WIP Lord Paget at Waterloo

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Mitches Military Models, 200mm scale

Here's lookin' at you, kid.

Lord Paget has so much gold lace on his uniform it alone could be the treasury of a small county. Since I've always had trouble getting gold to cover I'm thinking of covering all the lace first with a thin coat of Vallejo's 70.929 Light Brown and then use 70.878 Old Gold, highlighting it with 72.055 Polished Gold. I know this isn't a new technique but I've never tried it before. Has anyone tried this technique? How did it work out for you? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks.
Rick

 

[DaddyO]

Hi Rick

I have the same trouble, so on my Scythian (which is also in the WIP threads) I mixed a touch of gold with a brown similar to burnt umber for the base layer then put a second layer mixed with a yellow/brown colour which provided a good base for gold. I proceeded with a sort of NMM effect still mixing gold in with the lighter colours, but that was just something I wanted to try out on this figure - the principal works okay so try it out
(Adding some flesh to the gold makes it opaque enough to use by itself if you prefer and you can then build up with the golds as you mention)
Hope that helps
Paul

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Hi Paul

Thanks for your input and advice. My light brown and old gold base coat idea didn't work with a lick but, following your suggestion, I created a 50/50 mix of desert yellow (sort of a yellow ochre, I guess) and old gold. Voila! A base coat that the old gold finish coat covered in just one coat. At least that's on the test strip. Now to try it on the good Lord Paget. (I think he really should have considered wearing camo - but that would have created a new set of problems for me.) Thanks again.

Rick

 

[Nap]

Hi Rick

Just seen this thread , is this the bust or full figure version , coming on nicely

Look forward to seeing this progress

These might help

https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/lord-henry-paget.64993/

https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/lord-henry-paget.183284/

https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/lord-henry-paget.131887/

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Steve Brodie]

I always base coat the gold areas in black first, then apply the gold colour.

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Hey Nap,
Thanks for the links. It's always good and helpful to see what others have done with the same figure. Some very impressive work, I might add. It's the full figure version of Lord Paget.
Rick

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the tip. I never thought of a black base coat. I'll give it a try.
Rick

 

[MCPWilk]

I undercoat in brown and then dry brush over.

Mike

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Thanks, Mike.
Rick

 

[khollar]

Rick,
I think you’re definitely on the right track here. That’s essentially the same approach that I used for all of the lace and braid on the Alexandros Junot bust that I just painted. I used a dark muddy brown color as the base coat, followed by a coat of a Sand Yellow color, with tiny highlights picked out with tiny dots of a very light sand color. I can provide the specific colors if you’re interested, but the attached photos show the results.
Kurt

 

[Nap]

Hi Guys

Great to see this thread and the info from Kurt on his aporoach

Kurt...do provide actual details if possible , the effect looks great ...do you add any varnish

Would be interested how you painted the buttons as well

Sure Rick might find that useful

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Kurt,
Wow! I'm impressed. So you didn't use gold at all, but rather substituted sand colors for gold? Yes, I'd like to know the specific colors you used and, as Nap suggested, any of the painting techniques you used (without giving up any 'trade secrets') to achieve the effects. Paget is a little different in that his uniform doesn't have any braid but rather has ribbon nevertheless I'm sure I can learn a lot from your work. Thanks.
Rick.

 

[khollar]

Hi Guys

Great to see this thread and the info from Kurt on his aporoach

Kurt...do provide actual details if possible , the effect looks great ...do you add any varnish

Would be interested how you painted the buttons as well

Sure Rick might find that useful

Happy benchtime

Nap

Thanks, Nap,

The attached photo provides the three specific colors that I used on the Junot bust, although a number of other, similar colors could be used as well. The dark brown paint’s label is fairly worn, but I believe that the number is 337, and it was intended to highlight German black panzer uniforms. (They also make a black shade that is a dark charcoal grey, and the two are very useful colors). The sand color in this case is a German camo ochre color, but I’ve used other sand colors to equal effect. The Reaper Yellowed Bone is another very versatile color, that I’ve been using for highlighting gold braid.

Since the braid on Junot and Paget is a veritable “wall of lace”, you can paint the entire facing with the dark brown. In the case of Junot, I dry brushed the sand color on, and then added the hundreds of tiny dots using the Yellowed Bone. No varnish was used.

In regards to the half-ball buttons on Junot, I painted the entire button with Vallejo Bronze, then added a shadow to the lower quarter using a mix of bronze and dark brown. I then added a crescent of highlights to the top quarter of each using a bright gold printers ink.

Hope that information is useful.
Kurt

 

[khollar]

Kurt,
Wow! I'm impressed. So you didn't use gold at all, but rather substituted sand colors for gold? Yes, I'd like to know the specific colors you used and, as Nap suggested, any of the painting techniques you used (without giving up any 'trade secrets') to achieve the effects. Paget is a little different in that his uniform doesn't have any braid but rather has ribbon nevertheless I'm sure I can learn a lot from your work. Thanks.
Rick.

Thanks, Rick,
I actually just painted Lord Paget last year using the approach described above. I used a more yellowy gold as my midtone, and I didn’t add as much highlights as I did with Junot. I guess my use of this technique continues to evolve, and hopefully improve. Here’s how that one ended up. As you can see, it would benefit from greater highlighting.

Anyway, I hope that some of this is useful.
Kurt

 

[bucsfan21]

Kurt, Your Lord Paget looks awesome. Thanks for sharing your tip on painting gold. Very helpful
All the Best, Terry Martin

Member of the Atlanta Military Figure Society

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Very helpful, thanks Kurt. Your Lord Paget looks terrific. Egad! Yellow again! I just finished MMM's Drummer of the 44th @ Waterloo and learned how challenging yellow can be to work with (for me anyway). Onward and upward!
Rick

 

[khollar]

Rick,
You are right about that. Yellow can be a challenge to paint. I’ve had some success with the Andrea Yellow set, and I’ve found the Vallejo color, Golden Brown, to be very useful.
Kurt

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Paint the "wall of lace" dark brown then dry brush on the yellow/gold base color - boy does that ever make sense - glad I thought of it! Oh, it wasn't me? Thanks for that tip, Kurt. A real time saver and one that I think will result in a better finished Lord Paget.

 

[khollar]

Glad to be of assistance, Rick. I’ll look forward to seeing how this one turns out for you. Good luck!

Kurt

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

MMM's 200mm Lord Paget in progress. The “wall of lace” is mostly finished with some minor touches still to be applied and I've applied the base color for the fur trim on his pelisse. I've never attempted to paint fur before and could use a little advice from any of you who have.

I applied a lighter base color (a mix of Vallejo Sand Yellow 70.916 and Light Brown 70.929) because the pelisse is essentially blue and I thought the contrast would look good as opposed to a darker fur color. I suppose I could simply have applied a dark wash to highlight the fur but that seemed like a cop out.

If you have any suggestions please let me know.

Thanks.