Completed "Defence of Hougoumont"

[Cambronne]

Well, I got the arms on, but it was darn tricky!
Not a fault of the castings, which fit well, but I seemed to need four hands to hold the parts whilst the glue set.
And, as I don’t have four hands, as I said it was tricky. Anyway, I wanted to repaint the jackets!
So now with the figures whole I’m starting on the detailing, going around each piece, peering at it myopically and repainting parts I’ve probably painted three times already.
When (if?) I can finally exit this mode, I’ll call it done, assemble it and show you.
Stuart

 

[Briggsy]

They're looking really good mate and yeah you can go on forever just touching up here and refining there, eventually you've just got to let it out into the wide world!

Cheers Simon

 

[NigelR]

Nice progress, these are going to look very good together.

 

[Steve Edwards]

On the subject of drying oil colours. Instead of cooking your lads in a crock-pot you could try using a dryer. Arty farty types call them siccatives. There's loads of different brands and I'm sure they all work. I use Lefranc et Bourgeois because they are famous for the quality of their painting mediums. Here's the one I use:

You only need a little bit. I just dip my brush into the bottle and mix into the paint. It loosens your paint a little but not much. Then it dries overnight. Hooray! Trouble is that you're going to have to pay around 8-9 quid for the pleasure of experimenting with it to see if it works for you. One bottle lasts forever.

On the subject of obtaining a matt finish for oil colours. I can't be bothered with this nowadays because we can easily buy Ultra Matt varnish. But if you want a medium to dry your oil colours AND have a matt finish then you could try this one:

This is a wax medium and, unlike Dorlands, it does what we want. It mixes easily into your paint, unlike Dorlands. (Dorlands medium is great stuff by the way but it's not designed for what we're doing)

On its own, the L&B wax medium slows your paint drying but dries (at last!) to a dead matt finish. The adverts say that it helps you paint like the Impressionists. Bollocks, you paint like you usually do. Just mix it with the Courtrai dryers and you'll get a matt finish overnight. Again, you only need a little bit and one bottle lasts forever.

This is starting to sound like "oil painting sponsored by Lefranc et Bourgeois" but before I shut up can I give a shout out for their white spirit:

If you're getting grief over the stink of your white spirit or turpentine then you should consider trying this stuff. It's just the same as good quality artist's turpentine but it hardly has any smell. Buy a big bottle, be happy!

All the best with your painting.

 

[Cambronne]

So, I'm calling them done. Thanks for watching, I'm moderately happy with them. As ever I think I could have done better, but then, that's what the next figure is for!
You can see the completed figures here. Defence of Hougoumont | planetFigure | Miniatures
Stuart

 

[Nap]

Hi Stuart

You should be very pleased with the result

Thanks for sharing the Completed pictures

Cheers for the SBS

Look forward to seeing what you have next

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Steve Ski]

Thanks for the product review, good to know, Steve. I recon I'm old shcool, let em dry on their own, use good old fashioned paint thinner, and I still use Dull Coat from a rattle can. It's hard to change old habbits, don'tcha find,

These chaps finished very well, great work, Stuart!