A variation on "Quickshade" paint jobs

I've occasionally been asked about how I use Army Painter Quickshade and also how I do figure bases. There is no easy answer since, to me, all forms of art can be an adventure in which you might know where you'd like to go but not necessarily how the route will work out to get there.

But recently I acquired a nice batch of  30 Perry designed Foundry Miniatures 20mm World War Two Germans and, as these figures are so good I thought painting them slightly differently to usual could be a good relaxation and diversion from my two-dimensional art. Also I think the German uniform of the early war period was pretty cool even if the motives of the soldiers inside them might have been questionable. Just as a taster here is a photo of the finished result with a squad of Landsers advancing across my back garden on a sunny day.

I prefer low profile bases so the family is now well used to me asking for out of date credit cards, plastic store cards or membership cards and the like and I find them strong and easy to cut but don't interfere with the aesthetic value of the figures as they are so thin. I clean up the figures, not that there was much "flash" on these, and then glue them to the bases I had cut ready. This makes them easy to handle and it was a short step to spray the whole lot in one thorough coat of a basic grey. This acts as undercoat and  basic uniform colour but will be mostly covered. I used "Carplan" Grey primer from a local motor parts store.

Now here is where I used my Army Painter Quickshade, dark tone, not at the end of the process but the beginning. Happily I was near the very end of a tin and, I guess for some technical reason, the Quickshade dried matt instead of the glossy you may be used to. I put it on with an old brush, not the dipping and shaking method the manufacturers recommend. As I hoped, when dry, it picked out all the lovely sculpted detail a treat, and would also act like black undercoat for outlining but without concealing the detail from me while I painted.
Here are some of them at this stage

The actual painting technique would involve a few careful strokes of colour, mostly on the highlight folds and leaving as much of the dark folds as appropriate. This was done on the trousers with Games Workshop (GW) Fortress Grey........

 ..........and on the jackets with GW Knarloc Green.

You may well be thinking that this makes the main clothing seem too light but, never fear, that will be rectified later in the process. For the same reason I did not use black for helmet, boots and gun barrels but GW Charadon Granite which is a very dark grey. Similarly though it was only on main highlight areas.  The next photos also show flesh and brown and black for rifles, straps, bread bags etc.

I did the flesh my usual way which is a coat of GW Elf Flesh washed when dry with a diluted solution of  GW Flesh Wash (now called Ogryn Flesh wash).

Once the figures were entirely painted, including fine detail like collar patches and shield motifs on helmets, it was time to landscape the bases. Where I want a particularly good effect I use Winsor and Newton Acrylic Structure Gel as this can be applied with a brush and fills up the spaces between the metal figure bases. It can also be manipulated and textured to some extent and then dries hard to give ruts and puddles etc. I mixed GW Ivanden Dark Sun  (a kind of yellow ochre) and a small amount of fine sawdust with it so that saves another step. Again it's a bit bright but that can be dealt with.

Now comes the really interesting bit. It was my artistic friend Terry Preen (see his guest page in right side bar) who introduced me to the radical idea that you don't need to buy Army Painter Quickshade at £18 a pot or whatever it costs now, but you can use various wood stain varnishes available at your local DIY store. Although I do like the effect of Army Painter products, especially for Horse and Musket period uniforms, for a good overall "drab" effect ideal for WW2, I found B&Q Antique Pine Satin Quick Dry Varnish. It is water based and dries within an hour leaving brown in the folds and a very slight brown film over the rest of the figure. If you don't want the latter then quickly wipe it off the highlights with a tissue or a  clean brush while it's wet. On these figures the effect was to darken the uniform and create interesting puddles of dark shadow in the texture of the base colour/texture.

This is "muddy" when you put it on but does dry clear with a highly glossy finish that actually makes them feel  satisfyingly protected from whatever the wargame battlefield can throw at them "Take cover! incoming dice!!!"

I next decided that I needed to give the bases a highlight with GW Bleached Bone.

Obviously this is now getting into the territory of personal taste and, for WW2, leaving the bases like this would probably have wider deployment possibilities but I think it looks a bit depressing so prefer to cheer them up with some touches of green. I just use small patches of PVA glue and dip into a pot of Spring or Summer effect imitation grass and then the odd dab of a rubberised fine clumping to look like weeds.

Finally it was time to give them a good coat of Matt Spray varnish as this obviously reduces the glossy shine to a  more realistic look but also ensures the grass effects get a durable bonding on the bases. (Remember to shake the can really, really well to get the matt finish)

If you'd like to see several images of the final effects please see these items for sale on Ebay.

German infantry on Ebay

And if you've found this interesting or instructive please leave your comments. thanks 

Painting results to swoon over - Prussian Artillery

I'm very privileged to have been permitted to put some photos on my Guest pages by my friend from Bristol, Kevin East.  As reported here previously Kevin is slowly building up to the "big game" in 2015, and the latest additions are some absolutely superb 28mm Prussian artillery guns, crews and tranport teams.

Here's a sample but you can see all the serious detail and learn about some of his techniques by clicking on the "Kevin East 3" Page on the right hand side bar of this blog.

...and if you haven't seen them before also look at Kevin East 1 and 2 for more Waterloo era Napoleonics, and Kevin welcomes feedback so please comment on his Page.

Whatever next? Old school Warhammer 40K?

Hope the title grabbed your attention but if you're looking for Warhammer 40, 000  figures on this blog you might be disappointed..if you're an "old school wargaming" enthusiast please try to smile benignly.

Those who have followed my ramblings on art and wargaming will realise that from time to time I get asked to do some art work that brings wargames figures, or historic fantasy/fiction, to something approaching life. This one is probably my strangest commission yet and I call it old school Warhammer 40K because, along with recent blogs discussing "what is old school" (such as this one  - link) it got me thinking. So much of our talk about old school wargaming is because it is something from a lost past that is nostalgic and for me, surprisingly, this painting did just that.
Please take a look at it:

Hikz and da Boyz, Acrylic on canvas 16" x 12"

Games Workshop and Warhammer has been around for what, 25- 30 years now? And being a die-hard historical wargamer I tended to look on it with disdain until my son reached the age of about 6 in the mid 1990s and we were venturing into all sorts of strange things, among which was "Space Hulk" (I think it was called) which eventually led us into the local GW store. It didn't take long to realise that here was branch of the hobby with its own futuristic universe with fully rounded armies, "national characteristics", uniforms and literature (at a price!) to back it all up - and rules that were fun, and, Heaven forbid! included saving throws when your figure was hit! - old school rules indeed.  Space Marines and Eldar "Codexes" became regular bedtime story reading while we planned the next squads or mechanised squadrons, and later produced our own orks for "Gorkamorka". He learned to paint figures to such a good standard I later paid him to paint some of my 18th Century units. It's nostalgic for me as it represents a period of several years when  my son and I actually spoke the same language and enthused about the same things.........until he found Playstation!

So imagine my surprise when, through email correspondence, I found one of my kindred spirit "old school" wargamer clients also had a soft spot for Warhammer 40K, had created his own gang of Ork Boyz with Imperial Guard opposition and had scratch built a superb model armoured train to go with them. He liked them so much he commissioned me to come up with an idea for a portrait of "Hikz" and his two leading henchmen "Spike" and "Shaggratt"  (Yeah I wondered I about that name too!.....well he is a disgusting ork).

So we got to thinking about, if you were an Ork boss in the 41st Century (and not withstanding what will pass for art if the World lasts that long) how would you wish to be portrayed? The answer is obviously - hard, tough, uncompromising, cruel, powerful, commanding etc, so we needed to capture that idea..... And now a bit more nostalgia since the client asked for a ruined city backdrop "like Stalingrad", and of course I first encountered the awefulness of Stalingrad when doing my own "old school wargaming style" research for 1/72 scale wargames back in 1968 (no handy scenario books back then). Then there was that old pile of my son's "White Dwarf"  magazines from 15 years ago which gave inspiration for the garish colour scheme of a 40K World and uncompromising charisma of an Ork Warboss. 

Now "How to paint what doesn't exist?" and I refer you back to James Gurney's wonderful book in an earlier posting imaginative realism. So I got the client to send me some nice quality photos of his ork models and the armoured train, from all angles. I found some grainy, but effective, black and white photos of the real Stalingrad on the internet and married then together in a computer mockup, as I do for most of my figure paintings. The Imperial Guard bodies and destroyed cannon were inspired by the old WD magazines but original poses from my imagination.

And then, with the client's agreement to the basic design and colour scheme I set to with the brushes and acrylic paint to come up with what you see about 20 hours work and 5 days later. Here is the sub-text to set the scene:

Ork leader, and all-conquering hero, Hikz, has masterminded a ferocious assault on this enemy city and now has entered on his armoured command post train to dispatch any remaining opposition. The defenders are mostly dealt with - evidenced by the foreground bodies and wrecked cannon. Those who fight on are being confidently overcome (by, for example, Spike’s blasta and the bomba rockets). Shaggratt is carefully watching his boss’s back.  The city is a raging inferno so destroyed and hot that no one should be in any doubt that is what you get if you mess with Hikz and da Boyz.

Thanks for sticking with this combined nostalgia and advert, and as a reward here is a photo of the client's original armoured train model which is far too good to hide from public gaze.

Reviving 15mm vintage Napoleonics

As part of the normal cycle of a wargamer's life I often found my display cabinets getting full and new units beckoning me to give them shelf space. Decisions have to be made and, pretty though they may be, if an army isn't "earning it's keep" by regular appearances on the tabletop it either has to be boxed or sold .  So it was a couple of years ago when my 28mm Seven Years War and 10mm American War of Independence armies were blossoming I felt the decades-old 15mm Napoleonic armies had to go. Most of them were very old Minifigs which I'd ceased to like anyway, and also home cast from my own masters, but a couple of hundred were original late 1980s Anthony Barton designed Battle Honours miniatures, somewhat larger than the early Minifigs. I always loved these as they were anatomically perfect and had great detail and many were full of character. It was sad to get rid of them, but a friend had the artillery and generals so I still get to play with them occasionally, however, most went to the quick fix of being sold off rather cheaply at a Bring and Buy.

Just to remind me here are some photos, but I find I have very few

French staff officers and a home cast battalion in a Peninsular village I scratch built.

Battle Honours French officers and infantry show off a card cottage by  Brian Collins of Cheltenham
See Brian's website for interesting card models alternate realms.

Casualty figures fresh from their coating of Army Painter Quickshade
but not yet with finished bases. These BH castings are full of character.

Well, these have all gone now but imagine my surprise when, trawling eBay, as one does, while getting rid of my World War Two 20mms, and AK47 15mms I stumbled upon a large collection of original and unpainted AB/BH miniatures being auctioned off in manageable lots. These items went on sale over several weeks during the Christmas and New Year period and I was lucky enough to win quite a few of them, and make the email  acquaintance of the seller who is a one-time professional figure painter and a talented jewelry designer. scwdesigns.co.uk

Now the real point of this blog is that I'm not reviving my 15mm Napoleonic armies as such but I am intending to paint these to a very nice standard, because I think they are worth the effort, and sell them at a small profit. They include a couple of Napoleon figures and dozens of marshals, generals and aides as well as Imperial Guard Grenadiers, Young Guard Mounted Chasseurs, Cuirassiers, Polish Infantry, British Light Dragoons in helmets, as well as bog standard French line infantry in greatcoats. My initial aim is to create useful command groups and individual Generals and ADCs that will be generic enough to fit with most rules. The first of these is Marshal Davout, and here is just one photo:

I hope you will want to see more as there are lots of close ups on the eBay advert, where you can also bid for it, if so inclined. Marshal Davout on eBay

I'm interested in advice from 15mm Napoleonic collectors as to how best to present them for sale. My idea is that infantry will be 4 figures in two ranks, and cavalry two figures side by side, on a 1 inch square base. Please add a comment here or email me. And if you'd like me to notify you personally when I do more for sale please let me know. chrisgregg@blueyonder.co.uk

Francine et Francoise de la Legion Etrangere de la Marine

I promised in my last posting  Hussarettes a new model that I would reveal the latest painting in the Hussarettes series and so here it is, or, here they are.

The client for this one is pretty keen on light blue uniforms and particularly Lauzun's Legion in the French contingent in the American War of Independence (aka Revolution, for American readers!). Originally he wanted a Hussarette of the First Legion Etrangere de la Marine to go with his existing painting, Lucille, who represents Lauzun's (Second) Legion, but when I showed him a selection of photos of my model, Ella, he wanted two, one from each Legion,  and he made up a background scenario in which to set them.

The Hussarettes project, of course, is more Fantasy Art than History and we can take it anywhere we choose, but the historical military theme is compelling for gentlemen like some of my supporters who love the concept of combining gorgeous uniforms with pretty women. And for me also who likes those two elements but with the added challenge of coming up with decorative art in a plausible setting.

So Francine of the First, and Francoise of the Second, are twin daughters of a French Noble family, who have joined a prestigious organisation for foreign adventures. They are from rich families and natural officer material, and sibling rivalry such as it is, have decided to ply their military trade with different, but related, regiments. Besides which,  Francine's favourite colour is yellow, and her twin sister's red!   So my client, wondering how to get them in the same place at the same time, wrote:

"I’m thinking that the two have visited a painter to have a studio portrait painted while taking a break from occupation duties in a town that is unscarred by the ongoing war. They have met up in a tavern while their respective sections are detached from their parent Legions for an escort duty or some such. Perhaps the artist met them in the tavern and suggested the idea?"

Can't imagine where he got the idea of an artist persuading random women to pose :-).....but at least it gave me the basis for the composition. Two wine goblets stand drained on the bar of the tavern.....it's so hot in America that naturally the ladies don't wear full hussar uniform of shirt, waistcoat, dolman, and pelisse, but their own comfortable, yet flamboyant, combinations. Inhibitions lessened by the wine, and naturally confident in their status, they loosen their clothing and are determined to give our artist the benefit of their best assets for his art.

Sadly the photographic medium just can't do justice to Francine and Francoise, and only the owner of their painting, and his guests, will get the full lustre of the oil paint rendering the gold and silver officers' lace. But for you, dear blog follower, here are some close ups which might give a better idea.

Now a bit more information about the painting itself. It is on stretched, gessoed canvas, 20 inches x 16 inches and I used a limited palette of 9 Winsor and Newton Artisan water-based oil colours plus Titanium White, they were:

Paynes Grey (my "secret" ingredient for sympathetic shading)

Cerulean Blue

Cobalt Blue

Burnt Sienna

Raw Umber

Naples yellow Hue (a basis for skin tones and gold lace)

Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue

Cadmium Yellow Deep Hue

Cadmium Red Hue

After the underpainting is done with thin paint I use an awful lot of Artisan Quick Drying medium which is very rich and glossy and allows juicy effects with good detail. The background was done in a sketchy style though with very little medium and is deliberately muted in tone and detail in order not to fight with the gorgeous uniforms. When it's properly dry it will receive several coats of varnish which will unify the surface sheen.

And that question I always get asked - "How long did it take?" The answer is about 6 hours in the planning and computer mock up stages and another 30 hours in the execution, over about 10 days. And because I'm cheap (at the moment!!) it cost my patron less than half the price of one of Phil Olley's 28mm 18th Century infantry battalions.  So it's not just a rich man's obsession to commission your own Hussarette painting. Just email me for a quote without obligation Chris Gregg <chrisgregg@blueyonder.co.uk>

It seems appropriate to give some credit to an artist who has been a great influence on me over  the last couple of years, James Gurney. In particular Gurney's book "Imaginative Realism" gives great insight into how to concoct artificial scenes and characters and then put them in an imaginative situation for a painting. If you think my methods, costumes and use of amateur models seems a bit "cheap", then take a look at this book which is honest and practical and you'll see that even the "greats" do it that way.

Imaginative-Realism

Just a final smile from Ella, and if you've liked this posting please give her some supportive comments and she might model for me again :-) ....but keep it clean, chaps!

Hussarettes: a new model

What with all  the packing, selling on EBay and moving house it's been some time since I've been able to do any oil painting. Additionally, I had a big and  complicated commission to do illustrating a scene from one of Ian Allen's "Chronicles of Umpopoland", and that took me about a month last Autumn. That's now safely framed and up on his wall and you can see a picture of it at my website chris gregg paintings. If you want to know the background to it please comment and Ian or I will reply.  So the Hussarette project took a back seat after my "historical research" before Summer had faded away last year; here's a reminder   can-blackpowder-era-cavalry-really-fire-mounted.

But when I least expected it along came a commission for a Hussarette to be a companion piece for Lucille of Lauzun's Legion. Since these posts have become my most popular over the months I thought the least I could do was to bring you the story of how I found and employed my latest model, whom I will call Ella.

It was on a sunny day last Summer when I was stewarding at an art exhibition. Exhibitors at this show have to volunteer to steward in pairs and the artist colleague on my session was having trouble to commit to the whole 4 hours. So she persuaded her sister, Ella, to do an hour's duty. And what a pleasant and helpful companion she turned out to be. Ella is Ukrainian and just happened to be over in England to stay with her sister. Not only is she pretty but intelligent too, and studying for a post graduate scientific qualification in France.  I always tend to have my camera with me as an artist never knows when inspiration will strike, and I had been collecting photos of likely ladies for handmaidens in the Umpopoland commission mentioned above. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask Ella if I could take some photos of her, and she willingly agreed. She had to go back to France that day but left with the thought that she would be back at Christmas and would like to earn some money modelling for a photo-shoot for paintings.

After the exhibition I had shown her photos to one of my patrons who said, as she was Ukrainian, I should ask her to pose as a female Cossack. This seemed like a good idea and I kept it "up my sleeve". However, not long before Christmas I got the next commission in the shape of a request to do a Hussarette emulating a pose from an existing miniature of a futuristic or steam punk female fighter in tight breeches. When Ella got in touch on her return to England I just knew she'd be great in that guise.

So it was that on a very wet day shortly after Christmas I found myself in a light and airy conservatory in a southern suburb of Gloucester having to spend 3 hours with Ella and her sister while she got made up and dressed, and then undressed, for the camera. It's a hard life, but someone has to do it for the sake of our European cultural heritage :-) 

Her artist sister was a marvellous help, organising all sorts of outfits, jewelry and hairstyles for my various ideas. The commissioned Hussarette was the main item on my agenda since the client would be subsidising her fee. But I had also asked for any "authentic looking" Ukrainian gear, and among the leading items was a superb fur lined jacket just right to do duty as a Hussar's pelisse but without all the lace.  In addition Ella had high boots, which although they had stiletto heels, gave a very sexy edge to the idea of hussar riding boots. Also equipped with my cobbled together belts, sabretache, ammo pouch, and fur colback we applied the French Napoleonic-style weaponry in various combinations.  So, hundreds of photos later I had a great variety of poses to choose from for my commission and many more options for other paintings. Here are some examples:

I had a vision for the tough "Cossack lady" with a floppy fur hat but we did not have one between us, instead what I got was a sexy version of a sweet Ukrainian traditional maiden, with addition of weaponry - like this:

Cossack bandit girl?

I had to try to get Ella to laugh - with a sabre dance.
As I said, it's a hard life directing females!

Not only flowers in her hair but a bunch of them too - very chaste.

And just for variety - one of the bi-products of the Ukrainian culture was evidently the black clad secret police! There were quite a few leather-look coats and boots to choose from in the dress-up box so we made full use of them.

A focus group I tested last year for pin-up subjects suggested posing ladies with classic cars and motor bikes, and so the leather gear seemed perfect. I've got lots of reference material for Harley-Davidsons but just needed the girl, so my Ukrainian beauty posed for them too - but,  like acting for CGI with a blue screen, we had to imagine the motorbike!

Within a week or two I'll show you the finished result of the Hussarette painting, and the best news on that is the client loved Ella so much he wanted two of her in one painting, and in the gorgeous combinations of colours of  the French Legion Etrangere in the American War of Independence. So look out for that soon.

I hope you've enjoyed this taster of one side of my work but carrying it on depends on the support I get. So please comment on this blog, or email me if you have ideas or want to commission me with a painting yourself. Complete discretion guaranteed - chrisgregg@blueyonder.co.uk

An Imagi-Nation Legion

In the previous post I mentioned my big packing up session and that I had painted some new units back in August. Among those receiving their marching orders to the packing boxes in early January was my own version of Lauzun's Legion for the 1760 period. The original idea for them seems to date back quite a long time to the very early days of my "blogging" career - late 2011. Please take a look at this if you need a reminder more-feasting-on-light-blue-uniforms.
In it Jean-Louis suggested I could make Lauzun's 1780 Legion part of my French/Savoy Imagi-Nation army, so that's exactly what I've done. So far it consists of one unit of Grenadiers, one of Hussars and a "galloper" gun.
Here they all are.

The small infantry battalion was made from the remainder of my box of Victrix Austrian Napoleonic Grenadiers.

I'm not sure what kind of flag they would have had but the illustration of the lancer in the Digby Smith book (see Ian's comment on the "light blue uniforms" posting referred to above) has a sabretache with a nice anchor symbol and so I scanned and adapted that with my Serif Photoplus program and added it to a standard French infantry style quartered flag in the classic light blue and yellow. The anchor, of course, was because of the navy association of the Legion Etrangere but when I came to fix it to the flag staff I seem to have forgotten this and thought the curved motif was a scroll and put it upside down!!! The sharp eyed might notice this in the photo but here is the real thing - feel free to copy it for your own personal  use.

The Hussars were mostly converted from a batch of  very old Hinchliffe Napoleonic Russian Hussars I got cheaply from a friend. They had shakos but I applied "Procreate" sculptor's putty to make the fur colbacks and the yellow bags.There are also three figures though that are Foundry Seven Years War hussars.

They have a rather disreputable looking leader in the form of a Foundry mounted officer with an eye patch,
and there is also a guidon, being a smaller version of the infantry flag described above 

 Well if that isn't all dashing enough we come to my favourite piece in this ensemble, entirely fictitious but it seemed to fit - a galloper gun with both mounted and dismounted gunners.

The gun model is a 17th century galloper from Parkfield Miniatures, a nice little piece and Parkfield are very good value for money. To me it still looks the part for a 100 years later, it has a split trail designed to be pulled by a horse. The draught horse and rider are from the Old Glory range of  Seven Years War gun teams with civilian drivers, I've swapped his tricorned head for a mirliton and painted the drab civilian clothing  in the Lauzun colours. A strategically placed curved piece of wire holds the gun in a pragmatic, if not historically correct, embrace round the horses rump for transit. The mounted gunners are rather too energetic looking Foundry Hussars. 

As can be seen in these photos (apologies for the over exposure from flash) for firing the gun just unclips from the wire on the horse and fits into the space in the long base  (which reminds me of a joke ....a horse goes into a bar and says to the landlord ...."why the long base?".......no, I don't think I've got that right!).  Anyway, after the groans....these gunners are all heavily converted from Hinchliffe Napoleonic Russian Horse Artillery crew. Their sturdy helmets have been sawn off and replaced with mirlitons, although in the officer's case I shaved his helmet down to hair and gave him a mirliton to hold.

To finish here is final view of the Legion on its only battlefield to date.

This was in my "Incursion to Grandheim" mini campaign in which the Legion was the advanced guard of a French strategic flanking movement. Under Graham Ward's leadership, and with the help of an infantry brigade and a couple more guns, they successfully wrested a key bridge from the clutches of an Austrian Cuirassier brigade without losing a man.

It has since been suggested to me that to complete my legion I need a small battalion of light infantry. So I'm on the lookout for some compatible "Arquebusier de Grassin" in their fur-lined jackets which I think would look just fine painted in light blue and yellow.

Now the troops are firmly boxed and seeing through their enforced exile in the loft I turn my hand back to Hussarettes. So next time I'll bring you some news of that project and, if you stick around a  couple of weeks, a new painting featuring more tight trousers and gorgeous uniforms.