Monthly Archives: November 2018

Yes, it’s a horrible title, Paintvember, but it did capture my imagination and as a result of a challenge issued on the Painting and Sculpting facebook page, for once I joined in one of the social media challenges. I normally steer well clear of such nonsense (I’m talking social media challenges – not painting), regardless of how worthy the cause, so no moustache growing, abstaining from booze, chucking ice cold water over myself or any of the other mass madness that goes on. This was simple, just commit to painting, sculpting or modelling for 30 minutes a day for the month of November and post your progress up on the facebook group page. It seemed like a good way of focusing on my hobby and it would be interesting to see just what could be achieved if I spent some time everyday doing some painting.

Victirx Highland Infantry assembled ready for painting.

To be fair, it wasn’t a great stretch, I paint for a short period of time on most weekday evenings but usually have at least one evening off, if nothing else than to actually wargame! The weekends can be mixed. In the summer, there is plenty of other distractions and even on rainy winter weekends, there are things to do and people to see, meaning that my hobby is put to one side.

So what have I learnt?

The first thing was that it turned what can be a solitary part of the hobby into more of a social occasion. Social media can be useful when those contributing are not only giving encouraging feedback but also showing what they are painting as well. I looked forward to seeing how my facebook chums were progressing with their projects and the skill and variety of projects on show was certainly inspirational. Getting a few likes was heartening and helped to keep me focused.

Red coats on!

Batch painting is ideal for this sort of challenge. It helps that I have a work area that I can leave in a mess and know that it wont be disturbed. So if I am working through a batch of figures I can easily find just 5 minutes to get a bit  more colour on a figure. I think that this becomes more difficult if you are working on a ‘masterpiece’, one figure to a high standard or trying to paint a larger model. When I was working through my Highlanders, I had a set sequence, Flesh, Hats, Boots, cartridge case, jacket, bread bag, water bottle and so on. So I always know which colour I would be blocking on the next model.

The 30 minutes a day (minimum – I often did more!) does keep a project moving and so even when I thought that I might stall or wimp out of the challenge, the small goal of just paint for 30 minutes meant that I picked up my brush and did some more. The ‘Elephant’ was eaten a spoonful at a time!

79th Camerons close up.

It helped that I had a couple of projects on the go at once. As well as painting the Highlanders, I was working on a new batch of movement trays for my collection. So if I wasn’t in the mood for painting or if I needed more than 30 minutes for a stage, I could switch from painting soldiers to the trays. I think that having a couple of different projects on the go at once is quite useful but would suggest that they do need to be different. Perhaps a scenery piece alongside a unit of figures is a good mix.

The 79th Camerons finishe as part of the Paintvember challenge!

The challenge also focused me on to the question of when could I find 30 minutes to paint as opposed to the oft reached conclusion that ‘I haven’t got time to paint today’. As a result, I have been grabbing short periods of time in the morning and evening to get my session in. The nights when I might have succumbed to watching the idiots lantern have been replaced with something more productive. It’s taken most of the challenge but I now have a completed Battalion of Cameron Highlanders, which in themselves have completed my representation of the 8th British Brigade at Waterloo, complete with their own new labelled movement trays!

Labelled trays completed as well!

I dont think that I will be quite so relentless with my painting over the next 30 days. Sometimes, a break can be refreshing – absence makes the heart grow fonder – but I hope to keep the attitude of looking for opportunities to paint rather than finding excuses not to. As a final thought, social media, when it is social, has been a great help to my hobby. I have been fortunate enough to part of groups that have either provided me with encouragement with my hobby or inspired me by showing me what can be achieved. So no commercial links below, just a few of my favorite facebook groups!

So, finally, a big ‘Thank You!’ to Alfonso Oclaf for posing the challenge. I’ve never met Alfonso but I am grateful for his idea and for helping me to get my Highlanders done!

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ARCANE SCENERY

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In last weeks blog, I showed you how I have gone about batch painting my Battalion of 79th Cameron Highlanders for my Waterloo project. In this weeks blog, I show how I went about breaking down the tartan into a process that I could cope with to produce a reasonable table top standard finish to my troops in tartan.

I am no artist, more of a paint by numbers man, so I hope that this blog is useful to other gamers that have perhaps, like me, been put off from attempting to paint this complicated pattern on their troops. The idea is to give a representation of the tartan pattern on the troops that will look nice when the unit is complete. It is entirely beyond my skill to reproduce anything other than this on a 28mm tall figure.

The 79th Cameron regiment of foot, Centre Companies.

I did look at a number of references for the actual tartan but decided on a simple version based on what I could actually see when I held the book away from my face rather than the close up scrutiny that would show every colour! I should also confess that I am slightly red/green colour blind, so although I can see close up that there are fine red stripes running through the cloth, my overriding impression is of blue, green and black with a fine yellow/beige stripe, so that is what I would paint!

Before I started on the figures, I tried my hand in a larger scale in my note book to see how things would work out. The base colours that I chose for the tartan was Prussian blue 70965 and Reflective green 70890. I tried painting blue over green and green over blue, but decided that I preferred the latter.

Tartan practice – just going through the process helps fix how I will paint the tartan.

Having had a little practice I jumped in and made a start. First job, paint the kilts prussian blue.

Blue kilts to start!

Next, I painted a series of vertical stripes in green.

Green stripes added

Followed by the horizontal stripes. I tried to keep the stripes as uniform as possible, letting the paint brush do the work and determine the width. Having the paint thinned to a milky consistency helps.

Horizontal stripes added

The next part of the process is to outline the green strips with a fine line in black. I did consider using a fine liner pen at this stage but managed with a fine brush again, thin paint helps the flow. It is obvious from the close up pictures that my brush work is a bit raggedy and the consistency in line width varies from figure to figure.

The green stripes are then outlined in black.

Finally, using 70913 yellow ochre, I painted a larger cross hatch to give the impression of the yellow thread that runs through the tartan. With the later figures that I have painted, I was a bit more careful with the placement of the yellow line, trying to ensure that it bisected the blue/green squares. I also have made the blue green squares larger to make the task easier. As I have said, I have chosen to ignore the fine red lines that are woven into the Cameron Tartan. This means that the tartan for my Camerons will be similar to the tartan used by the Gordons. Fortunately the facings are different, yellow as opposed to green, so I hope that will be enough to differentiate the units on the gaming table!

Tartan completed – or is it..?

So with the Tartan done, the next job was to paint the red cross hatching on the bonnet and the socks. Once again, I have cut corners to make life easy. The cross hatching on the bonnet should have small green squares at the junction of the checks – I’ve left these off.

Red Cross hatching added to bonnets and socks.

The next stage was to lightly dry brush the bonnets with light grey to bring out the detail of the feathers and then I carefully painted on the Army Painter Dark Tone quick shade. This really brings out the detail on the figures, covers up some of the smaller mistakes that I have made  and seals the paint onto the figures.

Quick shade carefully painted over the models.

Once given a coat of matt varnish, I go back and re highlight the lighter colours, particularly the white. I also paint the bayonets in bright silver and paint the bases with chocolate brown to tidy things up.

Figures retouched and white highlighted.

The figures are now ready for basing. I may need to retouch some of the figures with matt varnish in places. I tend to be sparing with the varnish as I have had too many accidents with it in the past!

STOP PRESS!

After all that I had said about ignoring the red in the kilts, my OCD circuit was niggling away at me saying ‘the Camerons were the only one’s with red in the kilts – how could you leave it out…’ I also kept thinking that I didn’t want them to look too much like the Gordons, with their Yellow square pattern.

After much thinking I decided hell, just do it, and painted a red cross hatch pattern in between the large yellow pattern. I haven’t got a picture to show the close up of the technique – I was too busy just cursing myself and getting on with the painting! I even went back over the troops that I had finished.  But painting red was the same as painting the yellow stripe, just exactly in the middle of the yellow grid. The result is below. My concern was that the tartan would look a bit ‘busy’ on the small figures but I think it looks OK.

Red added to the tartan!

This is typical of my approach to my modelling! I convince myself that I cant do something and then decide to have a go any way! So, with 16 of the troops completed there is just another eight to go to finish the battalion. Having learnt how to paint tartan, I suspect that the next eight will be a bit more straight forward, especially as the officers and ensigns aren’t in kilts! Give me a couple of weeks and I’ll show you the final results with the battalion all based and ready for action.

A close up of the Camerons – the red stripe is a bit broad on some figures!

Past experience has shown that once the basing is done, the figures will look even better.  Having completed the Camerons, my intention is to paint the other two Highland regiments in kilts, the Gordons and the Black Watch. It looks as though the tartan for these two are actually less complicated than the Camerons and having now tackled one set of tartan, I’m hoping that these other two battalions will be more straight forward.

The Commercial Bit

Another lazy link this week…nearly everything that I use in my hobby is available post free from the Arcane Scenery shop. So Expo Brushes, Vallejo Paints, Victrix figures, Renedra bases, tools and sanding sticks – they are all there , just have a browse! Use the manufacturers category or the general category to browse products.  If you want a specific paint or item, just type the number or description into the search box, hit return and it should appear!

ARCANE SCENERY SHOP

Last week I mentioned that I went along to a play test of the forthcoming Ancient Greek skirmish game, Mortal Gods – A test of Courage. I have on the work bench a small band of Greeks and Skeletons for this game and I will return to these in another blog – they are providing light relief from my ongoing Napoleonic project.

The next Napoleonic unit on the paint station is the 79th Cameron Highlanders. I have started to batch paint the 24 figures that I need for the battalion and the first 8 are about finished. In this blog, I’ll show you step by step how I went about the task of painting these eight. Incidentally, I had initially thought that I would paint 28 figures for the battalion but I have reined in my ambition and will go for the usual 24 figures. This isn’t quite the climb down that it looks like. Having painted the first eight, my confidence has grown and I have decided to paint all three Highland regiments at Waterloo, a total of 72 figures. The other reason for the smaller Battalion is that all the Highland regiments at Waterloo had been quite badly mauled in the fighting at Quatre Bras, two days earlier, so a standard sized unit makes more sense.

I’ll rely on the pictures to show the sequence in which I have painted the models, so a picture heavy blog – hopefully more use than me waffling on…I hope that the step by step method that I use will be useful.

Step 1 Flesh

Once the figures have been primed with Army Painter grey, I start with the flesh – face, hands and knees! Vallejo Flat Flesh 70815. I’m using an Expo sable ‘0’ brush for most of the painting.

Step 2 Black

Black 70950 for Hats, Cartridge Box, Bayonet scabbard and boots.

Step 3 – gaiters

Black grey 70862 for the gaiters.

Step 4 Hair and sideburns!

Chocolate Brown 70872 for hair, although I painted one as ginger haired using 70981 Orange brown!

Red coats on!

Flat red 70957 for the Jackets.

Food bags painted

Iraqi sand 70819 for the food bags – you could do these in white and I should really paint the strap in Iraqi Sand to match but I actually paint them white as it makes the front of the figure look better -call it artistic licence or laziness…

Water bottles painted

Pastel blue 70901 for the water bottles. This looks on the light side but when I use quick shade on the figure the colour will darken and the texture of the bottles will show. Painting the unit number on the canteen is beyond my skill, eye sight and patience!

Facings in Green – spot the ginger….

Flat Green 70968 for facings – collars & cuffs.

White lace & straps

The longest stint in one colour! 70820 Off white for tufts, turnbacks, belts, socks and lacing.

Muskets & Water bottle strap

Flat Brown 70984 for Musket stocks and I cheated and used the same colour for the canteen strap – leather brown 70871 would perhaps be a better choice. Some painters like to paint a grain effect on the wooden musket stocks – again, a step too far for me and I think unnecessary.

Metallics done.

Metallics! Steel 70864 for the musket barrel and other details, Brass 70801 for the buttons, belt plate and details on the musket.

Tartan Paint – it’s magic!

Vallejo Tartan paint….Well, not exactly but just to tease, I will explain how I went about painting the Tartan for the Cameron’s in more detail. This was the test shot and once I had gotten my head around the process I reverted back to the batch paint job.I’ll say up front that it is by no means an accurate representation, more a nod in the general direction of how Tartan looks. When it came to it, painting the tartan to this standard wasn’t as difficult as I had thought but it is time consuming. The first 8 figures that I have finished are looking OK for the table top, though I say so myself – you can an idea for yourself next week! But, there are a few steps yet to take, including the daunting task of painting the figures with quick shade and hoping that I didn’t lose too much of the detail.

I’ve also painted the red cross hatching on the hat bands and the socks. So until next week,  you can see how I tamed the tartan terrors!

The Commercial Bit

A lazy link this week…nearly everything that I use in my hobby is available post free from the Arcane Scenery shop. So Expo Brushes, Vallejo Paints, Victrix figures, Renedra bases, tools and sanding sticks – they are all there , just have a browse! Use the manufacturers category or the general category to browse products.  If you want a specific paint or item, just type the number or description into the search box, hit return and it should appear!

ARCANE SCENERY SHOP