw the tabletop, it was not such a loss. I thus made a return to the miniature painting scene in a serious way a couple of years ago. My partner bought me my first Warlord Games boxed sets – Napoleonic Union Brigade Cavalry and 95th Rifles, which I thoroughly enjoyed painting up.

I guess I’d describe myself as a period hopper as far as historical phases are concerned. I now focus on enjoying the painting side of the hobby, I hardly ever game these days as living quite remotely it’s not always possible to do so. I’ll tend to paint something from one period and then get immediately sidetracked on something entirely different, but at least those projects tend to get finished so no longer contribute to the pile of shame!

I’ve painted quite a few Epic Battles scale miniatures over the last few months – American Civil War Confederates and the recently released Pike & Shotte. I’m now starting to get into Black Seas which is something I’m thoroughly enjoying. I love the size of the ships; my last attempt at naval miniatures was with Langton Miniatures 1/1200 scale – attempting to rig those made me temporarily cross-eyed… They are in the pile of shame somewhere…

The Pike & Shotte range, and indeed all the Epic Battles scale miniatures I’ve painted, are little gems of miniatures, very easy to paint and look fantastic en masse, which is what we all want to see when gaming.

I begin with a white primer on the miniatures, followed by a black wash – this helps pick out the details for when adding the block colours later.

After the block colours are added it’s simply just a case of adding a second wash to shade and then I pick out the details and highlight them. It’s the same method I use on all small scales, not just Epic Battles, It’s been my go-to method since I first painted 6mm Napoleonics, and for me, it works very well.

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