Chasseur à Pied Completed.

Well here is my completed Chasseur à pied. He is depicted  has the  Jon Smith Modellbau instructions suggest waiting an early version  of the horizon blue greatcoat.  I did contemplate  painting it French blue as per the early pattern greatcoat. In the end I opted to go with the horizon blue option because it offers a contract to the kepi.

The horizon blue was mixed in with grey, black, French blue and Prussian blue was mixed in varying amounts to represent dirt and grime engrained into the greatcoat.  The buttons  where painted  in U.S. grey and then high-lighted with pencil lead.  I feel the general look of the uniform is a bit too Confederate grey. I will come back to it later see if it blue is glaze would help it.

The kepi got the French blue treatment with shadow layered with a  touch of black. the piping was  painted with lemon yellow and then highland with pale sand with a touch of sand mixed in. Lots of patience and a fine rigger brush.  Knowing when to stop was a key in painting the piping.

Thanks for taking the time to look at this post I do hope you like the almost finished result. Please feel free to add your comments below.

Moustache for a Chasseur à Pied

I just spent the last two and a half hours painting a moustache. I think I should leave it alone now so's not to bugger it up.  To be fair, I also added the eyebrows and worked the hair also.   All in all a productive afternoon.

The colours used were German Camo Black Brown (70822) for the shadow,  Chocolate Brown (70872) for the  mid tones  and an orange mix with  Fire Red (71084) and Lemon Yellow (70952)   

Next job is the kepi.

Chasseur à Pied

This is the first effort at painting a bust. So it is a learning exercise. Over recent years I have grown keen on French Army Uniforms of the early part of the First World War.  I’ve had my eye on this Jon Smithmodellbau bust of a Chasseurs à pied for some time so decided to take the plunge.

Having never painted a bust before I referenced a couple of articles from Military Modelling August and September 2016 issues where Fernando Ruiz wrote up Jaume Ortiz’s technique for dealing with busts . What appealed to me as a beginner was the simplicity of the technique.  He uses only three colours to get the flesh tones. A sand brown (70.876) as the base coat and light flesh (70.928) for the highlights and finally a black red (70.859) to create the shadow.

After the undercoat was put down in around six thin layers I added in some of the light flesh in to the mix and started with the first highlight. Then once  that was dried I added a second  highlight before  moving on to block out the shadow  on a  mix of the  sand brown  base layer  and  a the red brown.

 From here I built up the different levels of shadow and light on the face with the appropriate mixes until I was happy with the balance. Following that I watered-down the paints further now between the consistency of milk and water in an attempt to blend together the different areas.  Currently this process   needs a bit more refining it looks a bit like badly applied foundation at the moment!

Most of a afternoon was spent on trying to get the eyes right. After having various misadventures with bleeds of different coloured pain and a disaster with gloss varnish I have reached the uneasy compromise of eyes which are all most there.

  I would love to hear any thoughts, tips or critics of this project so far.       

Early War British Infantry

This project has been one of those long running episodes which often gets bogged down or superseded by other projects.  But we will soon see an end!  Just a little  more work blending the bases to match up with completed ones. Then we will be good to go with the varnishing.

I am working towards a battalion of British Expeditionary Force circa 1914. So far it is made up of three infantry companies,  machine gun and HQ companies and some other odds and sods in the form of trench raiders &c.

    

A Company

 B Company

C  Reserve Company

 Machine Gun Company

Some close ups of the infantry units.  All the figures were  painted in Vallejo acrylics with a Games Workshop wash to add a bit of  depth.  Following that the figures were given a graduated dry brush   to pic out the details.        

Here we have the Battalion Headquarters Company including signaller, runner, sergeant major and an adjutant.

 

Here is the signaller and runner. Many thanks to  Royal Signals Museum on Twitter, who were so helpful in advising me on getting the signal flag correct .  

The commanding officer is proudly wearing his University of Cambridge scarf.  As he directs operations while his adjutant checks the map.

Finally, we have four subalterns all prepared to lead their men into action.  

I do hope I can make some progress in my Early War Germans and hopefully be in a position  to  get them all on  the table by early spring. Well I can dream!