As I have not painted any historical figures for this period (most people, wrongly obviously, don't count Slaughterloo figures as Historical) I needed to establish the technique. So I decided to undercoat 15 figures, five each in white, grey and black, to see how that changes the method. I am painting British infantry in the test and first group.
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| First five, white undercoat |
These were the first five done, using the white undercoat and finished with Army Painter Soft Tone.
I am not happy with these first five, I think they are washed out and I found them really challenging (hard!) to paint.
And then fortune intervened. I lucked into 120 odd pro-painted French and British for an excellent price. Not only did I have a substantial kernel to build my army around, they were partially based and saboted, just what I wanted to do.
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| The basing and painting production line |
I then spent a couple of days really looking at the deceptively simple pro paint job. I can't match the quality but I thought I could use it's example to improve. They were obviously done with a black primer. So on to the grey and black undercoats. At the same time I decided to finish basing the bought ones, and carry the same basing scheme through to any I painted. At first glance, from a distance, they will hopefully look similar.
The grey undercoat was easier to work with than the white but the black was easiest of all. I also changed to a Strong Tone Quickshade, mainly to try for more definition, particularly with the grey base. Not 100% successful.
I will paint the rest of the British on a black undercoat and sparingly use the Soft Tone (mainly on the trousers) to give a bit of definition.
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| Black base to left, grey to the right. Black is the winner. |
