More on Oils and Poste Militire

Firstly thanks for the comments guys, I've never considered the piece to be anything more than a whim and I do not consider myself to be particularly artistic, no false modesty just a fact, for example the thought of sculpting the hand scares me rigid. Speaking of which I cant for the life of me work out why the hand was separate, I can only imagine that it was holding something but no bells are ringing, the voices are still there but no bells! I tried to find a source for poste militaire but it seems the company is out of business which is sad particularly after flicking back through my ancient Military Modelling magazines, they made some nice figurines.

A bit more about the paint job or more importantly the bits that aren't! The Breast Plate isn't painted I had read something about burnishing around that time which I had tried on my wargames figures with some success on the very few 25's I was able to afford back in the day.

On this piece I put the technique to the test using a piece of hard plastic rod, she who must be restrained insists I raided her knitting needles at the time, I cant actually picture her knitting myself! The burnishing technique used was simply a process of rubbing the plastic firmly over the breast plate etc. until it started to develop a sheen, not rocket science but very effective. This was followed by a wash of black oil paint (I only owned enamels back then as did most of us) and a coat or two of satin varnish. Looking back at it now, armed with hindsight and ability I would have tried a weathering of rust around the edges.

Same applies to the armour on the arm (yes I know there is a specific name for the armoured arm but I cant for the life of me remember it! pole arm?) and the head of the Bill. As for the rest of the painting I can only repeat what I said in the original post and that is "using oils particularly on larger figures to create well blended shading is not difficult" and for me was considerably easier to achieve than the techniques I have still yet to master for blending and transitioning with acrylics some 20 or so years later. The paints were a cheap boxed set so there was plenty of room for improvement.

thanks
PP

Painting with oils

I found this old 120mm fig while cleaning out a box yesterday, I think it is a Poste Militaire brand figurine not sure on that one. A billman prolly around Henry/Tudor-ish times. I remember thinking to myself I would give the big stuff a try as the local hobby store was selling off excess stock cheap, it was around early 90's maybe, if  it was earlier than that I'm not owning up

Taking into account my shit memory this one sticks because I went out and bought some cheap oil paints to smear over it. How it has survived all the house moves beats me.............

What is more it wasn't all that difficult, in fact it made blending and so on with acrylics tedious by comparison. The learning curve wasnt that steep and if you made a bit of a mistake it was easy to clean up and try again.

My eye for the skin tones wasnt that great and it hasnt improved much since!  95% of my painting in those days was 15mm armies, oils dont work down to that size and my budget back then was pretty restrictive so a life of figurine painting was not on the radar for long.

One very interesting thing of note is that this figure has literally travelled 2500km in a cardboard box and besides losing a hand from the figurine itself the paint is undamaged! There is not a chip or rub through, the painting was never finished so it didnt get lacquered, I guess oil paint has the advantage of being pretty tough when cured.

Anyone got a spare hand?

Ahh the great outdoors

I was busy rattling away on the computer this afternoon when some of the local wildlife happened by.

Something peeping out from behind the curtain

I was down loading some pics to computer so I had the camera close at hand. I was assuming it to be a baby tree snake or python which for the most part arent poisonous, not that the offer to test this theory was forthcoming.

The chase begins

He kept ducking in and out from behind the linen cupboards which was doing my mood no good at all. You can check the size of the lil fella against the power cord hence my thinking it was a young un however it was well over a metre long, so I was starting to reassess?

Back outside where you belong

I managed to stay sufficiently well hidden at one point as he slid passed and grabbed him by the tail and stuck him out on the window sill, quickly ducked outside and got a nice clear shot for identification.

After consulting the Australian parks and wildlife, state of Queensland, web site I can tell you that this is the common or green tree snake and was full grown at around 1.5 meters, thankfully non venomous, which I had suspected due some simple rules of thumb about snakes that most Aussies kids learn growing up, particularly those living on the land. Of course if your not sure leave them alone, this one didnt posses any of those warning signs in colour and shape that quickly tell you that "Im a nasty bugger so back off"

Stop That Horse

Well, the worm has turned and, it is time to get back on the horse..... lil lead ones of course. Over the last few weeks I have been scanning the blogs and mini's sites making fantasy list about figures and paints and such and the painting bug is biting, not a deep full 'fanged up' chomp but a...... consistent nibble.  I have been going through my lead mine and checking the paint pots for lumps so there is an air of expectancy (she who must be restrained thinks its an air of eating too much curry) and the chinky tap of ferrule on glass is being heard once more.

I have been looking over the half started figures and selected one or two that shouldn't present too much difficulty although I will be pretty rusty to start of with. I expect the touch to come back within a reasonable time (as it has in the past when taking a break) but this time not the eye (i.e. feel for colour and shade of the various paints). It takes a while to remember the vagaries of the different brands, just how much highlight or wash to use and mixing consistencies.

A visit to optometrist is booked for next Monday which was made doubly important as the visit to the Herr Dokotor last Friday gave the schweinhunt the opportunity to pronounce me as suffering from type 2 diabetes (honestly what next!), for which was described two tablets slightly smaller than an economy sized motor vehicle each night. Anywho the eyesight should sharpen up, at least when I'm making a horrendous paint/colour choice it will be in the right spot, hee hee.

Bye the way thanks for the comments and look forward to boring the pants off'n you with my inane ramblings.