A New Book and Highlanders WIP

Hello everyone!

 

Today's post is a bit of a mix-match as far as topics, covering a new book and the progress of my "large batch" painting efforts.Today I recieved in the mail a new book that I thought that I would share with my readers, Philip Haythornthwaite's British Infantry of the Napoleonic Wars, as seen below.

 

 

This book covers the organization, tactics, daily lives, uniforms and equipment of the British infantry from the start of the French Revolution through Waterloo, and does so mainly with contemporary drawings and paintings as well as with photographs of actual pieces of equipment and uniforms. A good number of the plates are in color as well, making it a good painting reference. Ebay can be a wonderful thing, as I was able to snatch up this great book really cheaply.

 

Now, on to the 74th Highland Regiment. Progress is slow, but steady. So far I've been taking a photo after every completed step of the process, which might give y'all some impression of how I paint my figures. It's different from the way many others go about it, but I've been painting this way since I first began painting and I'm loathe to quit my system now that I've got the hang of it. Anyway, on to the pictures!

 

(Remember to click on them for bigger versions.)

 

Here's all 30 Highlanders on my cluttered painting bench, greenstuff bonnets dried and glued to their bottle-top painting bases. I arranged the figures with all of the like poses together to speed up painting.

All of the figures undercoated with Reaper's white brush-on primer. I like to undercoat in white... black primer makes the final painted figures too dark in my opinion.

Here the mini bases are painted in the yellow-brown that serves as my basing color. This was a departure from my normal method of painting, as I normally save this for last; I didn't feel like putting a lot of work in the figures just to fat-finger the basing color at the end and have to redo a bunch of once-completed figures. Here I just quickly brushed on the base color with a large(ish) brush.

I paint my figures from the feet up; the last thing I paint is the pom-pom or feather at the top of a figure's hat. Here i have painted all of the Highlander's shoes before going on to the base color for their trews, in this case a color called "true blue."

The next step in painting my 15mm Government Sett tartan is to apply a grid of dark green over the blue base coat, which can easily be seen in this picture.

The last step is to apply a tiny dot of navy blue in the center of the squared formed by the dark green line. When dry this technique, in my humble opinion, makes for a very passable imitation of Government Sett tartan in 15mm.

And here's the last stage that I have pictures of. Here I have painted the red coats on each of the figures, covering all crevices in the figures and any straps and equipment that crosses the bodies of the figures.

As I write this I am working on the Highlander's equipment, which will be enough for one night. All of the above work took place over three or four nights; the tartan drove me crazy, not through difficulty, but through the demoralizing prospect of having to paint the same thiry pairs of tiny legs with three different coats of paint! I'll continue to take pictures after every step and will post them later.

Coming soon: More Highlanders! And British, as my Fantassin figures arrived from Scale Creep Miniatures the other day, which are very nice and a full 18mm tall, like their AB and Eureka cousins. I also got the simply awful idea of painting some of my French figures up as Irish Legion... as if I don't have enough foreign French regiments! Plus the Portuguese and 3e Hussars, they go without saying by now. :)

Questions, comments and criticisms are always welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for looking!

-Chuck