1/24 Officer of the Guide – Egypt 1798
Here's my latest figure, a 75mm Napoleonic from Pegaso Models painted in acrylics. The timing worked out great as he's all decked out in Christmas colors! I've been working on a lot of 1/35 (54mm) figures recently and wanted to move up to a slightly larger project. I paint a variety of historical subjects, but Napoleonics are some of my favorite because of the detailed uniforms and great colors. This figure represents on of the Officers of the Guide who accompanied Napoleon in Egypt. It took me about a month to finish this project, which is fairly quick given the scale.
The figure was painted using primarily Reaper Master Series acrylics, though I also used Scale75 for the metals and some of the GW glazes on the face. The green coat was done by mixing a deep purple (Burgundy Wine) with a dark green to create some rich dark shadows. Highlights were done by mixing in a medium grey which desaturated the highlights and helped retain the overall dark green look. The pants were Violet Red, with Burgundy Wine used for the shadows, then Fire Red with a bit of skin tone for the highlights. I took my usual approach for doing faces (which I described step by step here http://imodeler.com/groups/general-modeling/forum/topic/figure-painting-and-faces/ ) but with the slightly larger scale I could include a bit more detail. I also did a light application of pigments, just some dusting on his boots and knees. As an officer I expect he'd stay pretty clean, but you're still going to pick up some dirt out in the field.
In addition to the finished images I included two close up shots so you can get a better idea of the detailing on the figure. I also attached a collage showing the figure at various stages.
Another fine figure, David. Great attention to detail and the veils of colour over the bases provide subtle variations and a rich depth. By the way, I've also tried the Scale75 range and they seem ok with both glazes and base coats, but have to say they're a little expensive compared to Andrea or Vallejo.
Thanks! The regular Scale75 acrylics are nice, but nothing special in my opinion. But I think their metallics are some of the best water based metallic paints I've seen. A close second would be the Vallejo Model Air metals. They've got really fine pigments and flow smoothly off the brush (mostly because they're designed for use with an airbrush). But most regular acrylic metals are too thick and the pigments separate when you try to thin them. Of course if you don't mind using paints with an enamel or alcohol base, then there are a lot of other great options.
PS was just reading your article in issue 20 download of FPM. Very interesting take on wet palette techniques.
Magnificent! You need special talents to paint a figure so that it looks alive! Needless to say David, you have mastered that side of figure painting!
I agree...I'll never be able to paint figures as well. 🙁
Always look forward to see a new post from you David. I can tell from reading about your methods that a person needs to know how colors & paints will react with each other to achieve a natural appearing result. You certainly have that ability. I'm afraid if I attempted this the result would look more like a "paint by numbers" picture.
Give us more please.
You figure painters get my vote.
The knowledge of dark and light comes to a front.
Hats off to the skilled figure painters, a model facet that's hard to master(by me anyway). Great job.
Spectacular ! Awesome paint work
Wow! Amazing job! Excellent use of acrylics, I wish i could paint figures as good as this. My son is an excellent figure painter, mainly in acrylics, but he is learning oils now too. My favourite branch of modelling, true artistry in my opinion, and this looks like it is up there! Well done!