Thanks a lot guys!
Thanks Marc! You are very right, there is almost no dirt on the jacket. The problem in painting dust on a kakhi shirt is that the tonality is too close for it to be effective. Dusty spots will look like messed up shadows or highlights, instead of actual dust. This is always a painting problem...
In reality, dust will also not show too much on such a colour, just "fade" it a bit, so I just tried to give him an overall dirty look by paiting dust everywhere, except on the jacket.
Thanks Rob! You are right about the groundwork: it is very important to the story! It is obvious from the figure WHAT he is doing, but not WHY. The groundwork fills this in...
This was exactly the first thing I thought when I learned about the use of cyclist troops in east-africa during WW1: "ouch, that couldn't have been easy on that terrain!"
I feel any good groundwork should add to the story or set of the figures, but never detract from them.
The vegetation started with some static grass, not sprinkled on but glued in little clumbs. This was expanded by adding seaweed fibres for taller grass (unravelled jute or such will do fine also).
The rest of the vegetation are died flowers. I think I used four different types. Important with this is not to use them in big parts like entire twigs, but take into account you are working in scale, use small fragments of them at a time and slowly build up the effect. Clearly deciding what type of vegetation you want to portay is of course also important.
Both grasses and dried flowers were simply glued to the already painted groundwork with white glue, and afterwards painted by brush. I painted most of the grasses in yellowish sand tones and the other shrubs in various dark dull green tones. Several washes with dusty tones were applied next to tone down the colour further and give a dry and dusty look. This was very important to emphasise the impression of the dry and dusty terrain, and to tone down the colours, so it doesn't overpower the figure.
Thanks again for all the comments everybody!
Marijn
