Pictures of my cavalry

I thought I'd share some pictures of the French cavalry I've painted so far.  I've painted up a few line cav units along with 4 of the Maison du Ro

Here we have the Premier Compagnie de Mousquetaires

This is the Deuxieme Compagnie de Mousquetaires

This is a picture of my 4 Garde units from the rear

Next will be the Cheveaux-legers de la Garde, unfortunately I don't have a good picture of the Gendarmes so we'll have to wait until I can get to the gaming table which isn't at my house!

I have to apologize for the fuzziness of the picture. 

I paint most all of my horses using oils.  It takes a lot longer but I like the results and I feel it is worth the time plus I do not consider myself a fast painter to begin with and I enjoy the whole process of working on the figures.  I will prime the horses black and then spray on a base coat color - this isn't the oil yet.  I let the horses then set for at least 48hrs to make sure the base coat has throughly dried.  I've tried to rush it and found that it was a disaster so I take things slowly now and I don't mind one bit.  Once the base coat is dry I then apply the oil paint (lightly thinned so it fills everywhere) and then 'lightly' wipe it off with the highest quality cloth (usually the best undershirt I can afford).  I will 'oil up' 3 horses at one time and then do the wiping.  I wear latex gloves, a coverall over the front of me and I have cleaning rags (old diapers) in my lap ready to go into action if needed.  For a grey horse the process is a bit different.  I prime the horse black, wait for that to dry which to me means at least overnight.  Then I prime the horse white and wait for that to dry, again overnight.  The final step is the put black oil on the white horse thinned down at a similar level as the 'brown' I use.  But for this I don't just wipe the oil off.  I literally rub the darn thing as much as I can.  If done correctly you will have a beautiful gray horse when finished and by adjusting how hard you rub you can have a very light or dark grey color.  If the color doesn't suit me I dab the horse with the cloth I'm doing the rubbing with which puts a little of the oil paint back on the horse which then allows me to try again.  The key is to not wipe or rub too hard otherwise your'll go straight through your base coat and down to the prime or even worse, lead.

Next is a picture of the Cuirassiers du Roi

Finally a picture not really worth keeping but I'll show it anyway.  I was just starting to take pictures with that new carmera and all of our cavalry units were put off to the side as they were not going to be involved in this game.  So I took some pic and you'll see more line cav units in the background.  I promise to get better pictures of all my units as soon as we return to gaming.