The 'wet palette' & more Continentals.

I recently came across the 'wet palette' on a 'Lardie' blog (link). It struck me as a really good idea and so simple it had to be  worth a try. I have noticed recently with the warm weather how quickly my paints (now mostly Vallejo) have been skinning over and drying up on the palette. As I'm spending a lot of time painting with breaks to do other household related stuff I was wasting a lot of paint, but this has changed everything! It is possible to keep a blob of paint 'open' for 2 to 3 days, so I can at any time just go back to the palette and start painting again. It's so simple and effective that I just had to share it here. It also means you can blend colours and even work wet into wet for shading and highlights etc. Picture shows the plastic lid, with a circle of thick kitchen roll which is then soaked and over laid with a circle of grease proof paper. Well worth a try if you spend a lot of time painting.

Here are the links to the two relevant 'Lardie' blog posts:

The wet palette #2.

The wet palette#1.

Commands & Colors for AWI.
I'm continuing to paint additional 'blocks' for this game. Latest 'units' are some Continental Dragoons (3 blocks) and a unit I could not resist having seen the wonderful Troiani image, that of Lee's Legion infantry, who reportedly procured purple dyed coats and breeches in 1779, along with Tarleton helmets. I have seen references to purple dyed hunting shirts before so why not? Very hard to get a shade that looks convincing, and I may well touch these up a little more before I'm fully happy with them.

An example of a purple hunting shirt of the AWI.

Commission work.
Taking it easy during the holiday period as the house is fairly busy, but I completed this 32 figure unit of ACW 'Richmond Greys' for the collection of 'Old John' 20mm figure of course from the same German maker as previously and I believe OOP. Early war frock coats with epaulettes and shakos give them a distinctive look.

This week I'll be working through a load of 6mm Heroics and Ros Austrian Napoleonics (including no less than 22 guns and crews!), and baggage trains before turning my attention to 3 more units of 20mm ECW cavalry. After that its back to John's ACW lead pile again!

Pictures below: Lee's Legion infantry and some Continental Dragoons. Martin at Peter Pig is currently working on more dragoons with the helmet front, suitable for the 17th and others.