Here comes the 88th........

The first boxes of Perry British arrived on Friday, got home at 3.30pm, made up 6 figures, undercoated, started painting 4.30pm.

Blocked out colours and some initial highlights by 6.00pm, applied Army Painter and left overnight. 1 1/2 hours spent on highlights ( yes I still do highlights ) and bobs your uncle. I would say 85% of the results for 50% of the time, that is compared to the figures in my earlier posts. So including basing, I think that's 3 battalions a month !

Some people don't like the brownish look, I used strong tone, but I think it gives the figures that used on campaign look.

So these 3 pictured are the first contingent of the 88th, I will finish them off then do the 45th ( basically the battalions I have Victrix flags for ).....

Now off to play golf while the Army Painter on the 2nd batch dries......

Will i get all 24 figures painted by Thursday ?

Experiments with Army Painter

I thought I would try a couple of figures with 2 improved painting techniques. Usually I have painted 28mm figures using the Dalimore technique with some success, but it takes me a long time. It takes me around 3 weeks per 24 figure battalion. I want to speed it up a little.

So I thought I would compare 2 different techniques, 1 using base coat + Washes + highlight, and the other base coat Army Painter Quick Shade strong tone + highlight.

Left - is a figure done with, base coats then washes, Pale Grey on the pants, brown on the jacket etc... Saves around 20% on the 3 layer technique...

Right - Base coats then Army Painter followed by some highlights. Saving around 40% on 3 layer painting.

I kind of like the Army Painter technique, looks quite natural. It took a few abortive efforts to get right but it needs to be brushed on and excess brushed off. I may put a couple of deeper shades in the folds in the jacket but the compromise I think is worth it.....

Incidentally the figures are offensive miniatures.

The British Army so far...

So far I have 3 British Battalion representing a brigade in the 3rd Division 1811. All Victrix apart from Picton himself who is from Front Rank. Victrix figures give a very good on mass feel.

Each battalion is 24 figures ( or 23 if they have a mounted officer ) on 4 bases of 3x2 measuring 50mm frontage x 40 mm depth. I tried giving each figure 20x20 but it looked too spaced out. I then tried 45mm x 40mm but some figures struggled for space so this seemed to be the perfect compromise.

They are all painted using Foundry paints. The flags are from flags for the lads.