18th Century combat

18th Century combat

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

New project - Painting a large figure!

As well as being into gaming I'm also a member of a figure club here in Atlanta (Atlanta Military Figure Society - http://www.atlantafigures.org/ .  This is a great group of people, men & women, who share their painting skills and historical knowledge on how to paint a wide range of historical figures using different painting methods.  The figure you'll see below is of a French Grenadier of the Guard by Stadden. 





It is a fairly large figure and my goal is to paint this in oils!  So I thought I'd keep a record of how things go.  First I cleaned up the figure and then primed it in a grey.  Next I'm applying acrylic paint to areas that will eventually be seen as 'white'.  One of the things that I was shown is that the cloth used in real life on a soldier like this was made of different material depending upon what it was.  The coat could be wool, the pants maybe twill or cotton or something else.  The vest, again something different which then leads you to the fact that these all reflect light differently.  So, rather than having one of the pure white looks I'm going for more of the 'what it would look like in real life' look.  I'm basing this figure off of the painting entitled 'The Sentry'

You'll see the differences in white on this painting and that's what I'll be trying to recreate with oils.  I start off with acrylic paint as a base but will then put the oils on top of that.  I'll keep everyone updated on my progress.

4 comments:

  1. Impressive size for a figure, and very nicely detailed. Should be a highly receptive "canvas" to your oil paints. I really like the idea of a natural approach trying to recreate the look in the painting. Will follow your project with interest.

    Regards from Stockholm, Sweden

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  2. Me too, I am curious how you will paint this figure. The beginning looks already great.
    I will follow! Thanks for the link - quite interesting!
    Peter

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  3. Looking for Greg McCluskey ASAP who knows Rick Johnson in SoCal! This is Terri, Rick's first wife and if this is the right Greg, please send me an email terri@shoprichards.com. Thanks!

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  4. Good luck on it - I never dared to paint bigger figures than 40mm....
    But it looks already great.
    Peter

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