Wied Infantry In-Progress. . .

 

The first third, more or less, of Austria's Wied Infantry.  Still a way to go, but they don't look half bad at this point.

 

Since mid-June, I have been picking away at the first company of the Wied Infantry (as and when time has permitted), viewed numerous videos on Your Tube in which various wargamers around the world explain how they tackle nominally 'white' (Napoleonic) Austrian infantry, and mused about the flags I might eventually give them once all 60 or so have been painted and glossed.

I opted for a light gray undercoat followed by numerous (I have not kept track) washes of cheap white craft paint applied with a few different small brushes -- my trusty old sable 000 to a #2 synthetic round -- that have reasonably good points.  

Craft paint, because I wanted less pigment that is easier to thin way down than high pigment hobby-specific whites.  My brushes are also kept very damp.  The combination of the two makes blending somewhat easier as I build up the coats from light gray to eventual white. 

 I have finished by applying almost pure white to the front of the shoulders, uppermost backs, left forearms, and left thighs of the figures as well as the uppermost parts of the shoulder belts and edges of the waistcoats, reasoning that these areas would appear brighter due to light more likely hitting them than more recessed or lower down parts of the anatomy.

Results so far have been reasonably good.  And where I have made mistakes, it has been easy enough later to trim the light gray back into recessed areas on the odd figure or three  using my sable 000, to hide errant blotches of thinned white paint.

The green facings have been colored with Citadel's Dark Angel Green, which I might just leave alone since I tend to overdo it when highlighting darker colors.  The trick , I recall reading somewhere, possibly in one or another book on painting larger military miniatures by Sheppard Paine or Bill Horan, is to keep highlights for dark colors very sparing and subtle.  

So, possibly a dot or dash of slightly lightened Dark Angels Green on the cuff and visible lapel edges.  But no more than that.  

Lightening the dark green with a lighter tan might help more here rather than using pure white.  It might be prudent, in addition, to try the mix on a single figure before proceeding with the rest of the first 20 figures.  Decisions, decisions!

-- Stokes