Budget 28mm commisions and some 15mm Austrian Artillery crews for 1859- 1866

 Just doing a quick step by step  on a client's 28mm figures and my own 15mm Austrians, pics as I go! Comments and criticisms always welcome.

Undercoated with Halfords Black Acrylic spray and dry brushed with Vallejo German Grey. Sorry for the yellow cast from my daylight bulb??

First I like to do any flesh, particularly the face. This makes or breaks the figure so I like to get it done and out of the way. I might also pick out a few belts straps or anything else a reddish brown leather colour, sometimes wood too. Normally I would do the wooden back of a shield starting with this colour but as the figure is to represent a paladin type I will use a lighter sand colour for the wood base and for the artillery crew's 'spikes'.

 The brown is from LifeColor's flesh set and I use their dark tan next leaving the dark brown as shadow and outline. I will also cover the eye balls and teeth at this point to provide shadow / base coat for ivory white to come later.

Here you can see the dark grey dry brush better. The figure is supposed to be a very ugly human so I'm going to soften the face by having the eyes lidded and the teeth played down. Next is the dark pinkish flesh from LifeColor. Just to pick out the nose, cheeks and chins and to dry brush the fingers on the 15mm figures and with a little added red for the lower lip on the 28mm.

A final highlight of Vallejo Pale Sand  on the cheekbones, nose tips and finger tips  and a touch of translucent white onto the eyeballs and teeth of the 28mm. If the effect is too harsh after this I will soften the effect with a flesh wash.

Next is Tamiya's Yellow Sand to highlight the leather leaving the red brown as shadow and to base coat any light wood. A highlight of Tamiya Deck Tan is also applied. Some new items might be base coated in Yellow Sand and highlighted in Deck Tan if they are light leather pouches but not on these projects. 

A further highlight of Vallejo Pale Sand is applied to all wood and as a base coat for any linen. here the pale sand is used to base coat the linen haversacks of the artillery crews.

On another figure running concurently, you can see the Yellow Sand, Deck Tan and Pale Sand pouch and wood. In order to tone down the wood and shade the linen I am using GW's Sepia wash. Now I take a break and have a sandwich.... ... ...

Now the wash has dried, I can begin on the major colours. The Austrians will have blue trousers so I use Vallejo Prussian Blue as  the deepest shade and also as a base for my client's figure's armour as the client wants white armour. To try for the whiter than white look I will use blue as a base and use layers of translucent white to build up the colour.

The Austrians get a coat of Vallejo Andrea Blue to provide the base  colour for the trousers and I use the left overs to accent the armour. I'm not even sure this will work as usually I use a blue wash over white but we'll see...

Looks okay to me so far.. A final touch of sky blue will complete the Austrian's trousers, then I will leave them a while whilst I work on the white armour.

Using a thin coat overall and a slightly thicker one on the highlit areas I soon have the armour done. It looks a little rough on close inspection but this figure has to be painted in under an hour. I use Microscale Gloss to seal it as it dries really fast.

Once the Gloss is dry, if I have any little accidents, I can wipe the armour clean with a damp brush. The sword is supposed to be gold , silver and white, so I plan to do gold flames along the blade but shaded to show the light on the blade. Also the shield is gold and I will do any buckles etc in bright silver. I can also use the gold to do brass plates on the artillery shakos and the buttons on the front of the coat and  tips of the sword / bayonet scabbards. while the Austrian officers swords will be a bright iron colour ( so silver).

I had a bit of an experiment, got all my metallic, gilt varnish, bronze powder etc. and had a play. On the silver armoured figure I used Oily Steel from Vallejo and Permanence Silver Pearl for highlights, on the white armoured figure I used GW Shining Gold and Burnished Gold with Vallejo Gold highlights on the darker side of the sword, with Mettalic Rust,  Copper and Pearlescent Silver on the brighter side with white highlights. Pommels and guards were painted with Schminke Bronze powder and the shield faces were painted with  Liberon Gilt Varnish, Bit of a hodge podge, but I had all these sitting around waiting for me to try them. The 15mm gunners had their shako plates done with the Bronze Powder. The Gilt Varnish will take 3 hours to dry so there's time for a pic and some more work on the gunners.






















Gunner's jackets are brown or linen. I already have some in linen jackets, so these will get brown and I shall be using Vallejo Leather brown as a base  USA Tan Earth for  the highlights. A GW Nuln Oil (Black) wash will create the shading. But before I do the brown I need to check if the gunners had red facings during the 1850's as the dark brown will form the base for the red and I will paint the cuffs and collars in before adding the brown highlights to the jackets. Water bottles - brown, straps and belts in white and they're done.

As for the 28mm figures I've done  shirts in green and a base grey for the robes.

Now, the client likes his bases left black, so there's just the grey highlights for the robes and the pupils to pop in and they're done. Actual size pics.

Well that's a  whole days painting. Twenty artillery crew and two 28mm figures. My back aches and my eyes are heavy but I think my client will be happy and I've had fun playing with the metallics.
Thanks for dropping by.