Napoleonic Painting Tips

[DAKfreak]

Hi

I hope you're all doing well. Checking out some of the amazing work on the gallery, I was compelled to start my own Napoleonic saga.

For those of you who are masters in this era, I was wondering what are your Top 3 favorite shades of blue paint brand you use for Nap. French infantry.

My second question was, do you have any tactics to paint many figures (especially of the same pose!) quickly? Many Hat sets contain different poses, 8 of each, and it would be great if one can paint them with some speed!

Thank you!

[Emperor]

You have Carlo Antonio's tutorial Russian and French infantry painting guide PRIVATE...
Anyway the tactic for me is next...The final product depend of how you use the paint...
As I noticed, if you use paint extra tinned, you can achieve the result of shading during putting base coat...Reason, simple, the pain and water mixed in proportion 50:50, will equal flat paint, with no difference, the extra tinned paint in proportion 80 water 20 paint will give result as wash gives, that means paint will be too liquid that in cracks will get more paint than on surface...
Now for painting, the white presents the greatest problem...White in spectrum of light by observer eye present all the colors in one color...That is why every mistake is visible...White color is better form Games workshop than from Vallejo...Vallejo must be tined, and applied in few layers...Before that you put a coat of grey color...
Now Napoleonic figures present more problem than other, because of extra details in form of tin belts...In my early stage of painting, I had this problem with using 4 brushes...During the work, I would ussally mix brushes, and after using one brush for thin parts and large surfaces, the brush will get fuzzy, unable to paint small details...The solution is human saliva...
As for method...Method is systematic...You paint many figures, first you paint the largest area on all figures that means uniforms pants...Only when you do largest area, you do the small details....Don't concern painting over small details with uniform colors...When its dry apply the layer of paint for details...I f you accidentally put different paint, just take a lot of thinner or distillate water, and apply so the paint can dissolve...Than pick that water with dry brush...

[Ben Bob]

I consider myself as far from a master, but can try to help if the masters (aside from Emperor) don't want to
For this batch of figures (my last major Napoleonic project), I used Vallejo Imperial Blue for the tunics:


I think I mixed black in it for the base coats, and then the regular color for mid, and finally the blue with a tiny bit of off-white mixed in for some highlights. If I were to do it again, I would probably block in the colors, then oil wash, and then touch up some highlights after that dried--this is probably the fastest and most consistent method.

Here is another good tutorial. In fact it is by the man who sculpted the above figures
http://eurekamin.com.au/ideas.php?postid=97

[blucher1815red]

Hi, as far as blue is concerned I will use Prussian blue, dark blue & medium blue for the basic French uniform but for officers I will use imperial blue or royal blue because I work on the assumption that officers would have a better quality of uniform. I thin my paints by as much as 80% & I am not fussed if the shades vary from darker to lighter because uniforms will fade with use. I will paint up to 100+ figures at a time, painting all the flesh then the then the grey & so on, but I will paint all the same poses at the same time so I end up painting parrot fashion it may sound boring ( and it is ) but by using this method I have easily painted 100 figures in a week at an average of 2 hours a day.

[Beano Boy]

Like blucher I paint hundred`s up at a time too. However years ago I started to paint Cavalry first. 12 to 17 per box is a good way to learn how to paint,faces,uniforms or even the dirt under thier fingernails.( With a darker wash!) After a while at doing these colourful units,I felt it was time to tackle larger boxed sets of infantry. The real key to painting models is to paint plenty of them,in time your eye and hand cordination develops and one will become faster at painting.................Although in my case I would not say better,but much better then when I first started to paint these tiny 20mm Bods.

[DAKfreak]

Thank you everyone for the responses.
It takes about 3 hours for me to finish 6 figures
So, 2 hours a day, and 100 a week is an astonishing amount!
I like the idea of starting with cavalry sets, they are much easier.