British Marines: Part 6....

To All,

The British Marines are coming along nicely. At this point it is time to touch up the blocking that has been done so far and paint the straps:

Using Lamp (Ebony) Black I touched up the hat and the shoes/stockings. I painted the ammunition box and its strap black. The coat was touched up with Santa Red.

Before:

After:

Antique White was used to fix the pants, cuffs, coat flaps, and lapels. The trim on the top of the hat is also done with Antique White:

Here is the unit up to this point:

More to come....

British Marines: Painting 28mm eyes....

To All,

I have been asked to give a brief "tutorial" on how I get such a good result with the eyes on my figures.The technique I use was taught to me by my good friend who is both my painting mentor and one of the best painters of historical miniatures I know - John Spiess.

Step one: I paint the eye area black because it gives the greatest contrast and makes the eyes pop. If you want colored eyes - brown, blue, green - paint the area the color you are looking for instead of black.

Step Two: Using a small brush I put a small amount of Titanium White and put a dot on the outer and inner edges of the left eye:

Step Three: I rinse the brush and repeat step two for the right eye.

And this is the result.

British Marines: Part 4....

To All,

Progress so far....

The face, beard, gunstock, and hands hit with Dark Chocolate:

The barrel of the guns Boltgun Metal:

The beards are highlighted with Honey Brown, White, and Primary Yellow. I blend the three on the pallette:

Lastly I hit the buttons, trigger, and hammer with Dwarf Bronze:

My plan tonight is to put in a solid night of painting and to get these 40 as close to finished as possible.  More to come....

British Marines: Part 3....

To All,

I only had an hour or so last night to paint so I did get two steps done:

The shoes, lower legs, and hats with Lamp (Ebony) Black.

The coats were hit with Santa Red:

I took my time with these steps - my goal is to as little touch-up as possible. More to come....

The Sloop: Conclusion....

To All,

herzogbrian has finished up the sloop. Let's check it out....

These should be the last pics for the sloop of war. I changed my mind and rigged her as a Hermaphrodite Brig or Brigantine...all-on-all a good rig for a Pirate vessel. A cross between a true square rig and a lateen rig.

Spray painted the sails sand color and once dry trimmed all the loose threads. Stained the masts and spares Walnut:

Glued the booms for the lateen main sail in place. Then attached the sails to the yards with wood glue and held them in place with binder chips until they dried a bit:

Short of whimping out and painting the stern gallery in gold leaf..I added a little color. After the boat was sealed, hand brushed in clear gloss to pick the windows out a little better:

Here she is all put together and ready to sail. Now all Jim needs to is break a mini bar bottle of champaign across her bow and name her.

Had fun tricking out the sloop. While I was at it, had a chance to paint a terrain piece that I have been wanting to do for some time. Here are some pics of her. Just need to add seaweed to complete it. I will send it up with the sloop so that you can use it as a terrain piece:

Thank you herzogbrian! The only question is - what name to christen the ship?

If you want to check out Viscount Eric's progress on his ships go to http://gamingwiththegnomies.blogspot.com/

British Marines: Part 2....

To All,
The British are coming.....along:

In a previous post it was mentioned that I primed some of the marines with Army Painter Skeleton Bone in an attempt to save myself some time. I had never used this technique before but figured I would give it a try. In the next few days I'm will post the step-by-step on the painting but I wanted to show the results with my "prototype."

Here is the prototype next to a primed figure:

In addition to painting the prototype redcoat I based all the skeleton bone figures....

....and did the flesh on the blue coats.

More to come....

Half-hour Boat: Conclusion....

To All,

Here is the "tidy-up" of the Old Glory boat:

I have to admit I couldn't stand the look of the "just primer" boat, so I did some dry brushing to give it a weathered look. I also did some small details on the doors, smokestack, and the ladder:

I didn't want to glue the upper deck and wheelhouse onto the lower cabin - I wanted it to be playable - so four short lengths of dowel were glued at the corners to hold it in. The sides and back of the lower cabin were not thick enough to use rare earth magnets:

Rare Earth magnets were used on the roof of the wheelhouse:

The result is pretty good. More to come.....

British Marines: Finally some figures......

To All,

Lon From Brigade Games sent me 40 British Marines to paint up. Last night I had some time to prep, prime, base, and get some painting done. This is the part of the hobby that I truly enjoy - listening to some music and painting.

First the prep - I removed the flashing from the figures and flattened out their bases. I have a heavy XACTO  knife and Red Handled clippers from Army Painter. The "Red Handles" are designed to clip metal and do a terrific job on the Marines:

Then to the priming board. These 26 were primed using Army Painter Skeleton Bone. I'm hoping this light undercoat will help with blocking and shading. We will find out together in the next couple of days how this works out:

Although the camera wasn't charged when I primed and painted these 14 figures I wanted to give you a look. They were primed with Krylon Ruddy Brown Primer. The coats are DecoArt True Blue. I did three different color beards for this unit - grey, red, and blond - plus I did the eyes. All of these steps will be shown/discussed over the next week.

More to come....

The Sloop: Part 3....

To All,

herzogbrian continues his work on the sloop. I'm enjoying watching the progress:

Base coated bulkheads - Maroon, upper works - Midnight blue, lower works - Black, deck - Driftwood Brown:

Brought the blue up with Regal Blue, the bulkheads with Blood Red, and added Yellow strip. The hit the decking with a brown cream:

While everything was drying, cut out the sails and made some longer top masts and cut yards:

I'll post more as it comes in....