Painting progress report

With the success of my new painting technique of Contrast paint, AP wash and highlights in acrylic on flats, I thought I'd try on fully round figures.....

Some 20mm Revell 8th Army were the experimental volunteers:

Contrast Paint

Army Painter Strong Tone

Highlights to uniform, helmets, webbing and flesh

Total 30 infantry, approx 15 minutes per figure.

Some more Swiss Zinnfiguren have also had paint splashed on them...

Contrast

The perils of flats, besides extra arms and legs to look out for, you have to remember to paint both sides!

AP wash

Basic highlights

Final result after fettling and touch ups...

Did not measure the time taken for these, but not pictured are another 8 pike at finished stage and another 29 figures which have reached AP wash stage. So far two afternoons, I suspect another afternoon, but as rough calculations it's looking like 15-20 minutes per figure.

As can be seen, if you take your time a basic job of Contrast, AP wash and highlights produces nice results. For some people, they will be happy with only one or two of the stages. I cannot help myself doing the little bit extra....even then the results are worth the time put into it. By contrast (forgive the pun) painting SSM using black undercoat and basic blocked in colours probably takes around 5-6 hours for 8 figures or 4 mounted that works out at around 45 minutes per figure......

You can't go back.....and why maybe you shouldn't try!

A cautionary tale....

I embarked on the painting of the two battalions of Regiment du Berry on the expectation it would be a quick job. After all the bulk of the figures had already been blocked in so would just need touching up and a few figures added to fill the gaps....

Well it turns out it wasn't that simple. First I had to add around 8 figures to the same style as the previous painter. OK done. It was then that I examined my existing figures. The new figures were way too dark. Far darker than even my darkest figure's "Gris-blanc" coat, the particular French grey-white shade.

So I tried to remember how I'd painted back then. It was just before switching to black undercoat and layers. It must have been washes and drybrushing (as per Peter Gilder's guide from Military Modelling). So I tried a drybrush of lighter grey. No still too dark.

Part of the problem is my old figures are varnished and the varnish has discoloured giving an antique yellow hue. I cannot see how they were painted.

So, a thin light grey- white wash was applied over the dark drybrushed colour. Red was applied to one battalion. At this stage I began to realise that I would have been better to simply strip the figures and start again.........

Maybe, I'd have been better to not try matching, but just paint in my current style or using Contrast Paint? What was I thinking?

While intellectually I realise you cannot go back in time and be the person you were 20 years ago, I'd assumed you could replicate your painting style? 

It turns out trying to paint the way you did 30 to 40 years ago is harder than it seems....

Even realising how long ago it was gives pause for thought......

Anyway, this is where I've got to. I need to finish off a few more colours to see how they look.

Something different an ECW experiment

One of my future planned projects is ECW in 15mm.

My plan is to paint using some speed methods, such as black washes and Contrast paints.

I have experimented on my 20mm Arab-Israeli figures; my main reservation was the lack of a strong delineation between areas that you get with a black undercoat method.

So my experiment was to take 6 identical miniatures but prepare them differently.

Two each  were undercoated in white, grey and black. One each of the white and grey got a wash in a mix of Pledge Revive it (previously Klear), water and black ink. The black figures were drybrushed in white for one and grey for the other.

Step one undercoats

Step two flesh

Step three common basic colours

Step four all colours except coat and scarf - variations hat / trousers

Step five all basic colours variations in coat 3 blue, 3 red

The white undercoat gives brightest colours; all will benefit from normal acrylic white and some highlights and hair touched in. Still not decided which appeals the most. I'm coming to the conclusion Contrast paints are useful, but need extra work to look really good. They do speed up the basic colour blocking in and are produce less fatigue, as you are not concentrating as much.

More Electoral forces

A couple of weekends has seen the addition of another contingent for the Electoral Army; Markgraf Reinhard Wulf Elector of Cotlas and his forces.

Although it's difficult to tell, each of the three infantry has a different shade of pink facings.

Playing around with Contrast Paints

 So I had heard of these new "revolutionary" paints from Games Workshop (or are they now called Warhammer like the shops?)

Being of a certain age means I approach anything from GW with some trepidation, especially regarding the claims they make regarding their products, as they have something of a what can best be described as a "captive" audience who tend to buy whatever " official " release comes along.

After trawling the internet and seeing various positive and negative views, I was more swayed by actual pictures which suggested these were worth investigating, as I have been looking for speed painting methods which also give a good result for a reasonable return in effort.

I bought a range of colours, aiming for various hues that would work for C20th figures (I have since bought some greys and various colours to experiment with some large Great Rail Wars figures but that's another story.....)

So today I dug out some Platoon 20 Egyptians and Combat Syrians undercoated in white and intended for the Six Days War. They were in white as I had a vague idea of trying a brown ink wash over base colours (the Syrians were originally intended to used for Egyptians). 

Here's the result of less than 2 hours painting.

I confess I'm quite pleased with how they have turned out.

I've noticed some bits that the perfectionist in me needs to correct, but on the whole I'm impressed.

Are they "revolutionary" ? No not really; they are a highly pigmented stain or wash. You can get similar effects from most paints but it requires practice and results can vary unless you get the proportion right; these work out of the pot (although I put them onto an old tile as a palette).

You need figures with detailed undercuts and make sure you remove mould lines and clean them up properly as these will show up.

For the time and effort however, I don't think they are too bad. For C20th figures I think they work very well.