Painting guide No 1 - British infantry

Painting 10mm Napoleonic British

I should stress that this is a guide to the way I paint up British, it is not in any way supposed to be definitive guide to the correct colours or shades. It's the way I paint MY figures. I llike the way they look and they look like British to me.
In my personal opinion 10mm figures are best painted in bulk. Although we have nicely proportioned and detailed figures, these are not 28mm competition entries, they are bulk figures designed to be presented in force. So we're looking for a servicable paint job that conveys a quality impression en-masse.

I stick my figures on a stick - I have cut some bits of strip wood to about a foot in length. I can get around 30 figures on a stick - I find 30 figures is about an hours painting.

I undercoat black - unless it's Austrians.

So here's the figures stuck to a stick and all black. I tend to spray paint undercoat - traditional Halfords matt black.

The main technique I use is to do the same brush stroke all the way down the line on every figure. Then do the next stroke, moving through the colours. In my opinion this is what makes painting fast and efficient. Even stopping to do a dab here and there, other than the one I'm supposed to be doing, slows me down.
I do minimal highlights only where they are most visible; to add some depth to the figures.

Painting

His upper left leg gets done first with light grey. Just a mix of black and white, I do it from scratch everytime to get a bit of variation.

Then the right

Then the lower left.

Then round the back - I do left and right again.

Round the front and in between the legs.

Highlight his left knee

Highlight the bottoms of the rear trouser legs - I do this with one brush stroke down the whole line.

Now some red - first splat is his left rib area, between the cross belts. I use either Valejo flat red or Valejo scarlet, I like the scarlet better as it's brighter, but the flat red is probably a more accurate colour - so mix 'em about a bit!

Then his left arm from the front.

Then his right arm from the rear

Staying around the back - it's the coat tails.

Then his left arm

A tiny dot in the jacket lower front centre area.

Then I run the brush behind the head to catch the upper shoulder areas and rear collar.

The front collar areas and jacket top.

Top cross belt. The white straps get done in the base coat - Valejo Iraqi sand, beige would do. This gives a strong colour for white to be applied over. If there's any left uncovered after the white it gives a bit of depth. If you're doing a regiment with buff colour facings, like I am here, then this a good colour for them too...later though.

Lower cross belt catching front edge of bread bag.

Tiny vertical back pack strap on his left.

Round the bag for the bread bag again.

Back to the front for the shoulder wings on the flankers. I've also done the right hand cuff here - in a buff colour.

Left hand cuff gets done at the rear first.

Mid grey gets added to the rolled greatcoat on top of the back pack. I take four strokes to do this - the main one on the top, both ands and a dab from the front on the bit you can see over his left shoulder.

Now some beige brown on the gun - the area under the arm first. See that back pack peeking over the guys left shoulder...

Now the upper section of the musket. For the top section i drag the brush sideways up the musket.

Brown off the musket from the rear. You can see here that I've missed the flanker wings form the rear - I'll catch that with the white a bit later.

The hair is painted in here, I use beige brown again - mix in some black here and there to vary hair colour if you like.

I've added the white paint over the sand here - not shown all the photos as you've already seen it for the sand. Suffice to say this takes at least three different strokes all the way down the line. You can see some splats here on the upper arms that I will paint over later in the final tidy up. I use a dark burgundy to touch up where the white has bled across. When you paint white, take a look around the figure to see where you misssed bits - like those flanker wings from the rear...

Round the back and we do four little strokes to add the pack and coat strapping in white. I've also added sand to the shako plumes here.

Bayonets get added in a straight steel colour. I also highlighted the rifle butt here..

Bit of flesh added to the left hand here. Valejo basic flesh tone.

Flesh tone added to the faces - this takes me two brush strokes to do.

Then left hand is daubed with basic flesh.

Here the water bottles are painted Valejo grey-blue and the cords on the shako are added in white.

Boots are touched up black, water bottles are highlighted with grey-blue mixed with a bit of white, brass shako plates are added and the plumes get painted up - here's the colours:
Line - White over red.
Lights - green
Grenadiers - white
Line have no shoulder wings, flank companies DO have shoulder wings. You can see I have a mixed bag on my stick - I get all the mixed up chaff rather than the nice packs I send out to paying customers!
Flank companies can be painted as grenadiers of lights - just the plume changes colour. Don't forget that if you are basing in companies that flank companies don't carry colours.

The paints used, the finished figures and the watch - one hour and five minutes. I'm normally comfortably under the hour for thirty figures without having to stop and take pictures.
I finish off the figures with a daub of GW Ogryn skin wash on the faces only - I do let it hit the collar area too though, to create a bit of shadow.
Finally a coat of Testors dullcote and they are ready for basing.

Bigger pic of the paints used - not many...

That's the Brits - Next up those furious Frenchies!
Cheers
SI