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.

Monday, March 2, 2015

I have been working on a new project.  Something that I've always wanted to do and in previous posts I showed some other pictures of my 1806 project.  These photos are of a newer figure line that is starting out with 1806 Prussians.  The company is called "FG MiniZ Forgotten & Glorious Company of Art" (http://forgottenglorious.blogspot.fr/).  They are a French company and I think the miniatures they've produced are good and worth an investment from those of you who want to build 1806 Prussian units especially since the Euro to Dollar is at a good rate.

One word of advice when you get the figures home is to brush the musket barrels with a superglue to strengthen them.  I find them too weak and easy to break off but brushing them with superglue prior to priming and painting helps.

Now on to the photos (flags are by Adolfo Ramos in Spain) -











As always, thanks for looking.  Comments welcome.