Down to work

Saxon officer work-in-progress.

The trials and tribulations of my various palette experiments are complete so there are no remaining excuses for not starting on the job to paint up my first Calpe Saxon battalion. I’m beginning with the 1st battalion of the Prinz Friedrich August regiment – that means green facings and yellow metal buttons.

I’m going to ease into things by working on just a couple of figures at a time to begin with and then scale up to doing a company at a time (i.e. eight figures). I’ve aleady posted a photo of the white trousers on one musketeer, so I thought I’d show you something a little more colourful this time. The second figure I’m working on is an officer. There are several interesting uniform features of note with this chap.

Firstly, the colour of the metal buttons (white or yellow) was used as a distinction between the Prinz Friedrich August regiment and the other regiment with green facings (the Prinz Clemens regiment). But buttons weren’t the only metal parts of the uniform that followed this convention. The officers’ epaulettes and the tulip-shaped plume holder on the shako were also in the regimental button colour. Note that the chinscales on the shako were always brass, regardless of regiment. Yellow metalwork on the figure pictured is painted with Vallejo Flat Earth, Brass and Gold.

Secondly, the shako cover. The Saxons had their own distinctive shako covers (more about these another time) but when supplies were short (as they often were on 1813) the Saxons used French ones. These were the linen-coloured ones with the earflaps that could be tied up. The officer I’m painting at the moment has this latter style and though the upward fold of the earflaps is hidden behind the chinscales, Peter F. has sculpted the ties behind the plume holder. I’ve painted the shako cover using a palette of Vallejos: Flat Earth, Ochre Brown, Yellow Ochre, Buff and Ivory.

Thirdly, the coat. Officers had the choice between wearing the distinctively Saxon blue-grey surtout of the normal white uniform jacket with lapels, cuff and collar in the regimental facing colour. The surtout was more practical but also made officers easier for the enemy to spot. The officer I’m painting is in the white jacket. For the green facings I’ve used Vallejo Black Green, Deep Green (I love this colour) and Intermediate Green.

Lastly, the trousers. There are plenty of options here. Sometimes officers wore white breeches but they also worn overalls in grey or the same grey-blue as the surtout. These overalls often had a stripe down the outside in the regimental facing colour. The figure I’m painting has the stripe sculpted on which makes it nice and easy to paint. I opted for colourful blue-grey overalls using Vallejo Prussian Blue and Blue Grey with a final highlight of Sky Blue. The picture here makes the effect look a much brighter blue than it is in real life.

There’s not too much left to do to complete this figure: hands, sword and some work on the turnbacks (with their fiddly buttons and piping).

The study continues

And blanket roll

Surtout/boot tops

Front view

Left to right shots showing progress with my study. I’ve posted the leftmost one before but it’s included again as a reference point. Centre one shows trivial work on the leather tops of the boots but is mainly about the light blue surtout. This is Prussian Blue (V965) basecoat, then Medium Blue (V963), Deep Sky Blue (V844) and finally a touch of Sky Blue (V961).

The rightmost shot is simply the addition of painting the grey blanket roll. Mostly metalwork and hands left to complete this first study.

Up to the line

Front view

Rear view

Here’s an update on the study for Saxon paint schemes. Moving on from the head, I’ve been trying some greys and whites on the trousers and been applying the yellows for the piping on the surtout. There’s still some work to do on the rear of the trousers but I mostly wanted to talk about piping tonight.

Talking to others recently, I’ve come to realise that some people are scared of painting piping for one reason or another and I thought that if I shared my approach, it might do a little good. So my first piece of advice is to have a go (yep – and that means you, young Simon). If the figure sculptor has gone to the trouble to put it on a figure, it’s almost rude not to try to paint it! It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t come out well to start with – with practice and patience, you’ll only improve. So here are my top tips:

Don’t paint piping last, paint it first. If you leave it until the last thing, you’ll be worrying about doing neat lines that don’t spoil work you’ve already done. It’s actually much easier to paint up to a line than to paint the line itself. So, while you’re still at the black undecoat stage, paint in your piping. Don’t worry if it’s a bit wobbly or not fine enough at first – you can paint back with black to tidy up. That’s exactly what I did with the yellow turnbacks shown here.

Don’t go straight to the final colour. Most piping is in a light colour like red, yellow or white. To get that opaque enough on black in one layer will mean you have to use thick paint which is very difficult to work with and leaves an unsightly finish. If, on the other hand, you thin your paint to make it workable, it won’t be opaque enough in a single layer. So you know where I’m going here: take a layered approach like you would with any other part of the figure. The Flat Earth and Ochre Brown I used here provide both a good base for the yellows and provide the opportunity for a bit of shading to make the piping more interesting.

You’ll still need a steady hand. So, position yourself so that you can rest your painting hand against something solid like the edge of the table. Also, don’t hold your breath while you apply the paint – instead, breath out gently as you make each stroke. Try to paint is smooth steady strokes rather than jerky jabs.

Be careful what you drink. I never drink tea, coffee or cola before and during painting because the caffeine actually makes my hands shake slightly.

If you’ve got some piping tips of your own, feel free to post them as comments here. In the meantime, I expect I’ll move on to the light blue of the surtout next.

Brief bedtime note

My head swap / conversion of a Perry French plastic officer got me motivated to move on with the next stage of my experimental study for the Saxons. I’ve stated painting the little chap as a Saxon musketeer officer after finally making some colour decisions.

Most other armies of the period have plenty of blue, red and green in their uniforms but not many boast the opportunity for yellow (especially in combination with light blue). So I’ve decided to paint this study as an officer of one of the two 1813 Saxon infantry units that had yellow as their regimental colour – i.e. the Prinz Maximillian and von Rechten regiments. This means I’ll be doing a light blue surtout with yellow collar and cuffs plus yellow piping on the turnbacks.

But, as usual, I’ve started with the head. Now that I’ve had a chance to put paint to plastic, I’m convinced that the faces (and heads in general) on the Perry plastics are better than on their metals. This one’s got a nice expressive face with the mouth open as if shouting a command that lent itself to easy paintwork. Plus the bonus of an unsual covered shako that has what looks like a nasty sabre slash in it. The pom-pom is the exact same size as on the the Calpe Saxons and gave me a good chance to practice how I’m going to paint these correctly with the bottom half white and the top half in the regimental colour.

For the yellow I went for a Flat Earth (V983) basecoat followed by Ochre Brown (V856), then Flat Yellow (V953) and lastly Lemon Yellow (V952). A slight change from my previous yellow palette to give me greater contrast from basecoat to final highlight. White is a colour where I’m hoping to find a new, less harsh palette. This time I’m experimenting with a Light Grey (V990) basecoat and working through Sky Grey (V989) and White Grey (V993) to White (V951). It seems to have worked well but that’s possibly a bit presumptive when we’re talking about a total area the size of half a pom-pom! The real test of this palette will come when I get to the trousers.

Anyway, head, cuffs and collars all done – next stop the piping on the turnbacks with some painting technique observations for Von Peter Jnr. And I’ll try to take a half-decent photo or two to illustrate what I’m doing in this study.