My first AB French for 15 years....

Well here they are, the first 32 man unit of French line infantry ready for Lasalle. Took me a bit of experimentation before I settled on a painting style I am happy with. They look OK to me and I even managed a little shading.

It takes some getting used to the smaller scale but I think I've got it sussed. Basically, at this scale, colours have to be slightly brighter than I would do in 28mm. To contrast between light and dark I only use 2 colours.

I have always used the foundry paint system but the 3 colours aren't really suitable for 18mm. So I use a base colour and a highlight, but they may be brighter than I would use for 28mm. The blue jackets for instance are French Blue highlight for the base colour and Bavarian Cornflower blue mid colour for the highlight. This formulae seems to work quite well. flesh areas are shade and highlight, with no mid shade.

Took me a while to get there but now I have.

Next I just need to distinguish between Conscript, Veteran and standard infantry units. I'm edging towards the following scheme

Veteran - Different colour trousers, some greatcoats
Standard - different coloured trousers
Conscript - all white trousers

So I suppose I've just painted some conscripts.

Back to the paint table.

Its been a while.....

Well, this is the first post of the year.

I have been busy but not in the way I would have liked. Just after Christmas I bought a guitar, another one of those things to do before you die things.... but most of my time has been spent around the house, we're having some work done and so I have been; boarding the loft, flattening the garden, building a shed and finally emptying the garage into the shed.

This was OK at first, my ABs didn't arrive until mid January. The size was a bit of a shock after a year of 28mm. Anyway back to it......