Mark Severin

IMPERIALIST ARMY

It’s About Time!

The figures arrived on June 29, 2004. My cold turkey experiment is proving more challenging than I had expected, so this little fix will help take the edge off. (However, since “free samples” don’t count as inventory, neither does painting them count as progress toward the inventory reduction goal.)

Here’s what I got. A small WSS Army. What the heck is WSS you ask? Why, it’s the War of Spanish Succession, of course. Here’s what I got:

And here is a close up of one infantry unit (3 line stands, plus one command stand). These are straight out of the packet - I haven’t even trimmed the bayonets!

Looking closely at the figures it’s pretty hard to make out any detail. The metal is quite shiny and the reflections tend to obscure the detail. I can, however, make out some details - like the saddle bags on the troopers; infantry cross belts, and hoops on the drums. In each cavalry unit there are two stands, one of which is a command stand with a molded flag. I’m not sure how I’m going to tackle those!

Clean Up In Aisle 4 - Don’t Bring A Knife

The figures had almost no flash to speak of. All I had to do was file the bases smooth (very little work here). Then I used a pair of sprue cutters to trim off what little flash there was. Mostly this was just vent flow at the end of bayonets and the like. Again, not much too it to clean up all 26 stands. Straighten a few flag poles and you’re set

The Brush Monkey Is Loose

Well, let’s just wait a minute. Along with the figures themselves, Peter also provided a painting guide (BTW he sells CD-ROMs with uniform details for this period off of his web site). Time to take a look and plan out what the color scheme will be.

Mine is an Austrian (aka Imperial) Army, comprised of 4 infantry battalions (Guttenstein, Wuertemberg, Hoch und Deutschmeister, and Kreischbaum for those of you keeping score at home); 1 Dragoon regiment (Bayreuth); 4 cuirassier regiments (Caprara, Jung Hanover, Pfalz Neuberg and Pallfy). One of these is my CinC stand as well.

The infantry uniforms are light gray with colored facings, turnbacks and trousers. The Cuirassiers are black armor over light golden brown coats, with red turnbacks. These appear to have identical uniforms, the differences being the colors on the horse blankets. The Dragoons wear light blue coats with red facings and turnbacks.

I decide to do one infantry regiment first. I’m going to do it the same way I would a 15 mm unit. Peter’s painting guide says this is a mistake and that attempting same leads to disappointment and frustration. I do not plan to do the entire army this way, but I want to see how good I can make them look. This is more important to me as I’m strictly a painter so far (though I’ve recently been shopping for Napoleonic and ACW rules sets).

Peter’s technique is to paint from the base up to the hat. My usual technique is paint “in the order you’d get dressed,” that is flesh then clothes, then equipment, then final details. I’m doing the first regiment - the Guttenstein - my way, and we’ll see how it goes from there.

The Guttenstein Regiment

With a fast coat of Coat d’Arms Tanned Flesh, Model Master Flat Gull Gray on the coats, a stripe of white for cross belts, and some key items in Colour Party Brunswick Black, we’re well on our way to a finished regiment. Here’s what one strip looks like so far:

Now for a few more fine details: Polly S Cherry Red for the facings and cuffs (for the command strip I’m doing a basecoat of Americana Deep Burgundy and will highlight with the Cherry Red). The equipment gets done in Vallejo Buff, though I’m leaving the cartridge boxes black (it’s just a personal thing - I like ‘em black). Ceramcoat Dark Brown is the next color for the musket stocks, drum body and wood bits on the command strip. Finally silver for the musket barrel and a band of white around the top of the tricorne. Voila, one completed regiment! Here’s a look:

The figures really are too small for the highlighting of 15 mm and it doesn’t really allow for some of the smaller detail to be called out. For example, the collars and turnbacks are too small to do in the facing color (well, for my abilities, anyway). And the lace atop the tricornes is beyond my skill. With thick paint you get the really wide stripes you see here. With thin paint, it ran all over the place and then the white barely showed up over the black primer. Still, from 3 feet it looks okay. So Peter really knows what he’s about. This regiment of 4 strips took me about an hour to paint from primer to finish, or about 4 minutes per figure.

For the rest of the infantry I’ll be going for more speed, and I’ll let the black undercoat act as the highlighting. The colors are basically as above. Here’s what a finished strip looks like (and these took about 90 seconds per strip):

From any distance over 12 inches you can’t tell the slow paint job from the fast. The lesson: dab ‘n go.

All The King’s Horses

Man they’re small. I’m going to repeat myself and tackle one regiment first. As I got used to the size of the infantry I felt a little more confident with my brush and was getting nicer results. So now I’m going to try painting my Bayreuth Dragoons. I’m putting them all on brown horses and except for the drummer, the command stand will follow the same colors as the line troopers.

I put down a few base colors. Ceramcoat Dark Brown for the horses, Polly S GTW Blue for the jackets, black tricornes, and the flesh. These colors are pretty dark but I plan to highlight them to brighten them up. The unit now looks like this:

As you can see, even with the flash, the brown horses look almost black, and the blue is nearly invisible. You’ll also not one trooper is missing his sword - the only damage of any kind so far in my army. I’m not going to attempt to replace it. For some of the equipment I’m going to have to pretty much guess at the colors.

Next comes the highlighting round. I mix Ceramcoat’s Dark Brown with their Golden Brown at 3:2, and highlight. The blue coats get touched up in Polly S B&M Blue. The a round of white followed by Americana Deep Burgundy on the cuffs and jackets. This will be highlighted with Polly S Cherry Red for the “pop” on these details.

Next, I finish up the rest of the equipment and saddle blankets. Finally a little white on the horse’s nose and feet, a little dark gray to the hooves, and presto! The regiment is complete. Here’s what it looks like now:

I deliberately painted very slow to get the maximum control and detail. I think these two strips took me about an hour to paint. For some reason the whites show up as really gray in the photo - the hat lace and horse feet especially. Guess I’ll have to keep them in low light conditions for viewing! By the way, that thing on the flag is not roadkill - it is a lovingly rendered black, double headed eagle, with crowns.

My Kingdom For A Really Nice Miniature Pony

The home stretch. Just the three Cuiraisser regiments and the C-in-C strips to do. The Cuiraissers have identical uniforms, just different horse blankets, so I should be able to blast through these pretty quickly. To help keep some variety in the color, I’m going to do the horses in a lot of different colors: dun, gray, brown and black, by regiment. I’ve decided to let my imagination run wild with the C-in-C unit, and paint it in my choice of colors (while trying to still look reasonably “historic”).

I start with the horses but, while I’m working with the base color, I also do any other bits in that color. For example, the base color for the gray horse is Model Master Dark Gull Gray. I do the base color of the blanket rolls in that (to be highlighted later). Likewise, the base for the brown horses is Polly S Roof Brown, which I use as the base for the flagpole, and musket stocks (or are those carbines? shotguns?). The other base coats are Brunswick Black by Colour Party, and Dun by Coat d’Arms mixed 1:1 with Ceramcoat Golden Brown. The Golden Brown is also the base uniform color.

It should be noted that the cavalry I received was not quite up to the high production standards of the infantry. Of the 8 stands of cuirassiers I received, one was poorly cast, resulting in a lack of horse tails and extremely thin legs. Also these two stands were much less crisp in their detail on the left sides, compared to the other stands. Based on my knowledge of Peter and Baccus’ reputation, I believe he would replace such in a paid order (but even I didn’t have the nerve to ask for replacements for free figures). On the other hand, en masse these minor defects would never be noticed. Only at a distance of 3” under a halogen lamp, while being painted, are they really noticeable.

So here they are (well, select shots of most of the 8 strips anyway):

Man, They Sure Are Small

Yeah, well, as advertised. But can you paint ‘em? Sure you can, and the results ain’t half bad. It took a while, with both infantry and cavalry, to get a technique that worked. But once I had it, I clicked along pretty easily. Here are a few pointers I would pass along.

• Use thicker paint than you would on 15s or larger. I went for a creamy, buttermilk consistency. Craft paints and Vallejo were pretty much unthinned. Thinning just lets the paint run away from you and on figures this size, even a minor run can look awful.
• Paint in batches of a dozen or more strips. Then, get the base colors done fast. Coat, pants, boots, flesh. Now put them next to each other and look at them from 3 or 4 feet. Even at this stage they look cool. Step back to help see them come to life.
• I used two small brushes, one for base coats, one for the rest. They were both Master’s Touch brand (available at Hobby Lobby for about $3.50 each) I used a 10/O round and an 18/O spotter, as seen here. Even with a small brush you still need good control. [Insert picture “Brushes” here]
• If highlighting with other than black, use very strong contrasting colors. I used a near-navy with a mid-sky, for my Dragoons, for example. Up close, as you paint it can look awful, but stick with it. Anything less is invisible even at point blank range.
• Be patient, in context. You can paint infantry in batches at 90 seconds each, but don’t rush to make it 60. You’ll just end up frustrated with work you don’t like.
  

As you probably noticed I took a lot of long cuts - shading some uniforms and equipment, different color horses, etc. Plus, I painted some things even Peter admits he doesn’t (like waist belts). Since I paint for the fun of painting, and not to field combatants, I went the extra steps.

Yeah, But Would You Buy Them?

Well, yes. The worst part is, my copy of Grande Armee Napoleonic rules just shipped, and is very 6 mm friendly. Then there’s the 6 mm Napoleon’s Battle’s group I just learned about.

My issue is not is 6 mm too small. My issue is Peter hasn’t done Spanish yet. My interest is primarily the Peninsular War. I suppose I could buy another brand, but those turned me off of 6 mm in the first place. Or I could use Revolutionary French, and have the troops with the wrong backpack. Decisions, decisions.

So, once my Lead Free days are over, Peter can, at a minimum, look for a little terrain business. And even if I don’t dive into 6 mm Napoleonics for gaming, projects this size in 6 mm are a lot of fun. In about 4 hours I painted from lead to overspray an entire army. A great way to get into a period quickly, cheaply, and with figures that reward the painting effort for me.

Now all I need is a job to pay for it all......