Just got back late last night from that marathon training session, and allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in this morning. Work will still occupy a lot of my time over the next few weeks, but this weekend I want to get in some hobby "quality time".
On the workbench is this monstrosity which is just about completed, so that will be my first priority. But in between working on drybrushing stone (which kills brushes like you wouldn't believe), I shall continue to work on my French infantry and on M. le Marquis himself.
Here is a close-up shot of Fusilier Pierre la Pierre, simple soldat of the Regt. de Condé.
Note the absence of "eyes". While I am perfectly capable of painting in the eyes, I usually only do this for my command figures, which tend to be the ones that people pick up to look at. This is partly to speed up painting, but also because I feel that at a distance the figures look better with the eye sockets painted in as dark shadows.
The French justeaucorps was left a natural wool colour, so was an off-white hue rather than the mid-grey that is so common in many illustrations. I was originally going to go with an very pale ivory colour shaded with a dark cream. But it somehow just didn't look right, coming out too yellowish.
So I decided to use a grey basecoat which would provide a strong shading, but highlighted with Ceramcoat's Soft Grey as it is as close to an off-white that one can get. I tend to avoid pure whites and blacks anyway, and my blacks are highlighted with the Ceramcoat Charcoal which gives a "scale black" appearance.
The result is a fair approximation of the actual coat colour, if this near-contemporary Hermand plate is anything to go by;
A fusilier of the Regt. Orleans from 1757.
From the Hermand manuscript.
4 comments:
I too try to avoid pure white . . . it doesn't look right . . . and it reminds me of white primer (and I don't want anyone to think I'd just leave a figure with the priming coat).
-- Jeff
The infantryman looks very nice. Curious, why did you decide to do the hat lace in yellow instead of metallic gold. I have seen french troops done both ways.
This is a case where I tend to distrust the pretty uniform plates of the time. My feeling is that metallic gold lace would have been fairly pricey, even for a Prince Conde.
For the Great Unwashed who made up the rank and file, I would think yellow would have been much more likely. And it's pretty.
I intend to give gold hat lace to the officers and NCO's for variety.
Similarly, regiments with silver buttons and lace will have the men with white hat edging and silver for the Quality.
I use the Ceramcoat metallic paints, which cover pretty well, but I always paint the lace yellow first anyway, as it makes a better base coat for the gold than does black.
I like the Browns leather straps on the Justeaucorps French Line Infantryman, could you tell us what paint you used and if there is a Vallejo, Coat d'Arms, Gw equivalent perhaps.
Keep up the great work!
Drew
Siege Works Studios
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