Napoleonic Austrian Grenadiers

[XbriX]

Enjoy!















Cheers,
Jacob

[Bessiere]

Nice painting on these grenadiers. You even got the swallowtails on the drummer - nice!

[kinjack]

Lovely painting Jacob.

Can I ask how you paint the brass/metal? Did you use two different colours? The way you've highlighted it is very effective, I always find highlighting metals difficult.

[XbriX]

Thanks guys!

Can I ask how you paint the brass/metal?

I tend to not over-complicate my painting. Metal is painted in four stages, as is everything else:

1)Undercoat - In this case a single layer of brown/brown-red paint (I used Vallejo Game Color "Heavy Siena" 72.154)

2)Basecoat - Nothing complex, a single thinned down layer of plain gold paint (Vallejo Model Color "Gold" 70.996). The brown undercoat will still be visible as metalics don't cover all that nicely.

3)Wash - Again, really simple I cover the whole miniature with brown-ish wash (Citadel Shade Agrax Earthshade).

4)Highlights - Not really necessary. I just hit some of the gold parts (Not all of them) with Basecoat color (VMC "Gold")

That's it, nothing special. I consider metalics as any other (matt) color and just roll with it.

Did you use two different colors?

Not on this occasion, Gold is just gold.
But, I noticed (Durring my three year period of painting almost exclusively ancients and medievals) that you can basically achieve every single metal color using only plain Gold and Silver.

Note: Most 28mm fantasy wargammers would say that mixing metalic and matt paint is absolute heresy, as obviously metal is much less shiny after such process. When it comes to 1/72 historical tho I think toned down/muted colors make figures much more believable and authentic. (Just my opinion, depends what painting style you like)

Some examples:

1)Bronze (Hoplite armor): mix "Gold" and flat "Brown" in around 5:1 ratio,
2)Weathered/oxygenated metal (Sword left behind on battlefield): mix "Silver" and dark "Green" ,
3)Gunmetal: (Guns (obviously), chainmail): mix "Silver" and "Black",
4)Polished metal (Expensive noble armor): mix:"Silver" and Dark "Blue",

Hoplite armor painted this way:



Roman armor painted a bit darker:


Dark gunmetal chainmail:


A bit more polished/expensive/royal bronze:


Some phots are a bit on the old side, so not the best quality.
Sorry for a long comment .
If you have any more questions, ask away!
Cheers,
Jacob

[Bessiere]

Thanks for the tips on metallics as I wrestle with them myself. Initially I used pure metal colors before toning them down with some matte color mixed in. The agrax wash is subtle but works nicely. You have worked out good solutions to a tricky question.

[Michael Robert]

Hi Xbrix or Jacob
Techniques you describe are good, or they suit me well. I use simular.
For old bronze I discovered a good shade by mixing gold with turquoise green to render copper patina shade. Worked well for me
Sure there are more crazy combinations
Cheers
Michael

[Peter]

Wonderfull painted figures!

[Rich W]

I really like these. Nice work!

[C M Dodson]

Very nice indeed.

The Grenadiers suffer from squished neck syndrome but you have reanimated them.

Best wishes,

Chris

[Kekso]

Enjoy!

I did