Painting guide No 2 - French line

La Francais - mais oui!

The second of my painting guides, this time for the French.
The very first thing I do is sand off the bases to get a nice flat bottom. I like to put 12 French on a base to get a more crowded feel. Of course they only come in packs of 30, so I have to grab some spares out of another bag.
Here they are getting their bottoms sanded and any large lumps of flash cleaned up. I am happy to say my castings are reasonably flash free and I only needed to perform a few judicious scrapes here and there.

Now I stick them to a nice long stick.

And then I undercoat the whole lot black, taking care not to get too much on my thumbs.

First these guys gets a left leg covered in my favourite white colour base coat - Valejo Iraqui sand.

Then the right leg.

Now down in between the legs from the front.

Run a fat brush along the whole line of figures and get both leg backs.

Top of the chest with the Iraqi sand.

Now the bottom.

Some real white on the left leg top.

The right leg.

White highlights to the rear trouser legs.

White to the triangular area under the cross belt. White on the cross belt. I'm not normally a fan of 'neat' painting, but if you do want to do this bit right, then take a few ticks extra as it does look a lot better if you leave a tiny bit of sand in between the strap and waistcoat.

Here's the blue! I use Dark Prussian blue with a bit of blue grey in it, I expect there's a great and more authentic French blue colour out there, but both these colours are to hand and look pretty good. Left arm is done here, from the front.
Notice I've added some variety to the trouser colours here, over the top of the original sand/white colour.

Left arm gets done with the blue.

Right arm gets done.

Left arm from the back.

Right arm from the back.

Here I've added a couple of highlights to the shoulder areas by mixing in some more blue grey to the original colour.

Round the back and the packs are painted in Valejo beige brown.

Grey for the rolled greatcoat - I do them all grey. You can add some variety if you like, as greatcoats were various colours.

Hard to see here, but I've added some grey to that tiny bit of greatcoat you can see from the front over his left shoulder.
And also the musket butts are done here, in the infamous valejo beige brown - the paint's still wet on my palette!
Beige brown is one of my Valejo favourites, it's such a browny, brown, isn't it?

More BB on the gun, from the front.

And round the back....

Now a bit of GW Devlan mud ink wash (Trademark GW - all right reserved and no slight intended. IP rights to the words 'Devlan' 'mud' and 'ink' are wholly owned by the mighty GW plc). The wash brings out the detail in the back packs a bit. You can add some cow hide patterns if you get really bored.

Back round the front and it's a daub of Valejo flesh on the right hand that grips the musket.

Now slap them in the face with more basic flesh - flick, flack - I normally use two coats because I water my paint down and I'm too lazy to shake the bottle properly.

Left hander gets a daub here from the frontal attack region.

Flip them fellas round and...touch up that cartridge box - you can add the insignia on if you like...

Faces get a wash of the Devlish mud to add some depth.

Now the body area gets a wash of the slightly lighter Ogryn flesh ink wash - I like these GW inks you know. Shake 'em well and they work nice.

Flip around to the back while that ink dries off. Now start the strapping on the packs. I tend to get the brush pretty flat when I do these tiny straps and dap the brush on the raised detail rather than try to paint along it. I do three stages - here's number 1; the two mid straps that secure the backpack flap.

Then the central long strap and then last of all the two straps across the greatcoat.

Switch back to the front and hopefully the ink is dry - if not, then put your stick down and have a snifter of port, a bottle of Desperados or possibly a flamin' Sambuca. If you're quite sure the ink is dry then flick a tiny dab of purest brilliant white (trademark Dulux plc) on the cross belt to make it stand out a bit.

SHAKO PLATE! In some sort of goldy, brassy colour

Bayonets from the front.

Only thing left to do now is the pom-pom and the cuffs. I've mistakenly used chasseurs here, instead of line troops, but I'm not letting that bother me, so I'll add red cuffs. Chassuers should have a blue waistcoat really - maybe I'll do those next....