Sunday 14 March 2021

Painting the Epic ACW's - test strips & description.

 Following on from yesterdays comments re the Epic ACW's I wanted to add a few more notes about the way I am trying to approach painting them, I'm aware the hobby blogs are going to be full of similar posts as the sets begin to roll out and it will be interesting to see how others tackle this. I wanted to record a step by step of my method, the shades used, and my reflections on the product as a whole.

I started by taking the view that these are basically ordinary 15mm figures, much like the many other ACW's I have painted over the years so I could approach them in the same way. I quickly realised that it was not going to work and that I had to re think and start again with the Warlord concept of the Epic theme and what they are trying to do here. Taking a step back and looking at the strips of figures I realised that they are actually far more like 6mm strips in terms of production than conventional 15mm ranges, this was important because it completely changed my perception of what I could realistically hope to achieve with them. My 6mm 'speed painting' method has been tried and tested over many years and thousands of figures with the key being to add dots and dashes of strong paint, that is to say selected shades that cover in a single application over a very flat black base coat leaving some of  that black showing to represent areas of shade.

Having carefully selected my range of colours and the order of application I then asked myself what I wanted to achieve in terms of the overall look and finish of each base of 20 figures, units that reflected as accurately as possible the appearance of Civil War units, without painting levels of detail that would simply be lost when viewing at arms length. That said I still want the figures to stand a little close scrutiny but without being overly fussy. For me the key is a good choice of brushes that will hold a good point, pick up a blob of paint and apply it accurately and at speed exactly where I want it. These figures have been painted using an Army Painter size 00 for everything aside from the faces where a OOOO is used and the green bases where a size 2 is used.

Lets have a bash through a couple of strips to see how this works. First stage I take Vallejo (all vallejo) Flat Earth which is my go to 'Butternut' shade ( and yes I know it varied wildly but I'm trying to keep things simple here). You can see I'm picking out spots to apply the paint but leaving plenty of black showing. First image shows the first application completed. Next London Grey is used in the same way to give the impression of a unit in a mix of uniform, with just a few trousers here and there picked out with Azure Blue. This was done very quickly trying to avoid painting over anything else. Then Flat Brown is applied to the musket butts and along the rear of the stocks. Here and there I apply a touch of brown to beards, some rear cartridge boxes and a few belts before taking up my Flat Flesh and the 0000 brush with which I blob the hands and apply fine dashes to the faces. In any other scale I would begin with light brown for my faces but for these I just went with the straight flesh as you can see. Next with a silver/steel mix I run down the barrels (back to the 00 brush for this) and the officers sword etc. I then add the odd touch of Flat Red for a bit of contrast to a couple of blanket rolls, the drum etc, because it just slightly lifts the overall look. Finally I add some very fine lines of off white to represent bread bag straps etc, not to all the figures just to a few and it's job done!

I COULD of course now add highlights to the 'Butternut' and the Grey, but honestly in this scale I really don't think there is much point as the sheer number of figures per unit  is what gives the visual impact. I do however use my favourite Satin varnish which gives a bit of 'pop' without the effort of highlighting. this is just personal choice.

Basing is very quick and simple, PVA covered before picking up a strip and after a running small amount of glue along the raised edges pop it into the locating pegs. I then scatter my extra fine Javis granite mix before shaking and blowing off the excess. Once dry a few patches of 2mm summer grass are applied and the bare stone areas treated with Sepia wash which will subsequently be drybrushed with Buff.

And that's about it! Not perfect but I think it works for this Epic theme, if you look closely you will see plenty of black shade areas showing through but this is very much a part of the look I want to achieve. 

Now all that remains is to paint the other two and a half thousand figures when they arrive!

Warlord Epic ACW's 60 test figures painted in around 3 1/2 hours, roughly 20 figures in just over the hour and that's with constant glances at Match of The Day! Plus of course basing time. I painted just two strips at a session using the 8 basic colours outlined above. Not great if you view the images blown up big, but in real scale they don't look too shabby I think?











20 comments:

  1. Hi Lee, I think dot-dash is exactly the way to go. Digital photography shows MUCH more detail than the eye naturally catches when these things are on the table. It is remarkable that modern manufacturing gives us such detail on these small figures, but on the table, impressionistic is exactly what these tightly packed figures need.

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    1. Hi Norm. Know what you mean re the photography I tried to avoid close ups because I wanted to try to show these at true scale, but of course on the screen they are all blown up 28mm scale! I think it's important to see these as strips of figures in the way you see the 6mm Baccus strips and treat them as such. The question for me now is do I really want to spend the time required to paint hundreds more of them, are they going to be a good use of my painting time or will I get bored with them 6 months down the line? Not sure yet.

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  2. They look very effective (I have to keep reminding myself they're 12mm?) and the paint job comes together nicely when varnished and the base texturing finishes them off a treat. However, you do just need to brush off the excess flock as some of them look like they've rolling in the hay with the local lasses.... ;o)

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    1. Rob, they probably have been! I'll give them a brush over as you suggest :)

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  3. Excellent You should post a YouTube video demonstrating this...

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    1. Thanks Dave. There are already so many YouTube videos featuring these figures that if I did one it would just be buried but it could be interesting to show the 'dot/dash' brushwork in action in real time.

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  4. Nice diversity of the colors, effective and great technique!

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  5. They look darn good to my eyes given their size.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    1. Thank you Stokes. The jury is still out for me on the Epic concept compared with conventional 15/18mm figures.

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  6. Think you’ve got this cracked, ideas pinched and I agree they look fine and en masse will look great.

    Graham

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    1. Hi Graham and cheers. I'm just not sure if they excite me enough to keep going.

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    1. Ross, they are not bad but they do certainly lack the charm of more conventional figures. I do 'get' the concept but the thought of painting strip after strip of them daunts me.

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  8. Those look great, thanks for sharing. I received my box Friday, but too much stuff on the painting table, they've got to wait... When I do manage to get to them it will something very much in the vein of what you're doing. From my standpoint, quantity has a quality all its own ;)

    V/R,
    Jack

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    1. Hi Jack. Mines due Tuesday so I'm trying to decide if this concept of Epic strips of figures is really for me. So little variation, every strip the same for both Union and Confederates but then given the scale does it matter? Still not sure.

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  9. They are very nice... I think your concerns about lots and lots of the same are valid, but that at the same time it's the whole point of the concept.. the impact will come with masse.. the only issue is whether you can take the pain of having to paint them.. :o)) I'm wondering if spray painting would help speed it up... spray black and then do an angled spray of grey or sand/brown or light blue to speed up uniform painting???

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    1. Hi Steve. I'm really enjoying bashing these little beauties out! Having grasped the concept I can see just where Warlord are going with this and I like it. I have put down some timings now for the basic infantry strips and gone just a tad further by adding quick highlights. Report to follow. I'm seeing loads of different methods around the interwebby including airbrush sprays as you suggest :)

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    1. Thank you Dale. I'm trying to find a compromise between speed and a look that captures the spirit of the period.

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