I'll be finishing off the first batch of Plains Indians this week, with 56 painted just 12 to go, but today I'm going to have a varnishing session on those already painted as I'm really keen to see how the satin varnish will bring out the colours which currently look rather flat. As followers will know I have long favoured the Vallejo Satin for all my own figures. I'm only painted in daily batches of six, trying to vary the horse colours between each batch including two of piebalds that I approached with some trepidation but I think tuned out rather well on the whole. I have been trying to keep the coats fairly light after the initial darker browns and will be able to work in more variation as the project progresses and research continues. These photos illustrate my basic method of the Flat Brown dry brush over the black base which makes an excellent starter for both horse tones and flesh tones. In this case my favourite Flat earth/Japanese Uniform/Cavalry Brown produces very pleasing horse tones with a touch of red, and you can see the mix on the MDF base that I prefer over wet palette for horses as I find I can work them in together and add highlights easier when fairly dry. Another blend is Japanese Uniform/buff/Ivory for lighter horses and for darker horses Burnt Umber/Cavalry brown. Flat earth highlights over the basic Flat Brown also works very well.
I have also settled upon my flesh tone for the warriors, a 50/50 mix of Mahogany Brown and Orange Brown seems just about right to me over the Flat Brown dry brush. All in all it's a most enjoyable challenge and I think I'm getting the hang of it now!
Next I'm going back to good Old John starting with his box of Winged Hussars that I have had prepped up for ages. The decision to cease painting further Epics was not an easy one but to be honest the pressure was getting too much for me to handle at a time when I really wanted to ease back a bit.
A few shots of a batch of horses in progress.
