War of Spanish Succession- Marshals of France II

Work has slowed a bit on Monsieur Villars as some GW night goblins have fronted for a commission job (more on that next week). Work has progressed however and the main elements are starting to take shape. This time I have found a charming oil on canvas to work from with our man leading the storming of the works at Dedain, the uniform will be modelled on the outfit Villars is wearing in this painting.

Once again I'm using the new set of reaper paints and trying to get a feel for the different shades of red, working on one that I like and I think will work with the shading and high lighting.

Once relatively happy with my pallet of red and blues I have started work on the coat, saddle cloth and pistol covers. Not great photos I'm afraid, the tend to be a bit hit and miss.

 

Don't forget when browsing to click on the pic's for big-ness

I was not totally happy with the shade of read and have gone back to an old favourite and have given the coat a glaze or two of Humbrol acrylic red (the old one), shading was achieved by adding a little mid blue to the red and high lights by adding a very small quantity of pale yellow.

The palette so far, the base coat red is not shown the red here is the old style Humbrol acrylic red used to glaze the coat, the orange is the final highlight tone, small amounts of yellow was added in stages and applied to the coat. The shades of violet are the base coat blue mixed with red and used to shade the red coat and blue horse blanket and pistol covers this keeps the range tight and the colours relative to one another. Light blue is mixed in stages with the base coat blue for  blue mid tones and high lights. Did that make sense?

For your interest and just for a laugh here are the brushes I have been using for these French Marshall figures.  Both would have been purchased back in 99 to 01 for princely sums of $2 to $3 from the local news agent! Does anyone remember Premier Art equipment? I think the synthetic is starting to hook at the tip so it wont be long before it joins the utility brushes.

The paint on the handle has flaked and chipped off years ago

Poor old thing, the tip is starting to hook, not much paint accumulation in the ferrel, so it has been kept relatively clean.

Of course back in those days I didn't know what kolinsky sable was, I just bought the brushes with the tips I wanted, didn't understand the black'un was quality, well news agent quality!

Regards

Dave