At the end of Day #9, 9:36pm, the basic blues and most of the brown areas are done (musket stocks, pole arms, drum shells, dark green and yellow mitre bags, etc.). Whew!
As I mentioned in my previous post, yesterday -- If it's Tuesday, this must be blues and browns. -- was largely free save for vacuuming the entire house this morning (the wonders wrought by a new package of Miele C1 bags) and the usual summertime activities with The Young Master, who allowed ol' Dad considerable time in the painting chair today. Several sessions throughout Tuesday -- half a dozen?-- bring us to the updated photograph above.
I'm painting more carefully now in order NOT to foul up any previous brushwork. And as with previous units, painting is always an interesting lesson in which you revisit, recall, and dredge up sometimes long unused skills and unthought of advice picked up here and there over many years and filed away somewhere between my ears.
It's very similar to putting your keys somewhere safe so you can find them later. Only you hide them so well that you cannot find the blasted things the next morning. We've all been there I'm sure, and age has nothing to do with the problem. Although it certainly doesn't help either.
For instance, in applying the brown and black undercoats to the metal plates on the mitre caps, which will later be dry-brushed brass and silver, I was having a devil of a time keeping the brown/black paint off the already painted foreheads of the various figures comprising this unit. Eventually, after the first half a dozen or so figures, and a few minor, misplaced splotches, it occurred to me to pull out a new #3 round with a good point. As The Young Master is too fond of saying right now, "Duuuuuh!"
Lo and behold, the job of putting/keeping my paint exactly where I wanted it without any inadvertent slops suddenly became much easier! What was that about using brushes with good points that Stu Asquith mentioned almost 40 years ago in one of those Military Modelling booklets on wargaming that were included with the magazine 'round about 1980-81? Yes. I know. About as sharp as a mashed potato sandwich here. Feel perfectly free to laugh, mock, and deride a your leisure.
The long and short of this humorous (?) and humbling experience was that I retired four or five brushes with worn out points as I cleaned up a few minutes ago. They have been relegated to the base coating/dry-brushing jar at the back of my painting desk. High time I'd say given the pleasing results of using that new #3.
Tomorrow, I'll go over everything carefully and apply any necessary touch-ups before continuing with the basic browns. Afterwards, it will be time to address any white shoulder belts, first with an undercoat of gray, followed by a white highlight wash. I typically use a damp-brush for this with facilitates a nice blending without the belts looking Tom Cruise-Hollywood Smile White.
The more artistic way to look at it, I think, would be toning the white down a slight bit, and heavy washes work nicely here, blending somewhat with the color beneath, in this case a light gray. Of course, it would also be a good idea to do something about facings and turnbacks at this point, so that the basic uniform colors are at least blocked in.
-- Stokes
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