WIP: Painting Helga #2

And she's done, apart from matt spray then brush-on satin varnish on the armour and other bits which should be slightly shiny.

I think she's come out really well. She certainly looks as though she's seen some hard campaigning, all the while maintaining her lovely pale complexion *lol*

These pics were taken before I gave her a coat of neat Klear, then a black wash over the non-flesh/hair areas and brown wash over the flesh and hair.

Sean's comment on my last post got me thinking. A few months back I was planning a SciFi merc unit "Barbera's Bunnies" and this figure would be great for Colonel Barbera. I must have been subconsciously thinking of that when I was doing the colour scheme for her as it's pretty close to the uniform colours for the Bunnies. It's just missing a bit of pink *grin*

Andy's Prize Painting - ECW Cuirassiers

I've also done a bit of work on these this evening - saddle cloths, horse shading washes and markings. I should be able to finish these quite quickly now that Helga is finished.

WIP: Painting Helga #1

Well, at a loose end after making a start on Andy's cuirassiers (armour and pistol barrels dry-brushed with Gunmetal Grey; base-coats on horses) I decided to make a start on painting Helga. I've put down a couple of first layers - face and hands, hair, jump smock, trousers, puttees, boots and armour. I think the colour combination works OK - what do you think? Do bear in mind that these are the base colours - they will get lighter with the next layer and the highlights.

I still need to work out what colours to do the equipment and the cuffs and collar of the smock.

New To The Painting Queue

Well, with the ECW Dragoons for Andy waiting for their matt varnish spray, I needed to get some more figures prepped for painting. Last night I cleaned up the flash etc on Andy's ECW cuirassiers, the Dux's WW2 Paras and Helga.

This evening I have done some more work on them.

Andy's ECW Cuirassiers

Nice and simple - glue onto painting sticks; prime with grey gesso. I won't be able to start painting these until Sunday as the gesso needs to cure.

The Dux's WW2 Paras

Glued onto 20mm washers to facilitate painting; primed with Vallejo white polyurethane primer; washed with diluted mix of my brown and black ink washes (8 drops brown, 2 drops black, 20 drops water) to provide some pre-shading and definition of detail.

Unfortunately, as you can see from the photos above, I managed to miss some mold lines on a couple of the figures, so I'll have to strip them, clean the mold lines and re-prime them. Also, it is clear that the Bren gunner's face was somewhat miscast - however, the way it came out I can probably get away with painting below the eyes as a scarf pulled up as a "mask".

I'm going to be trying a new (for me) technique to paint these, basing it on this guide on the Peabody Here! blog.


Helga

This deliciously malicious young lady has been glued to a 32mm washer which was then covered with coarse acrylic texture gel. Once the gel had dried, the whole lot was primed and washed as per the paras.

Doesn't she look fab? Well, she'll (hopefully!) look even more fab when I've finished painting her. I've got a colour scheme in mind now for the base colours:
Armour - Hull Red (possibly with a bit of metallic medium or Bronze paint mixed in)
Jump Smock - Dark Prussian Blue
Trousers - Royal Purple
Hair - well, as she'll be "me", she has to be a natural redhead (I am *NOT* looking forward to painting the freckles though!)

The base colours should provide a good contrast to each other, whilst also complementing each other at the same time