Progress, some repainting, more paints and bases

Wow.  That's some subject.  Let me break it down.

I apologize in advance for no pictures.  I can't get them from the camera to the computer right now.

I have 4 sticks of fusiliers in good progress.  1 stick = 8 minis.  The coats are painted as are the cuffs and collars.  I just put the coat of linen white over the rest of the uniform.  I was told the poms were all red so I painted all those at the same time since I had red on the palette.  I can move forward without the new paints since the Reaper Master Series will work for the accessories.

I had to paint over the poms.because it turns out they're not all red. They're divided into companies - purple, orange, blue and green (I think - my notes are in the car).  So I painted over all the red poms with the linen white so the colors would show up correctly.  Not a lot of work, just one more thing.  I had the time to spare.  And I think I'll hit the rest of the poms with linen white as well to make a nice base for the other colors.

I ordered the black and white versions of the paints I've been using.  I want the coverage.  Those should be in by the end of the week.  I have line commanders I should be able to start painting while I wait.  I can also work on rifles and a few other things while waiting on the paint.  I knew I should have ordered them from the beginning.

My complete set of bases for my entire army has arrived.  I had some of the infantry/cavalry bases already but now I have everything I need for my army.  This is important because I can mark the bases and play with stands even if they don't have their minis yet.  This lets me play and learn the rules much better.  I took the time to put the steel on the bases so I can put them on sheet magnet in the carry case and they won't move around.  That extra little bit of height is nice too.  I only did the limber bases since there were 10 of them and I'm tired.

I found that one of my minis is actually 2 different kinds of soldier with just a couple of color differences.  I have enough to put them in the battalions.  Now it's just a matter of remember to paint them correctly.  I'll make a note of that.

I'm going to make a spirited attempt to paint a battalion of Hussar for the theme entry competition, mostly because it seems hardly anyone is entering and I'd like to see at least a few in there. I hate competing but this is for a good cause.  That's 12 horses and riders.

My friend Kris was nice enough to drill out the eagle bearers' hands so I could replace the noodle standards with something more solid.  The eagles at the ends were no problem.  He had a problem with the minis themselves and I'll be resculpting a few hands.  Nothing major.  This lets me make them removable as well so I can mix up the eagle bearers and standard bearers depending on my mood.

Finally I'm ordering the last of what I need to complete my army.  I needed 3 more battalions of Dragoons and some guns to complete the limbers.  Turns out they give you the limber but only the guns needed for the individual artillery units.  So to make a complete limber you either need to move the gun over (or move a stand behind) or buy more guns.  We're buying more guns.

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Paints are here, excuses are out the window

My paints for the uniforms are here so now I have no real excuse not to buckle down and get cranking on them.  I'm not even trying to make excuses.

In the meantime I've been working on the command horses even if I can't work on the command figures. I actually think they're done except for a bit of silver on the bridles if I want to get fancy.  I just finished the touchups tonight.

My friend is ever so kindly doing the work so I can replace the noodly eagle bearer standards with something more sturdy and even make them removable so I can use eagles, standards or both.  Depending on my mood.

No bases yet, which is annoying but not a problem.  I don't have anything ready to base yet and if I did I had some here already.

Sunday I start on uniforms so I should have some pictures of them at least partially painted to show progress.  I'm hoping that the painting goes relatively quickly.  Even the futzy stuff doesn't seem as difficult as in the beginning.  I've been asking the experienced painters for advice on that kind of thing.

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Infantry skin and hair done

I got the hair and skin painted on all of the infantry!  I decided to try for some variety in the ranks by using 3 different hair colors and 4 different skin colors.  It wasn't that much more work to do that since after a few sticks I had to refresh the paint anyway.

I used the new Reaper washes to, well, wash the skin and hair.  The flesh wash was too red and the brown wash was too cold.  But a 2:1 mix of flesh to brown seemed to work quite well on everything.  One of the painters thought the Reaper washes were too thin but they seemed to work very well for putting in the shadows without me having to go back and hit the highlights.  Which is great.

Infantry Samples 01

They're not the best pictures, as shown by the yellow tint, but they kind of show the colors.  After the wash all the skin tones seem to even out about the same as does the two shades of brown.  What I feel looks best is the brightest pink skin tone and the blond hair.  The wash tones them down to some nice colors.  I was worried that the blond wouldn't work well and now I find it's the one I like best.  Second would be the more red brown hair but the skin is all going to be that bright pink.  There just wasn't enough variety to justify working with more colors.

I won't bother to take pictures of the painted rank and file since they look just like the primed ones with brown blotches where the hair and skin are unless I take close up shots.

I'm waiting on the paints for the uniforms.  My local store can't get them from their distributor so I'll be ordering directly from Reaper so I can try to get them painted.  I'm going for the bright colors to really be seen on the table so that means a single layer of paint and no washes on 99% of the uniform.  That makes for much quicker painting.  And the conquest French uniforms are the same regardless of regiment so no worries about changing up colors.

Until those paints come in I'm going to work on the commanders' horses.  I have the paints for those.  These horses can be different colors unlike in the cavalry units where they tried for similar colors in the battalions.  I can experiment with how to paint them quickly and well.

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