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This hasn’t been a particularly good month for painting. I had a week off back on the 9th, but, as shown here, my desk had gotten too cluttered to actually get much painting done. I’m also off this week, and decided that I would try just putting one task on the desk at a time, to see if that would help. My son has been diligently working on his Bronze Age DBA armies, so I decided that I would finally get started on the last stand of figures I needed to finish my 2nd DBA army. (DBA : De Bellis Antiquitatis, a popular set of ancient wargames rules for small figure collections to be played on a small table.) Earlier this year, I had managed to get all of my 13th C BCE Libyan infantry done, to match against my New Kingdom Egyptians, but I still needed a “chariot general” base. Son and I have been working this project intermittantly for about fifteen years, and we have a deep stash of Caesar Miniatures 1/72 scale plastic figures. There is no “official” Libyan chariot, so I cobbled one together using an Egyptian chariot body, horses from a different (Mitanni) chariot set, and a Libyan commander pose. He’s a little too wide to be able to fit a driver in as well, so, artistic rendering... We used to mount our chariots on a 40mm wide by 60mm deep base, but the DBA rules call for 60mm by 80mm. The single chariot looks a little lonely, and there isn’t room for a pair of them, so he and I agreed that we would generally mount a couple of “chariot runners” with each vehicle. Most of my Libyans are done with cloaks painted to represent hairy hides from spotted cows, in keeping with the modern painting guide depictions. However, searching around for actual contemporary Egyptian depictions of Libyans came up with this (I’ve cropped a single figure out of a group of four): I did my best to replicate the alternating rows of “eyes” and “arrows” on the general’s cloak, and echoed the pattern on the chariot body decorations because “why not?”. At least any historical nit-pickers are likely to have seen the same picture... Here’s the completed “army”. With the Egyptians, I can at least stage a remote game without using proxy figures, although we are starting to look forward to getting together for an actual games day sometime again (probably still six months off...). Maybe my next army, the Nubians, will be ready by then as well.

I gave my older son a copy of the de Bellis Antiquitatis 3.0 rules for Christmas, and he has been inspired to dust off our joint 2009 project to do Egyptians vs Hittites in DBA. That did entail rebasing some chariots, and it looked like they might look lonely on the 60x80mm stands (vice 40x60 we had been using), so I painted 8 Egyptian infantry to serve as chariot runners and put two on each base when I rebased yesterday. Since I had some unfinished Libyan archers from BITD, I dusted them off and did four as two light infantry stands, to start an opposing army of my own. I picked out the rest of the Libyan foot last night, but they’ll need a chariot converted from an Egyptian one (most likely). In between those tasks, I also put a quick paint job on a Bones hordeling, who looks like he’ll be happier facing 1/72 scale opponents than heroic 28+mm figures.

I spent lunches last week on these two stands of Saxons for the Osprey Game Dux Bellorum, in which each stand is a unit on its own. All of the figures are home cast, mostly Prince August with a few spearmen from Dutkins Collectables. For the Saxon army, I'm doing it all with home cast figures, partly as an excuse for having the molds, partly as an artistic challenge. Practically speaking, there's probably more individualization and detail work than is actually necessary for a mass tabletop unit, but I like to err on the extra side...

With my British infantry unit done, I finally sat down this morning to get started on French Revolution project expansion unit #2 (of 7+). This time it's British cavalry, and with the rules we'll be using (A Gentleman's War), the default cavalry unit is six figures. My recent casting sessions have produced the parts, so it's now a case of assembling them into some semblance of what I'm looking for: I see that I will be going back to file off even more of the original lapels and lace from the basic casting, and I'm going to try to add the rest of the helmet crest with some green stuff before painting. I built up the first figure as a test this morning.

https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/86590-40mm-french-revolutionary-wars-british/ As described above, finished up today... Now on to the next unit...

Zombies in various historical uniforms (No British uniforms of course, we're always the goodies) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/687110463/dead-through-time-28mm-undead-zombie-historical-mi?ref=discovery&term=zombie historical

As I posted the other day, I have been inspired to put in some work on my 40mm Renaissance project, for the first time in six years or so. After doing the visual inventory, I concluded that what I most immediately needed was more pikemen. So, digging through my bags of raw castings, I pulled out a dozen pikemen base figures and a few other near term wishes. I haven't done the metal work on these figures in a while, so I warmed up with a second need, putting together three figures to form a command stand for lighter infantry, and then went on to do four of the easier pike conversions. The basic body is a halberdier, but it's very difficult to get the halter to cast properly, and, since I don't need it anyway, I realized a few years ago that I could insert a heavy wire into the mold in the hollow intended to become the halberd shaft, and pull it out (usually ) once the casting was cool. That basically gives you two ring hands into which to insert a brass wire pike. I have a small stash of 1/16" brass "curling wire" in 12" lengths, so it made sense to use 4" pikes and get three from a wire. I had a brief opportunity to work on two of the pikemen at lunch one day this week, and more or less finished one: I used a deliberately toy-like style when I painted the bulk of the figures twenty years ago, and I am not sure that I can match it. Nevertheless, I am going with a similar look this time, with some deliberately heavy black-lining. As one can see from the inventory picture, in actual play the figures end up giving an impressionistic effect, so there's not a lot of point in worrying too much about any single figure.

For my Lost World Project I needed some Meso American Warriors. Here is one from Mirlinton. Aztec Jaguar Warrior. A few pics against my Jungle Photo Backdrop Board too. WIP here for those interested: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/69308-lost-world-project-glitterwolf-paints-coldblooded-creatures-and-conquistadores/&page=105 Here he is.

I realized I had yet to post any pictures of my latest project here. A few months ago I started working on this 54mm scale knight from Romeo Models. The figure is from the era of the 3rd Crusade, but I decided to paint him up as a generic knight rather than one of the crusading orders (like the Templars). This gave me a lot more freedom in color choice and for the design work on his clothing/shield. In my mind, he's an English knight traveling with Richard the Lionheart on crusade. That steered my color choice a bit, as red and yellow were colors used by the English king. But I opted to replace the lion with a griffin on this piece (just to do something a little different). He's come a pretty long way. I wanted to push for a higher contrast on this piece. It's similar to how I've done fantasy figures, but I wanted to see how I could make it look on a historical figure (since we naturally expect to see a more realistic overall look). I made a few very minor changes to the figure. I shaved down the noseguard a bit so it hid less of his face. And I inserted two arrow shafts into his shield. Painting has all be done with acrylics, primarily Reaper though I did use Scale75 for the metallics. I have a couple small details to do on the knight, along with the chainmail on his legs. Then all that's left are the base and weathering the figure. I don't expect a ton of time to paint over the holidays, so hopefully I can finish him up in January. And here's a look at the base (keeping it pretty simple just to focus on the figure) and a sense of scale for the piece.

I just started a new project, this 70mm Celt from Art Girona. It's a neat sculpt, an intense pose and holding the severed head of a Roman. I'm trying out a new skin mix on this guy. My normal skin mix is Reaper's Chestnut Brown + ~10% Rosy Shadow, Rosy Shadow, Fair Skin, Fair Highlight, and either Linen White or Pure White. It's a pretty light looking skin which is fine for northern Europe. I'll often supplement the Chestnut Brown with Mahogany Brown for the darkest shadows. For this figure, instead of Rosy Shadow for the base, I used a 50/50 mix of Rosy Shadow and Bronzed Shadow. For the shadows, I used 60/40 Chestnut Brown and Basic Dirt along with ~10% of the base color. Some Walnut Brown was added for the deepest shadows. Highlights were a 50/50 mix of Fair Skin and Bronzed Highlight, then some Pure White for the final shine. Using just the Bronzed Skin colors is a bit too extreme for my tastes, but tempering them with the Rosy and Fair Skin colors produced a result I'm happy with. I'll definitely keep it in mind for future projects. So far I've just done a rough base coat on the body and the pants. But I have spent time shading and highlighting the face. Got a lot more planned for this piece, so stay tuned! :) And here's a close up of the face

Expansion sets for the Blood and Plunder tabletop game. Live on Kickstarter. About this project Blood is on the horizon! The iron grip of Iberian Domination is eclipsing the 17th century Caribbean as the world races to seize its spoils. Join the emerging Dutch Republic as it battles for its place among the established European powers or defy foreign incursion as a Darien King in this expansion to Blood and Plunder, No Peace Beyond the Line. No Peace Beyond the Line is the first major expansion for the Blood and Plunder miniatures game. This expansion will revolve around the No Peace Beyond the Line book that will feature: Optional rules for playing games at a greater scale or with more than two players A campaign system Special characters that players will be able to add to units New units and factions for the existing nationalities New nationalities including the Dutch and Native Caribbeans New ships: Piragua, Fluyt and the Galleon! Factions for expanded nationalities such as Danes, Swedes, Prussians, and Portuguese This Kickstarter allows us to raise the funding needed to expand our product line to this scale in a short period of time as opposed to having slow, continuous releases. Firelock Games is excited to have the opportunity to continue expanding the world and timeline of Blood and Plunder in order to create a more exciting and expansive line for its player base.

As some of you know I went to France to participate in the Nato Tiger Meet 2017. I can't post all of course, but here is an impression of some airplanes , some badges, and some of the sight seeing. Badges I acquired, including one from last year I missed then. Jets and stuff that was safe to take pics off.

Hi, I'm looking for any historical infantry mini with a forlorn/tired/sorrow look in 28-32mm, preferably from Reaper.

Finally decided it was about time for me to start another WIP thread. I have not done much since ReaperCon and fell into a major painting rut. I had a bunch of ideas but no energy to actually do anything. I am starting to get back into the swing of things and have quite a few projects on deck. No real deadlines for them, just working on what I feel like it at this point. I would like to finish the Landsknecht and The Grudge in time for the SCAHMS show on the second weekend in April. So here is my current line up of project with the breakdown of what's what below. 1. Vampire Hunter (Reaper 60164) - originally was going to be part of a vignette for the Valentine's Day contest but I did not finish in time. Mostly base coated with shading and highlighting done on the cloak. Really happy with how it turned out as I tried something new for me by using purple in the shadows. 2. Hellknight Captain (Reaper 60127) - Second figure for the vignette. Pretty much the same as the other, got through the base coats and cloak then stalled. 3. Halmar, Young Wizard (Reaper 03449) - Playing around with my new Scale 75 paints and is only partially base coated. 4. The Girl (Bombshell Miniatures) - Had a color idea and wanted to test it. Mostly base coated and started working on the skirt. 5. XVI century Landsknecht (HistoricArt/CoolMiniorNot) - Only partially assembled. Stalled a bit working on it as when I first attached the torso to the legs, it was out of alignment. Had to redo it and that resulted in needing to do some putty work. 6. Mousling Knight (Reaper 03542) - Just a fun one I felt the urge to do and is only primed at this point. 7. The Grudge (Reaper 30014) - Another one that stalled during prep. It had some casting issues that I needed to clean up and I did not care for void areas that I think were intended to look like dirt. So I smoothed it out and that took a while. I primed it after taking the picture.

I recently started on a new historical piece (sorry to anyone checking out this thread in the hopes that I misspelled 'dragons'). It's a 54mm Napoleonic figure from Pegaso. He's an officer of the Empress' Dragoons. Since he's in his dress uniform, I wanted to come up with a scene that would be appropriate. A little while back I found this great photo etch gates from ScaleLink. It looked like the kind of gate you'd find in front of some old French chateau, so it was perfect for this piece. I built a column using juweela bricks and then used another piece of photo etch for a plaque on the column. Here's a look at the scene prior to painting... I started painting the face. A few of the minor features are done purely through painting (rather than sculpted on). These would be the cleft in the chin (it's a large chin, so a bit more detail is nice) and the scrunched up skin where the helmet strap goes under his chin. Just a bit of highlighting and shading is all it needed to create the effect. Speaking of highlighting and shading, I thought this image does a nice job of showing what has been painted on and what's just room lights. On the left, I'd painted the face and collar, but the rest of the coat, shirt, and pants are just a uniform base shade. On the right, I've gone in and shaded all of those elements. And here are some more images of the figure as it currently stands. Still need to do the braided details on his shoulders and around his right arm, then the gloves, helmet, boots, and sword/scabbard (yet to be attached). One challenge with this piece was trying to get the dark green coat to look right. If you've ever tried to do a dark green or a dark blue, you may find that as you start to highlight all of a sudden that dark color turns into a medium or even a light shade of the color. To help stop this, I used medium or even a light grey mixed in with the dark green to create my highlights. This desaturates the highlights and helps the piece retain the dark color look even with high contrast. Of course it also helps to limit the area in which the highlights are applied.

While I wait for a bolt of inspiration to strike re the winged succubus. I'm getting started on some personality figures for my English Civil War/Thirty Years War forces. It is the Prince Rupert figure but he will be pressed into service as a senior officer with what ever army I happen to be using. Horse is half way there The Prince has a way to go yet, boots done

I'm in the early stages of what promises to be a very long project. This is a rather large 90mm scale samurai archer from Pegaso Models. I've been wanting to do a samurai for a while, the colors and patterns make for some really neat figures. I'm planning for this to be a competition piece, so I'm intending to go all out on the design work. There are a lot of layered pieces for this figure, so he's going to be painted and assembled in a number of stages. I began with the face. As a larger scale figure, there's a lot more room to do detail and it's well worth spending the extra time. I probably put in 10-12 hours in to just the face so far. I had to switch up my skin mix a bit, I began with Reaper's Volcano Brown with a touch of Olive Skin Shadow and Burgundy Wine for the shadows, then into Olive Skin Shadow, Olive Skin, Olive Skin Highlight, and finally a bit of Linen White. On top of that I did some glazes with red, purple, and blue to add more color variation and life to the face. Then I did a bit of the cloth. The orange is Burgundy Wine, Bronzed Skin Shadow, Burnt Orange, and Linen White. I haven't done much orange in the past, but I'm happy with that mix. I will be going back over that part of the figure to add some pattern/design... but I haven't decided what I want to do yet. All I know is that the orange will be the background color. And, if you're curious, here's a close up of the other side of the face. As i said, this should be a long project. I'm hopeful I can get it done by the end of the year... but we'll see. I really want to bring it to Adepticon next year. There should be enough time for that if I don't get too side tracked along the way.

My latest project is another 54mm historical figure. This one is a Northumbrian warrior from Latorre. It's a really nicely done sculpt, although perhaps a bit on the simple side in terms of gear. I decided to add a bit to him, so I swapped the shield out of his left hand and slung it onto his back (adding a photo etch belt so it looked like something was holding it in place). I wanted to put something else in his left hand, so I went through my bits box and settled on a war horn I had left over from the Sorondil project. I'm attempting to create an overall cold feel to this figure, so I'm planning to use a lot of cool colors (blues, greens, purples) and give him a winter base. It's causing me to make some minor adjustments to my normal mixes and rethink a few things. Here's a quick look at how he's come together so far. Last night I finished the main color for the tunic. I'm now starting on a pattern for the border. Just put in the lower edge and then marked off dots for the top edge so I could keep the spacing consistent. I'll be filling the space in between with a geometric pattern, so using these sorts of guide marks will be key to getting everything to look uniform in the end. For the metals on this guy I used the Scale75 metallic paints and their inks. I always paint the metals over a dark base. Normally for iron I'd do something like a black or dark brown, but since I'm going for a cold feel I used a dark blue. On top of that I start by laying down a dark metallic base coat (left image). Here I used Scale75's black metal mixed with Reaper's Pure Black and Ritterlich Blue. I used equal parts metallic and pure black, then maybe a third that amount of the blue. The matte colors tone down the shininess of the metal and help to keep those darker areas dark. Into that I start to mix in a lighter metallic tone, in this case Heavy Metal, to create the highlights. I gradually work up to pure Heavy Metal, applying in smaller and smaller areas (top surfaces and edges). I repeat the same process for the yellow metals. In this case I used Scale75's Necro Gold with Reaper's Burgundy Wine and some Ritterlich Blue. Into that I mixed Elven Gold and, at about 2 parts Elven Gold to 1 part Necro/Burgundy/Blue I started to mix in Thrash Metal. That's a paler highlight and keeps it from getting too yellow. This is the middle image. Note that while the shadows where a mix of matte and metallic paint, the highlights are pure metallic so they are much more reactive with the light. At this point the metals look pretty decent but there is one more step. I take a number of the Scale75 inks and apply a series of glazes to add hints of color and further develop the shadows. You can use a lot of different colors, however for the feel I want I stuck with blue, purple, and black inks. The effect is subtle, but compare the right image (with glazes) to the middle image (without) and you can see the shadows are a bit stronger and the color is a little more interesting.

This is a 1/12th scale bust by Heroes & Villains Miniatures. My second large-scale project, after the pirate bust (also by H&V) I did earlier this year. I ended up doing him as a limited palette experiment, with just a single spectrum of browns and yellows, plus some flesh tones for the skin,a few blue details (especially the eyes) and some similarly toned gold metallics. (I was going to do that cuff in NMM, but chickened out and opted for TMM instead.) Please feel free to check out the WIP thread. As always, massive props to bailey03's great Saxon raider tutorial.

After feeling decidedly "meh" about painting the other day, I managed to snap out of my funk and get a couple of characters done! These Celt heroes will be characters in my Kings of War human army, leading the contingent of barbarian mercenaries. This first one will be the general of the barbarians, so I went for a nice, regal purple cloak for him. Like all the other barbarians, he's a redhead (bit of inspiration from the Hyborian Age Vanir). I used some of the Bryan Sky Steel from ReaperCon on the metal, and practiced some of the principles from Michael Proctor's shaded metallics class. This other bloodthirsty brute will be the unit leader of the army's berserker horde, and you can see he's a bit scarred up from being in the thick of the slaughter. He's also a giant compared to the other Celts! Obviously no red hair, being bald and all. First time making a dribble of blood like that too, using a hair plucked from my own head! C&C absolutely welcome.

Here's another historical project that I'm working on. I haven't done a bust in over 3 years, so I thought it would be a nice change to do one again. This is a Prussian Hussar from Young Miniatures. They make mostly busts and their sculpts are all really well done. I was particularly drawn to this one because it's dramatic and has a lot of action/movement for a bust. The bust is only partially assembled. He's got a right arm swinging a sword, but it blocks access to his face and chest, so having that in place would make painting him a lot more difficult. I began on the face, of course. His expression is pretty dramatic and I decided to take a high contrast approach to go with it. It's a larger scale figure so conventional wisdom says I should use less contrast. But, as long as you use high contrast on major features and not overemphasize every shadow, I think you can get away with it even at this scale. For the darkest shadows I used a mix of Mahogany Brown, Rosy Shadow, and Burgundy Wine (roughly 70/20/10), then into Chestnut Brown, Rosy Shadow, and Burgundy Wine (similar ratios), then into Rosy Shadow, Fair Skin, Fair Highlight, and finally a touch of pure white. After that I went back with glazes of red, blue, and purple to add more color, deepen shadows, and create the look of stubble. Since the figure is a good deal larger than most of the stuff I work on, I tried to put a lot more detail into the figure. You'll notice that most clearly in the eyes. And, for a look at whole figure (though still missing the right arm) and a quarter for a sense of scale.

I spotted this set and got it originally for the woman in the slinky circa. 1930 gown, not yet realizing that it had two other great figures as well. RAFM sells three-packs of adventurers for "Call of Cthulhu" showing a progression: first the person in his or her civilian life, then out on the hunt for otherworldly horrors, then gone mad with the horror. They are kind of mixed in quality, but have a certain charm. I did not paint these as a progression of one character, but as three separate women: A society dame, a sporty modern young woman from the Indian Raj, and a madwoman out on the moors -- or tidal flats of New England, anyway. There are lots of fun details with these three. I tried to paint the madwoman's slip as transparent. It's eau-de-nil, an extremely fashionable color in the 1920s. Her feet and arms are supposed to look a little grubby. I added gloves to the society lady since no lady would be out barehanded at the time (her furs really should be a wrap around the back, not be two separate pieces; I think the artist did not have a visual reference for her back). And the sportswoman's boot is resting on a block carved with the most wonderful tentacled thing, although I did not paint it as clearly as I would like. The bases of the society woman and the madwoman were a little small for stability, so I glued them to pennies. I didn't do anything fancy with the society woman's base, but I added painted foliage and rocks to the madwoman's. The madwoman's base can be seen from above in this post: http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/49565-i-hate-to-base-so-i-painted-them-instead/

Hey all, I've got a few friends on this forum and I've poked around here for a little while, but this is my first time posting any of my work here. I don't normally paint Reaper figures as I like to do 54mm scale historical figures, but I do use primarily Reaper Master Series paints so hopefully that is enough justification to share my work here! Quick background on myself, I've been painting for many years (started with Ral Partha figures and then GW back in Jr High) but about five or six years ago I returned to the hobby. That was also the point where I became aware of all the great painting info and inspiration online, so I began to learn and push myself from decent table top quality into display level. Okay, enough about me and onto the figure. This is a 54mm Saxon warrior from Latorre. The kit is unfortunately out of production, but I was able to snag a copy from another modeler. I'm hoping to use this as one of my entries for Crystal Brush next year so I'm putting some extra time into this one. Here's a quick look at the current state. The base is still very much a work in progress. My thought is he's on some raid and has broken into this building looking for loot. There will be more debris on the floor and I might add something more to the post and cross beam. Neat bases has never been my strength, so I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing here. As for the figure, he is mostly finished. I still have a few details to finish and then I need to paint and attach the shield. After that I'll take some pigments to give him a more weathered look. I'm giving a presentation on this project to my local painting group in LA, so I've taken a lot of photos at various stages (I don't normally do this much detail with my other projects). Here's a look at how I did the face. Although this guy is 54mm, I use the same approach on larger and smaller figures. The only difference is the level of detail I can expect to achieve. I begin with a base coat of Rosy Shadow. I then block in the shadows with Chestnut Brown and Mahogany Brown (dark color under the brows, nose, and chin). From there I jump to the eyes. First they get a pink layer (Rosy Skin + Violet Red) followed by an off white (Weathered Stone + Leather White). The idea is a little of the pink remains at the corners of the eye. For the iris I start with a dark color and then try to add a little lighter shade to bring out the color. It's hard to see in the photos but it's there. With the eyes finished it's time to get back to the skin. First I use mixes of Chestnut Brown and Rosy Shadow to smooth out the shadows. I like to start dark and the gradually get lighter and lighter, but nothing wrong with going from the midtone and getting darker and darker. The second image in the bottom row shows the highlights. For these I mix Fair Skin into the Rosy Shadow. When I get to pure Fair Skin I work in Fair Highlight. The brightest highlights fall on the tops of the cheeks and nose. At this point I take a step back and see what needs to be tweaked. The third image in the bottom row shows the face after I take care of the lips (Rosy Shadow + Violet Red, blended into Fair Skin), Brown Liner for the eye brows, and then adjusted some of the shadows and highlights around the edge of the mouth and the line running from the nostrils down the cheek. The face looks pretty decent at this stage but I go one step further. I use glazes of red, blue, and purple to add a bit more life to the face. I'm working with the GW glazes (Bloodletter, Guilliman Blue, and a mix of the two for purple) and further thin them with water but you can make glazes out of Reaper paints instead. The red glaze is applied to the cheeks and tip of the nose. The blue glaze goes on the bottom of the face and changes the tone to create a 5 o'clock shadow look. Finally the purple is used to deepen the shadows in the cheeks and around the eyes. After the glazes I go back in a redo a few of the highlights on the cheeks and nose. I was trying something a little different with the armor. I wanted a very weathered look so I started the helmet with shades of Brown Liner, Oiled Leather, and a little Deep Red and Palomino Gold. I used an old frayed brush to stipple the colors on and create a bit of a pattern. Then, with a fine detail brush I started to paint on the metallic tones in tiny scratches and along the edges. I continued to develop the metal and layered on more of the brown tones. I also added a few touches of Imperial Purple for some more visual interest. For the metal plate on his chest and back I tried to bring out the dented texture. I started with a coat of brown liner and then a layer of Scale75's Necro Gold mixed with Imperial Purple. By mixing the dark metal with a matte paint you bring down the shine and help keep those dark tones dark no matter the lighting. I then started to mix in brighter metals with the Necro Gold + Purple Mix (Scale75's Elven Gold and then at roughtly 4 to 1 Elven to Necro/Purple I switched to Thrash Metal). I did an uneven application of highlights with short brush strokes to help break up the surface (3rd image). The final step was to layer on some glazes to develop the shadows a little more. I mostly used Pure Black and Brown Liner mixed with Vallejo Glaze Medium and water. And here's a closer look at the full figure from a couple different angles. I trying to use a somewhat limited palette with plenty of muted colors. Sorry for the long post but at this late stage I had a lot to cover! Still plenty to do with the base and hopefully this weekend I'll get some time to put some paint on his shield.

Here's something a bit different, a 75mm Napoleonic figure from the campaigns in Egypt. I've been wanting to do some more large scale projects because I think they make really nice display pieces. And figures from the Napoleonic era are a great topic because they've got such detailed and colorful uniforms. I made a good deal of progress this past weekend. I'm pretty happy with the colors, so here are my mixes. I'm listing just the main colors but there were many intermediate mixes between each paint listed to get smooth blends. The skin was Mahogany Brown + Rosy Shadow (3 to 1), Chestnut Brown + Rosy Shadow (3 to 1), Rosy Shadow, Fair Skin, Fair Highlight. Following that I applied some red, blue, and purple glazes for a bit more color. Red to the cheeks, nose tip, and ears. Blue on the jaw to create the stubble. And purple in the deeper shadows of the cheeks and around the eyes. The green on the coat was a dark green mixed with Burgundy Wine to darken it even more and provide more depth to the shadows. Gradually reducing the Burgundy Wine, at about 2 parts dark green to 1 part Burgundy Wine I started to mix in Rainy Grey. This allowed me to create some desaturated highlights so I could retain that dark green look even with bright highlights. A medium or light green on the other hand would have turned the coat into a lighter shade of green. The red again started off with Burgundy Wine, then into Violet Red, Fire Red, and finally just a bit of Fair Skin mixed into the Fire Red for some extra highlights. The remaining details on the coat are a gold lace, though I'm still decided what my mixes will be for that.

I'm more than a little bit pleased about my latest acquisition, a box of Perry Miniatures War of the Roses Infantry. These guys are true 28mm scale, but will fit right in with most other 28mm model, even the big-head/big-hand Games Workshop "heroics." I've only had time to assemble and paint two of them. Let me know what you think! Questions and comments are always welcome. Thanks for looking (I was going to do a traditional smile face, but this one was too cool to pass up).