Looking out for No. 1

Yes once again The Paint Pig blog has gone into stop start mode, and once again my apologies. This time there will be none of that "poor bugger me", I have been looking out for a much more important person than moi, my Nana!

Nana had decided her house and garden was to much for her (I agree) and has spent most of this year badgering local authorities about moving into the towns seniors village, unbeknown to me, I don't know how she overcame the bureaucracy and paper work of the local council however she succeeded and got a position, pretty sharp going. The last three weeks have been spent driving up to her house (350 Km away) and moving her into her new seniors village flat, coming home for a couple of days to check on things and driving back up and continuing the move. I'm amazed at how much stuff (useful or not) she has accumulated and a house full of stuff does not fit in a one bedroom unit even if it is large and roomy, to cut a long story down to size some things had to go, we managed to get her shifted without too many heated debates although I'm doubly amazed at how Mrs Paint Pig and my ol' Gran managed to cram so many car loads of stuff into the unit, I swear the doors and windows should have been bulging under the strain but it is all hidden away somewhere?  I'm going to try and get hold of a stray cat next time I'm visiting Nan and give it a swing......... The units are pretty smart  with a double bedroom, large lounge dining area, kitchen, laundry, garden etc. I'm putting my name down for one!

On a slightly different subject, I took my old laptop with me for some entertainment at night and have once again become a slave to civ 4, so much so I'm now compelled to go and purchase civ 5.  This franchise has been a real time stealer for me right from the get go, I don't doubt that I will be playing civ 20 when I move into a retirement village!


regards
dave

War of Spanish Succession- Marshalls of France II update

With the coat and saddlery completed I worked on cleaning the slops by going back over with white primer, not something I usually do but I'm finding myself becoming a little fussier and it does make life easier down the track.

 

 

I decided to to undercoat the gold portions of the figure with a buff tone, to see how that works, making sure it went into the depressions and no white was left behind.

First touches with the gold paint and a small amount of washing, immediately it was clear the base coat should have been a little darker although the idea of using a base coat for the gold was the right thing to do.

Glints have been picked out in a mix of pearl white and polished gold and picked out to add very small points of light (loop of cuff lace, button. button lace on coat).  They certainly make taking photo's a glarey business!

Couple more to wrap up, hair has moved along and some more mid tone has been added to the gold

Thanks for looking

Dave

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

NMM paint selection- gold

A short post to answer a few questions regarding paints and Steve's query on dark bay 'orses.

 

These are the colours used for the gold lace and the metal horse furniture, Reaper is a new brand for me and the first time I have used them. I wont go into the process too much you can get a general idea from the photos, Chestnut gold was the base colour with the rest following in the progression as shown, the golden yellow was toned down just a little with the lemon yellow. All the paints were mixed down with water at about 1:1 each was applied sparingly with multiple brush strokes. The orange brown was mixed to a glaze and use to add tone so about 4 parts water to 1 part paint. I'm quite sure I have equivalents in my other paints, a mix of GW/Citadel and Vallejo, although the palomino gold is one of those must have colours no matter what brand you use, very versatile.

click to see the brass bit, stirrup and spurs

 For the brass fittings I just made up a quick combination of a base of chestnut gold with palomino gold mid tone and lemon yellow high lights, it will do until I can find something better.
I should also add that I used a wet pallet while painting this which allows easy blending of paint so the colour used may be tinted with another


The black/brown horsie is pretty quick to achieve Steve the wargamer, first I should say that the undercoat is grey car primer, I don't know if has much affect on the finished colour but just in case it does.

OK two washes of dark brown to start, in this case I used Reaper blackened brown (if you look at the saddle area you can see the finished colour for this section of the guide), now any shading you would like to give to the horse give another two washes with the blackened brown, an example would be under the belly inside the legs etc, Front Rank horses have remarkably little muscle detail so you wont spend long on this phase picking out the muscle shading, a bit on the rear flank and the legs.

OK choose your brown, for this horse I used chestnut, and ever so lightly pick out the muscle definition *snort* and high lights with a dry brushing, it is important you don't go too heavy on the dry brushing just get that tint of brown. When your finished with the dry brushing coat the horse with a light wash of black and then repeat the process, drybrush again at the very highest points and wash again and that is it. If you want the horse darker then finish with two light washes of black. Always make sure the wash is properly dry before you start the next step, a hair dryer fixes that. This horse took all of 5 minutes and I'm a notoriously slow painter. I hope that made sense guys a