Flat Figure Art

The 2007 Painting Project

2008-03-28T07:08:00.002+02:00

By Panos Charalampakis

At last, our annual painting project of the British Flat FIgure Society came to an end. Nearly every year, or at least we try to, there is a non competitive choice of one figure of variable subject and scale that is distributed among the interested members of the Society who each of us makes his/her own interpetation of how this figure shoudl be painted.

It's is very interesting comparing the final results since, as many wise painters have said, there are a thousand painting techniques from a thousand artists. Each makes his/her own interpetation, according to his/her likes and preferences, painting style, painitng medium used and so on.

For 2007, a single 30mm figure from the Golbergs was chosen, of a mounted noble lady and a peasant or groom driving the horse taken from a medieval hunting party scene. Sixteen people responded to the call but we hope this number increases next year. So here is the link that will direct you to the proper section in the Society's gallery. Take a moment to observe the different painting schemes from the almost toy soldier-like appearance to the most "sophisticated" heavy shadowed-highlighted painting.

http://www.britishflatfigures.org.uk/gallery/project/gallery-proj.htm

Glorious Empires Battle of Eylau

2008-02-23T10:05:00.003+02:00

By Panos Charalampakis

The Battle of Eylau

First Release - First Release - First Release

Glorious Empires presents set nr. 36 : The Battle of Eylau.

One of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic period, with heavy losses on both sides and with no clear winner, it was fought between the French, under Napoleon and the Russians and Prussians under the Russian Bennigsen.
Drama packed with many tense moments, including the artillery duel between 300 French guns and 450 Russian guns, with the famous scene of Colonel Lepic and his Guard Grenadiers (Mignot set) suffering heavily under fire while protecting the Guard Horse artillery.
This set (part 1 of 2) depicts the moment early in the morning of the battle when the artillery duel raged, fought on empty bellies and after a freezing night without fires.
Created after the painting by Benigni it shows General de Brigade Couin, commander of the Artillerie de la Garde presenting his batteries to Napoleon who is accompanied by Marshal Bessières (commander of the Guard), Roustan (his servant) and 2 men from his Chasseur à cheval de la Garde escort, a trumpeter and a trooper carrying the Emperor’s map bag.

It was left to Marshal Ney to sum up. Riding over the fields of Eylau the following morning, Ney said, Quel massacre! Et sans résultat – "What a massacre! And nothing gained."

Created by Glorious Empires, using the best designers and engravers available today, this set is now available, UNPAINTED, for € 24,95. (payment by Paypal, UK cheque or other, email me for options)
To commemorate the “First Release” of this set, Customers who order and pay prior to March 1 will be offered free delivery.

For more information contact Jacques Vullinghs - Glorious Empires

Ad oude Minderbroeders 20
6211 HM - Maastricht
Holland.

http://www.gloriousempires.com/

Having recieved the new GE set today, I must say it really looks great. All figures came without damaged or bent parts with minimum flash that took 10 minutes to clear completely all of them.What is very interesting is that even in the 3/4 depiction of some of them they look good and realistic something that is very tough not to get distortions in detail in such position. Faces and minor uniform and equipment detail is excellent and so is the engraving of the horses. Also, the explosions look very convincing even unpainted. Well done.

A little birdie told me that the next part is finished and soon will be available aslo. From the photo I saw it's of the same quality and a great addition to the first set. I can only imagine what the "diorama bufs" among us will produce using these sets. Looking forward to it.

Mignot dismounted General Staff

2008-01-25T09:54:00.000+02:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Here is the finished set from Mignot depicting Napoleon and some of his Marshals and Generals with various troops holding their horses. Mignot sets are highly collectable sets since Mignot moulds have been sold to Plassenburg museum of Germany. Quality of the engraving is superb and it definately worths the trouble to find such a set.

All figures have been painted exclusively in oils over a white primer, including the various metal items.

From left to right:

1st row:

Marshal Adolphe Edouard Casimir Joseph Mortier
Mortier's horse held by one of his Guides

Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier
Chasseurs à Cheval holding Berthier's horse

2nd row:

Marshal Michel Ney
Wuerttemberg Jaeger holding Ney’s horse

General Armand Augustin Louis de CaulaincourtChasseur à Cheval holding Caulincourt's horse

3rd row:

Napoleon Bonaparte
Roustan holding Napoleon’s horse

Marshal Jean Baptiste Bessières
Bessieres' horse held by Polish Lancer

4rth row:

Louis François, Baron Lejeune, ADC to Berthier
Emmanuel Gourgaud, Comte de Las Cases
Chasseur holding Lejeune's and Gourgaud's horses

Marshal Josef Anton Poniatowski

Poniatowski’s Guide holding his horse

5th row:

Marshal Joachim Murat
Murat's horse held by a Neapolitan Hussar

Prince Eugene

Italian Honour Guard holding Eugene's horse

Attic Miniatures

2007-12-30T18:59:00.000+02:00

By Panos Charalampakis

While on the usual look for more sets for my collection I found out a new editor, UK based, that looks promising, Attic Miniatures. At the moment they have some old Western Miniature sets that was rather difficult to aquire. Many British subject which usually are rare among the German editors with plans for their own designs in the future. Worth to keep an eye on these fellows.
They do have paypal and I got very fast and pleasant responses to my mails.
Link is http://www.attic-miniatures.com/

Leopold von Dessau vignette finished

2007-12-24T21:30:00.000+02:00

By Panos Charalampakis

This is my first over 30mm figure (or group of figures anyway) that I finish. It’s a new set from Fredericus Rex engraved by Daniel Lepeltier and designed by Konrad Schultze. It is of 54mm and consists of 3 pieces, two sections of the house entrance and wall and the group of figures standing on the doorstep and the pavement. It is painted exclusively with oils straight over white primer. The background and the ground are painted without insisting on detail with numerous washes and dry brusing as I didn’t want to “steal” from the detail of the figures. Black, blues, browns and sienna reds were used for the washes while lighter tones of greys, red, greens (very sparingly) and whites in some spots were used for dry brushing. I confess I chickened out and I didn’t paint the sky myself that’s why I used an enlarged section of the sky of the actual painting.
The figures were based onto the painting that Konrad provides into his site and tried to follow as closely as I could the actual painting, although in some spots I deviated from it simply because I felt it suited the whole composition better. A different tone, a more or less pronounced cast shadow and so on. As usual, no paint were used straight from the tube but always added a 2nd (and sometimes a 3rd hue) to the base color for more color variation. That’s why no two whites or two blues etc have the same value. I won’t bother you with the exact mixes, although I have kept a small recipe of what I used for easy re mixing if I need a similar tone in the future. I’m sure that more things could be done, but I prefer set a limit when adding details, new shadows and lights or making corrections, otherwise I could spend a year just by adding, removing or correcting things. I prefer doing so and move to my next subject. Oh, and also for the first time I made the frame myself with some leftover laquered wood I had from my previous “round figure” life.

Leopold von Dessau und seine Annaliese

2007-11-14T17:35:00.001+02:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Leopold von Dessau und seine Annaliese

Upon seeing the newly produced vignette from Konrad Schulte of Fredericus Rex, although not a fun of the period, I was instantly taken by its beauty. The Prince mounted onto his proud white horse is talking to a shy young lady while her father paying his respect to the Prince and the rest of the family observing the obviously rare incidence of meeting with a Prince. Designer is Mr Schulte himself while the engraver is Daniel Lepeltier. So by now you know what to expect in respect of quality of the piece. Simply first rate. Oh, I forgot to mention it’s a one-side only engraving.

Fig. 1

The new vignette of Fredericus Rex at 54mm

Fig. 2
The painting upon which the vignette was inspired.

Ok, but who was this man you might ask. Well I didn’t know also so I had to look through internet to try and find some things about his life. Here is a sort story that helps to understand who was this man and what were his achievements in life.

LEOPOLD I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau (July 3, 1676 – April 7, 1747), called "the Old Dessauer" (der alte Dessauer), General Field Marshal in the Prussian army, was the only surviving son of John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, and was born at Dessau.

Fig. 3
Leopold I von Dessau

From his earliest youth he was devoted to the profession of arms, for which he educated himself physically and mentally. He became colonel of a Prussian regiment in 1693, and in the same year his father's death placed him at the head of his own principality. Thereafter, during the whole of his long life, he performed the duties of a sovereign prince and a Prussian officer.
His first campaign was that of 1695 in the Netherlands, in which he was present at the siege of Namur. He remained in the field to the end of the war of 1697, the affairs of the principality being managed chiefly by his mother, Princess Henriette Catherine of Orange. In 1698 he married Anna Luise Rise, an apothecary's daughter of Dessau, in spite of his mother's long and earnest opposition, and subsequently he procured for her the rank of a princess from the emperor (1701). Their married life was long and happy, and the princess acquired an influence over the stern nature of her husband which she never ceased to exert on behalf of his subjects, and after the death of Leopold's mother she performed the duties of regent when he was absent on campaign. Often, too, she accompanied him into the field.
Leopold's career as a soldier in important commands begins with the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession. He had made many improvements in the Prussian army, notably the introduction of the iron ramrod about 1700, and he now took the field at the head of a Prussian corps on the Rhine, serving at the sieges of Kaiserswerth and Venlo. In the following year (1703), having obtained the rank of lieutenant-general, Leopold took part in the siege of Bonn and distinguished himself very greatly in the battle of Hochstadt, in which the Austrians and their allies were defeated by the French under Marshal Villars (September 20, 1703). In the campaign of 1704 the Prussian contingent served under Prince Louis of Baden and subsequently under Eugene, and Leopold himself won great glory by his conduct at Blenheim. In 1705 he was sent with a Prussian corps to join Prince Eugene in Italy, and on the 16th of August he displayed his bravery at the hard-fought battle of Cassano. In the following year he added to his reputation in the battle of Turin, where he was the first to enter the hostile entrenchments (September 7, 1706). He served in one more campaign in Italy, and then went with Eugene to join Marlborough in the Netherlands, being present in 1709 at the siege of Tournay and the battle of Malplaquet. In 1710 he succeeded to the command of the whole Prussian contingent at the front, and in 1712, at the particular desire of the crown prince, Frederick William, who had served with him as a volunteer, he was made a General Field Marshal. Shortly before this he had executed a coup de main on the castle of Mors, which was held by the Dutch in defiance of the claims of the king of Prussia to the possession. The operation was effected with absolute precision and the castle was seized without a shot being fired.
In the earlier part of the reign of Frederick William I, the prince of Dessau was one of the most influential members of the Prussian governing circle. In the war with Sweden (1715) he accompanied the king to the front, commanded an army of 40,000 men, and met and defeated Charles XII. in a severe battle on the island of Riigen (November 16). His conduct of the siege of Stralsund which followed was equally skilful, and the great results of the war to Prussia were largely to be attributed to his leadership in the campaign. In the years of peace, and especially after a court quarrel (1725) and duel with General von Grumbkow, he devoted himself to the training of the Prussian army. The reputation it had gained in the wars of 1675 to 1715, though good, gave no hint of its coming glory, and it was even in 1740 accounted one of the minor armies of Europe. That it proved, when put to the test, to be by far the best military force existing, may be taken as the summary result of Leopold's work. The "Old Dessauer" was one of the sternest disciplinarians in an age of stern discipline, and the technical training of the infantry, under his hand, made them superior to all others in the proportion of five to three (see War Of The Austrian Succession). He was essentially an infantry soldier; in his time artillery did not decide battles, but he suffered the cavalry service, in which he felt little interest, to be comparatively neglected, with results which appeared at Mollwitz. Frederick the Great formed the cavalry of Hohenfriedberg and Leuthen himself, but had it not been for the incomparable infantry trained by the "Old Dessauer" he would never have had the opportunity of doing so. Thus Leopold, heartily supported by Frederick William, who was himself called the great drill-master of Europe, turned to good account the twenty years following the peace with Sweden. During this time two incidents in his career call for special mention: first, his intervention in the case of the crown prince Frederick, who was condemned to death for desertion, and his continued and finally successful efforts to secure Frederick's reinstatement in the Prussian army; and secondly, his part in the War of the Polish Succession on the Rhine, where he served under his old chief Eugene and held the office of field marshal of the Empire.
With the death of Frederick William in 1740, Frederick succeeded to the Prussian throne, and a few months later took place the invasion and conquest of Silesia, the first act in the long Silesian wars and the test of the work of the "Old Dessauer's" lifetime. The prince himself was not often employed in the king's own army, though his sons held high commands under Frederick. The king, indeed, found Leopold, who was reputed, since the death of Eugene, the greatest of living soldiers, somewhat difficult to manage, and the prince spent most of the campaigning years up to 1745 in command of an army of observation on the Saxon frontier. Early in that year his wife died. He was now over seventy, but his last campaign was destined to be the most brilliant of his long career. A combined effort of the Austrians and Saxons to retrieve the disasters of the summer by a winter campaign towards Berlin itself led to a hurried concentration of the Prussians. Frederick from Silesia checked the Austrian main army and hastened towards Dresden. But before he had arrived, Leopold, no longer in observation, had decided the war by his overwhelming victory of Kesselsdorf (December 1 4, 1 745). It was his habit to pray before battle, for he was a devout Lutheran. On this last field his words were, "0 Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days. Or if Thou wilt not help me, do not help these scoundrels, but leave us to try it ourselves." With this great victory Leopold's career ended. He retired from active service, and the short remainder of his life was spent at Dessau, where he died on the 7th of April 1747.
While reading about this man I remembered a very peculiar and unique set edited by Scholtz (Berliner Zinnfiguren Serie No 100/158) consisting of 62 figures depicting a rather amusing incident which took place at a ballroom after a bet. Leopold ordered a platoon of infantry to march inside the ballroom, totally naked but fully armed and with their mitre-caps and boots on and fire a volley of shots through the windows. Weird humor indeed, but a nice idea for a boxed diorama for the all the funs out there. Set consists, besides the Prince, some gentlemen and ladies amused or disturbed by the incident, some furniture and of course the naked infantrymen.

Fig. 4
The Scholtz set (Berliner Zinnfiguren)

Painting Flats by Walter Fisher

2007-10-29T08:05:00.001+02:00

This article was written for Campaigns magazine No 31 issue (March/April) by the famous flat painter Walter Fisher. Edited by Joe Salkowitz

PAINTING FLATS

You may have toyed with the idea of trying your hand at flats but let them be because of a number of reasons, one being that they are not readily available. However, with patience, you should be able to obtain them. There are a growing number of dealers in Great Britain and the United States who offer flats. Keep a lookout for their ads in the magazines. Then there are the makers, or "editors", as they call themselves, that are willing, under certain circumstances, to deliver overseas.Probably the greatest advantage of flats is the vast number of different figures available. Estimates run to 200,000 and new ones are added almost daily. You can choose from a multitude of poses. There are civilians and soldiers, running, sitting, walking, sleeping, fighting, eating their food (and disposing of it). There are animals, trees and houses. Practically all eras are covered from Adam and Eve to the landing on the moon, among them themes that are only scantily, if at all, covered by round figures, such as scenes from the Old Testament, from the Nibelungenlied or the Turkish wars, of Lands-knechts and Indians (the Asiatic as well as the American kind), of kings and beggars, of nobles and peasants. There is practically no theme in history not covered by flats, though there is a certain overrepresentation of Ancients, the Middle Ages, the Thirty and Seven Years Wars and Napoleonic’s.In their home countries flats still are often used by collectors to represent historical events with vast numbers involved. It is not uncommon to find dioramas with several thousand figures. This is possible because the raw, unpainted figure is relatively inexpensive. However, since the lifetime of a collector is limited, many people paint flats in a hasty manner. Personally, I consider this barbaric. The figure is the result of careful historic research and an artistic work of design and engraving. And in the end some painter comes along and covers it all with careless blots of paint, spoiling it thoroughly. Don't let this happen! Quality should never be given up in favor of quantity.

What tools and accessories do you need? If you have been painting round figures, you will probably have at home most of the supplies you need.One item that deserves your highest care in choice and treatment is the brush. Only the highest quality is fitted for the kind of work you will want to do. Trying to save a few pennies on brushes will result in hours spent in vain and frustration. The size should be 00 or 000 (some-limes also named 2/0 and 3/0 respectively).However, more important than the size is the point. It should be long and extremely sharp. When buying a brush, make the following test-Remove the protective piece of plastic tube, draw the brush softly across the back of your hand, moisten it and see whether the point is sharp again without single hairs standing off sideways. This test is necessary because some producers treat their brushes with spray, similar to that which women use on their hair. Don't worry, if the shopkeeper knows his business, he won’t mind the little procedure.Even with careful treatment a brush will not last eternally; the point will eventually blunt but you can use it for less fine detail work or under-coating and finally discard it.Your other tools need not be chosen with similar care. For cleaning the figures you need a sharp, pointed craft knife and a small file, preferably flat on one side, slightly rounded on the other. It is best suited to reach into the narrow corners of the figure.In addition, you'll need a palette with a smooth surface like glass or china to mix the paints on. Any tile or dish will do.For the thinner you need a small cup with a capacity of two to three cubic centimeters.To get a good hold on the figures while painting, prepare a few small pieces of wood, about half an inch square and four to five inches long and some tape, sticky on both sides.Last, but not least, you should not forget to spread some sheets of newspaper on the table, not only to protect the tabletop and thus keep out of domestic trouble, but also to clean your brushes on.Paints and thinnerUnfortunately, sitting here in Europe and writing for fellow collectors in the U.K. and U.S. 1 cannot recommend a certain brand of oil paint, since I do not know what brands are on the market in your countries. Let me, however, recommend this much: seek out the finest-ground, highest quality oil paints you can find. First-class paints are as important for the quality of your work as are the brushes. Don't shy away from the somewhat higher prices. One small tube of paint will last you for years, since you use very small amounts for a figure, nor will the paints be spoiled by time, if you keep the tubes closed.The paints you will need to start with are:Titian White, Ebony Black, Scarlet, Chrome Yellow, Ultramarine or Cobalt Blue, Prussian Blue, Burnt Siena, Burnt Umber, Dark Ochre, Flesh Ochre (a kind of light Reddish-Brown), English Red, Naples Yellow. You will note thatI didn't mention green. You can mix all shades of green out of Prussian Blue, Chrome Yellow and different reds or browns.For undercoating you can use matt paints as Humbrol, Airfix, etc. Of these you need white, black, red, blue and chocolate-brown. You don't have to be squeamish about the exact hue, since these priming colors are just to provide the underground for the oils.

For thinner I use a painting medium sold at art shops, which I mix with turpentine in a ratio of one part medium to two parts turps. This gives a fine silky finish, not too matt and not too glossy. You can increase the gloss by reducing the turpentine in the mixture and vice versa. Pure turpentine will give you a completely matt finish. Again, I'm afraid, you'll have to find out the correct painting medium yourself, since the one I use, "Mussini — Malmittel III", will probably not be for sale in your country.Of course, it's not sensible to mix up medium and turps for every painting session; it's better to prepare a somewhat larger amount in advance.Preparing the figure for paintingHaving cleaned the figure of all flash with your craft-knife and file, fasten it to one of your square wood pieces with tape. This will give you a good handhold and by laying it on its side you can paint the figure as if it were a piece of paper without the backside touching the tabletop.Now, using one of your second-class brushes, prime the figure with matt white. Do this by taking out a small lump of the pigment, which has collected at the bottom of the tin, with a toothpick or the end of your brush handle and put it on the palette. Thin it down well with your thinner mixture, then undercoat the figure with it. Take care not to clog up the fine details. The primer is only to take away the metal sheen and thus prepare the figure for the oils. It is not necessary that the priming give a shining white surface. It should be applied very thinly and it's quite alright if you see the gray metal shining through.After this first priming has dried thoroughly, which will take at least two hours, apply another coat, in the proper colors this time. Undercoat all larger areas (not the fine details) that are to be painted red, blue, black or Burnt Umber in their final stage with the matching matt colors. This will allow you to apply very thin oil colors later on, thus enabling you to bring out soft shades without an edge.Let this second coating dry for at least two hours before entering the final stage of painting.Painting with OilsPress a very small amount of oil color onto your palette (you need very little and unfortunately nobody has succeeded yet in finding a method to put paint back into the tube). Now moisten the brush with plenty of thinner and start thinning the paint to a creamy to watery consistency before applying it to the figure.It is a common mistake with beginners to apply paints too thickly. When you can see brush marks on the figure, the paint positively needs more thinning. It is next to impossible to achieve soft shading with a paint not sufficiently thinned.So put in thinner until you are sure that it's absolutely too thin, then put in some more and now, maybe, it's almost thin enough.However, if the paint should suddenly run off by itself and the undercoating look up at you — well, do you have to take my advice that literally?I stress this point so strongly because I know that the consistency of the color presents a stumbling block for many a beginner. The larger the area to be painted, the more fluid the color should be. The very fine details of a face, for instance, have to be painted with almost unthinned colors, just with a moist brush, while the relatively large area of a jacket needs an almost watery consistency. Keep these points in eye and do a bit of experimenting. You'll quickly get the knack.

Try to take as little paint on your brush as possible and try to keep it to the point. Not only will this save paint, it also helps to draw fine details and the brush is easier to clean.When finished with one color, dip the brush into the thinner without touching the bottom of Preparing the figure for painting Then, having sucked up fluid, pull it, flatly and softly across the newspaper on your tabletop. The paint is drawn out of the brush, together with the thinner, and sucked up by the paper. Repeat this four or five times until only clear thinner is left on the paper. Now you can use the brush for another color. Do not wash out he brush in the thinner, as this will leave surplus color in the cup and thus force you to change the fluid more often. There also is danger of damaging your precious brush in the process. Take care to pull the brush really very flatly across the paper, as this avoids bending the hairs sideways and also helps to draw the unwanted color to the point and from there to the paper.When finished with painting, stow the brushes standing vertically in a glass after cleaning them.Most people are somewhat shy to use artist's oil colors; the name implies that they are for professionals only and hard to handle. Well, it's exactly the other way round.I can't think of another sort of paint that is easier to use. Everybody who has used watercolors knows how hard it is to get soft shadings without visible borders, because the color dries up so fast. And if you slip up somewhere, the fault is almost impossible to correct. Not so with oils. They stay soft for many hours, which gives you plenty of time to achieve soft shadings by stroking softly with your brush. You can put wet oil paints side by side and they will not run into each other. If you wish them to do so, you have to help with your brush, which means that you have the process under control all the time.The amount of brushing the border between two shades of color and the consistency of the paints are decisive for the smoothness of your painting. Spend some time exercising!However, having mastered the technique, please keep in eye the following: It is wonderful to give a fine porcelain-like finish to the face of a beautiful lady, but absolutely unfitting for the coarse features of a hairy landsknecht. What I mean is: Keep in mind the character of the figure you are painting.If you should have the misfortune of slipping with your brush while painting with oils, this is annoying but no catastrophe. Just wait one or two days and paint it over. Oils are opaque; thank Heaven!Paint your figures step by step, finishing one small area after the other. Oil paint, although taking more than three days to harden completely, will start to thicken in a matter of a few minutes. It's better to work on a small part of the figure at a time, not more than half an inch across, better less; finish this completely before starting on the next. Life is much easier that way!Although oil colors take several days to harden completely, you usually will be able to add small details like buttons and emblems on flags twenty-four hours after you have painted the background on which the detail is to stand. With a round figure you can get away with a minimum of shading or none at all and still have an acceptable result; this is not so with a flat figure. It is up to the painter to add the third dimension with the brush.We see things in three dimensions because of two reasons. One, because we have two eyes and can see an object from two different points of view at the same time. This effect we cannot copy with the brush. Not so with the other reason. When light falls on a flat surface it is lighted evenly in its whole extent. If it, however, falls on a rounded, three-dimensional body, things are different.Those parts turned to the source of light shine in bright highlights; those parts lying sideways are grazed by the light and are medium-bright only, while the parts turned away from the light lie in dark shadows. At this point, novices to figure painting should maybe make a small experiment. Put some round object, say a beaker or pot lying on its side, under a lamp and in a moment you'll see what I mean.Now back to our figure. First you determine from which direction the light should fall on it. For a beginning I propose that we let the light shine down from above. It is easiest this way to make out which surfaces are turned toward the light and which lie in shadow. Later, when you have more practice, you can get more interesting effects by letting the light come from the side or even from below, from a campfire, maybe. Of course it's most important that the light come from the same direction for all figures belonging to the same group.When painting, you can work out the third dimension by brightening the lighted surfaces and darkening those in the shadow. This is done by mixing in a lighter color (usually, but not always, white), or a darker one (usually, but not always, black) into the basic color.The following table shows which lightening or darkening color belongs to which basic color.This is a chart that looks ok on the message page but not when it is posted. I will put two // to help you read the three columns of Basic Color//Shadows//Highlights. Ignore the word green, in brackets, in front of Black,the shadow, on the last two rows, it is some techincal error I could not correct.

Basic Color/ /Shadows/ /Highlights

Flesh Ochre/ /Burnt Siena//White (for human skin) Yellow (for other objects)

Burnt Siena/ /Black/ /White (for human skin) /Yellow (for other objects)

Red/ /English Red or/ /Yellow/Burnt Siena or//Black/

Chrome Yellow/ /Flesh Ochre or/ /White /English Red or Black/

Ultramarine/ /or Prussian Blue/ /White

Green/ /Prussian Blue or/ /White or /Black / /Chrome Yellow

English Red/ /Prussian Blue/ /Naples Yellow

Dark Ochre/ / Black / /White

Burnt Umber/ / Black / /White

There are a few basic colors that need special attention. Highlighting red with yellow is acceptable only if you allow for a slight orange sheen. If not, do not highlight at all but instead, darken the shadows strongly, deepen the medium lighted parts somewhat and leave the basic, unmixed color for the highlights only. This way, the paint will glow in a deep fiery red. Never lighten red with white as this will result in a dull, sick-looking pink.Things are similar with white and black. How you can highlight white or darken black? The answer is simple: You can't! There's no white that's whiter than white (and don't let producers of detergents tell you otherwise!) and there's no black blacker than black.The trick is to paint the medium-light parts not pure white or black but light or dark gray, leaving white for the highlights or black for the deepest of shadows.When lightening black by adding white, you may notice that the resulting gray sometimes has a somewhat dull look. This may be all right with some textiles but looks wrong on a fiery black horse or the hair of a beautiful senorita. A small touch of Prussian Blue mixed into the black will work wonders.Roughly speaking, there are two ways to lighten or darken the basic color.Method number one: Mixing paints on the figure: You paint the figure in basic color, then mix in white or some other light color for the highlights and black or some other dark color for the shadows. Most beginners find this method easier because it gives them time to think about where to put light and shadow while painting and allows a certain amount of experimenting.Method number two: Mixing paints on the palette: You determine which parts should be light, medium and dark before you touch the figure with your brush, mix the three shades on your palette, apply them to their proper places on the figure and soften the borders. I prefer this method because it allows me to mix up the exact hue I wish to have. I can mix the paints thoroughly without the danger of smearing them across the figure by accident.Some colors can be painted by this method only. For instance, when lightening English Red with Naples Yellow (a combination which looks very good on bay horses), you'll find that Naples Yellow has such a weak coloring power compared to English Red, that it is next to impossible to lighten up the latter. You can solve this problem by mixing a portion of Naples Yellow with just a trace of English Red on the palette and applying it to the highlight zone.Method two really is the easier painting technique. Its only disadvantage is that it takes a certain amount of practice in abstract thinking to determine which parts are to be lighted or shadowed.I have written how to achieve soft shading between two colors or two different shades of the same color. But sometimes you will want the opposite effect. The border between, for instance, jacket and trousers of a figure may seem too soft, with too little contrast. In this case use the following trick:Take the brush with the finest point and draw a thin black line along the border, then carefully integrate the line into the darker of the two adjacent colors. If you leave the line as it is, it will not look bad but it will give your figure the character of a colored ink drawing rather than a painting.When starting to paint flats, one usually is afraid to put in really strong shadows. If you have trouble overcoming this, take a look at pictures of an old master such as Rembrandt or Rubens. You'll see that the strong plasticity and depth of their figures results from the bold darkening of shadows. One of the best methods to improve your painting is to study the technique of professionals as often as possible.Painting the FaceMeeting a person, the first things we usually look at are the face and the eyes; they are the features that turn people into persons. Since most of our figures represent human beings, this also goes for miniatures.A face is a landscape with hills and ridges, with highlights and shadows. And yet, it is not too hard to paint, when you know where to put highlights and shadows.If the source of light lies above the head the following parts are to be highlighted: The forehead (if not shadowed by the brim of a hat), the bridge and wings of the nose, the top of the cheek bones, the lips, the tip of the chin, the jaw line and the rim and lobes of the ears.Shadowed are the temples, the eye sockets, the sides of the nose, the nostrils, the underside of the cheek bones, the mouth, the horizontal fold below the lower lip, the folds that run from the sides of the nose to the sides of the mouth, the neck below chin and jaw line.Don't be afraid to paint bold contrasts. The details are so small that you have to overdo things to bring out the desired effect. People in show business exaggerate their makeup strongly for the stage. This is necessary because of the distance to the spectators. It's similar with our figures. A 30mm figure, viewed from about one foot, is the same size as a life-size person from a distance of 60 feet.A very important detail of the face is the eyes. Start by painting a deep shadow into the eye sockets. And, if you wish, you may stop right here! Looking at a person from 60 feet, see how much you can see of the eyes at this distance!If, however, your ambitions run to a higher level, paint the eyebrows. Below them paint narrow lines of light skin color. These are the tops of the eyelids. Now paint the eyelashes with thin curved black lines. No matter how hard you try or how sharp your brush tip may be, these lines will probably be too thick. Don't worry; this will be remedied in the next step. Paint the eyeball white or very light grey and in doing this cover up the black line of the eyelash to such an extent that only a narrow shaving is left visible. Don't hesitate to paint on the wet color. Colors should be practically unthinned for the fine details and so they will take the over painting without complaints. And now, finally, put in the black pinpoint that stands for iris and pupil, taking care that it is in contact with the eyelash or, better still, it is only a slightly thicker part of the lash.Looking somebody in the eye you will see that the iris and pupil usually are partly covered by the lid. Needless to say, the pupils should be aligned parallel (unless you should be painting a miniature of Marty Feldman).Basic Skin ColorsEuropeans: Basic color is a mixture of Flesh Ochre and white; add more white for the highlights, Burnt Siena for the shadows.For South Europeans, Turks, East Indians, etc., add a bit of violet.Japanese and Chinese have a little Chrome Yellow added to their basic color.American Indians have a mixture of Flesh Ochre and Burnt Siena for basic color, white for the highlights, black for the shadows.Africans come in a multitude of hues from light brown like milk coffee to blue-black. Accordingly, you can use the whole range of brown colors like ochre. Burnt Siena, Burnt Umber to black mixed with Prussian Blue. Make sure to work out strong contrasts with the help of white, brightly shining highlights. Negroes often have rather bright reflexes on their skins.When painting lips, do not paint them too bright a red; just mix a small amount of red into the basic flesh color. The same goes for cheeks and noses with the exception, maybe, of a certain group of elder gentlemen who bear their lifelong preference for a good glass of Port brightly visible in their faces. Here you may add a touch of reddish blue.Painting metalIf you have painted figures or models before, you know how hard it is to paint a metal surface so that it gives a convincing impression.You probably used metallic paints. This also works with flats but the disadvantage of these bronzes, the coarseness of their pigments, is even more visible, since the painted areas are so small. However, the result is quite acceptable if you shade the colors somewhat, using black for silver colored metals and Burnt Umber for gold bronze.Flats, being made of a brightly shining metal, offer another alternative. After having cleaned the figure from all flash, do not prime it. Instead, mix up a water wash of paint and let it run over those parts of the figure that are to stay metallic. The wash will settle in the deeper-lying parts of the engraving, bringing out the details more distinctly. You can reinforce this effect by polishing the figure softly with a paper napkin after a few hours. Use a wash of black for silver for iron, of black mixed with PrussianBlue for steel, of Burnt Siena for rusty metal, of Indian Yellow for gold. After the wash has dried for some hours you can add shadows in the proper places, then undercoat the surfaces that are to be non-metallic and proceed painting as usual.There still is a third method.For centuries shining metal has been painted by great masters of the art without ever using metal bronzes. How did they do it? Take an art print and try to analyze it. The result is surprising. Shining armor is composed of planes of white, black and grey, gold treasures consist of Naples Yellow, orange and brown tones, arranged in such a way that the eye is cheated into seeing bright metal. Have a try at it yourself, see whether you like it and try to copy it. If not, you still have the other two methods.

Painting small detailsIt is self-evident that small details as buttons, badges, emblems on shields or flags should be painted with the finest brush available and with almost unthinned colors. If painting white or yellow details on a black background or vice versa everything is all right. If you, however, paint yellow buttons in a white tunic or a white eagle on a red flag, the contrast may be insufficient. Use a little trick here. First paint the details in black, then, about 24 hours later, when the paint is dry, paint it over in the proper color, leaving just the slightest idea of black visible around the edges. This procedure takes some patience, but the result is well worth it.How to obtain/lotsHoping to have whetted your appetite for flats, I can't leave you without knowing how to get your hands on them. Unfortunately, the dealers that stock them are thinly spread outside Germany. If you cannot get hold of one of them, try your luck with the editors. Don't be afraid to write to them in your own language. English is understood by many Germans and every editor surely knows somebody who can translate for him, if he does not speak it himself. Now, it's not easy to order something if you don't know what the editor has to offer. First, write to ask for a catalogue or list, enclosing an I.R.C. Most editors have illustrated catalogues, for which they usually charge a fee or a non-illustrated list, which they give free. Although the text is in German, you should manage with the help of a dictionary. If you are too impatient to wait for the catalogue, you also can ask the editor to send figures of a certain value of this or that era together with the catalog, leaving the exact choice to the editor.When first making contact, you might find him asking for advance payment or payment by reimbursement. Do not be insulted. Most editors are not professionals and they may have had trouble with one customer or another and feel that it is harder to come to their money if they should hit on a foul customer on the other side of the border. However, there is no personal offense meant. And at your second order they probably will treat you as an old fellow collector.Have some patience; many editors work during the day and have time for figures in the evening only.

Le Petit Soldat 2007

2007-10-18T08:16:00.000+03:00

Here are the entries of this year's Le Petit Soldat exhibition. Although the quality is excellent, flat figures were too few compared with other entries unfortunately .

Franzoia Serge

Yves Durand

Amalia Retuerto
Unknown artist

First four Cantiniere couples

2007-09-27T20:48:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

These are the first four couples of my Cantiniere ladies of the 2nd empire from Segom. They are designed by Jean Barriere and engraved by Daniel Lepeltier at 30mm based on Rousselot plates. So from upper left going clockwise we have:

Upper Left: Cantiniere des Cent-Garde while being presented to the Emperor and his wife.

Upper right: Cantiniere des Chasseurs a pied de la Garde.

Lower right: Cantiniere des Zouaves.

Lower left: Cantiniere du 6eme Rgt. de Dragons.

In the next article, four more couples will be presented untill all 20 of them are ready to be displayed as a collection framed with their correspodnent name tags.

Cantinieries of the 2nd Empire

2007-09-17T09:43:00.001+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Another new set arrived today as a surprise from my wife (who said wifes aren't a useful thing! ). And what a set indeed! Actually it is 2 sets from the French Segom (serie No 21 and serie No 25) depicting cantinieres of the 2nd empire of various regiments.

The following regiments are represented:

Serie No 21

1) Grenadiere de la Guard.

2) Artillerrie de la Guard.

3) Voltigeurs de la Guard.

4) Dragons de l'Imperatrice.

5) Zouaves de la Guard.

6) Chasseurs a pied de la Guard.

7) Lanciers de la Guard.

8) Guides de la Guard.

9) Cantiniere des Cent-garde.

Serie No 25

1) Chasseurs a cheval de la Guard.

2) Chasseurs d'Afrique.

3) Cuirassiere de la Guard.

4) 1st Hussars.

5) Train de la Guard.

6) Gendarmerie de la Guard.

7) Genie de la Guard.

8) Spathis de la ligne.

9) Infanterie.

10) 4rth Hussars.

11) Dragons de la ligne.

Detail is really good in designing and engraving with almost no flash. Detail is very good with faces full of character and hands representing what they suppose to represent: hands and not blobs of metal that need painting to show what they are.I am not 100% sure for the historic accuracy in detail since I haven't looked at them closely along with my references yet, but I'm sure it will be excellent. In my opinion, the fact that they come in pairs with a man from their regiment, will produce a really lovely result when they are all painted and displayed together. Some of them come along with a small child interacting pleasingly with the pair. Nice touch.Another strong point is the references that they come with. An A4 four page leaflet along with excellent plates for each of the figures in A4 format and in full color. Jean Barriere, owner of Segom have done a great job on this, setting the golden standards for all other flat manifacturers and sellers. This is what it should be when you're getting a historic figure in whatever form it is.

Here are the two sets as they came packed with that plastic bubble thingies inside their cardboard boxes.

Close detail of one pair.

All references and plates came into these A4 envelopes.

An example of a plate. In A4 format they are so nicely detailed that you virtually don't need any other reference besides the plate.

Price for both sets was 120 euros plus 10 euros for posting to Greece. Considering what these two sets offer, along with the maginificent plates, I believe its more than fair.All in all, if I had to grade it I would put a 10 out of 10 easily and without second thoughts.

More about Segom in their excellent site, full of figures and informatio, at http://www.figurines-soldats.com/

Carribean Pirates

2007-09-16T18:37:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Here is my new set, small this time, that served as a relaxation between my usual big sets of figures. Its from our dear Golberg ladies, designed by Luicien Rousselot and engraved by Raphael Pepin in 30mm (Code BO 28). Its title is Carribean pirates 1680-1730. Quality of figures was very good, and preparation was only minimal cleaning up, washing and primering with thinned humbrol white. Detail was a bit simple for my taste but I guess this is what these people supposed to be, without glamorous garments or weaponry.

When I paint figures I use to think of them as part of history so I try to find infos about them, of what were they, where they lived and how, what they did and so on. It helps me understand the figures better and I like to think of them as a part of a historic event. So, allow me to tell you some few worlds about these fellows.

What we know as pirates started from some people called Bucaneers, European that moved to the Caribbean region and they started their life as hunters and farmers. They used whatever they could find as clothing and weaponry, mainly animal hides and leather, wool and linen. They were armed with simple knives, swords and hunting rifles. Later, as Spanish hunt them down, poverty was too much and Spanish galleons were in abundance carrying treasures from America to Europe, they started what we know today as piracy. Organized in smaller or bigger crews, with small vessels, harassed the Spanish treasure ships and later nearly everything that was of some profit. Besides ships, they also raided Spanish colonies in central America for gold, animals, slaves and various other goods.

Here is where I have put my small set of pirates. Crew members of a pirate gang of Blackbeard or Henry Morgan, both very famous pirates of their age, raiding. Jamaica, Portobello, Maracaibo or Panama city. Furious, rough and uncivilized people always willing to grab some treasure, rum or woman.

My pirates are painted in oil as usual, with simple colors for simple, cheap and worn clothes and worn leather belts and scabbards.

Funeral of Goustavous Adolphous Part II

2007-09-04T19:05:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Funeral of Goustavous Adolphous Part II

These are figures from Mohr's set depiciting the funeral proccesion of the Swedish king Goustavous Adolphous, 30mm in size painted with oils. This article consists the rest of the figures. For the first half of the set see previous article (12 July).

The whole set took about 4 months of painting and studying about it. It was a really enjoyable experience even if the large amount of figures were a pain some times. Patterns of the banners and flags are actual patterns, not imaginary. All metal surfaces of armor and weapons are done with non metallic oils (i.e. white, black, paynes gray, various ochres and browns).

Above:

The whole set ready to depart for the frame specialist shop to get its wooden frame. Arrangement of the figures is random, final placement will take place in the framing shop.

From left to right:

1) Wrangel.

2) Rattsherr.

3) Axel Oxelstierna.

From left to right:

1) Foot cuirassier trooper.

2) Officer of the guards.

3) Trooper of the guards.

From left to right:

1) Trumpeter.

2) Timbalier.

From left to right:

1) Banner.

2) Groom.

3) Banner of Herzog Bernhard von Saschen.

Both left and right:

1 & 2) Royal banner.

Both left and right:
1 & 2) Mounted cuirassier carrying royal banner.

Both left and right:
1 & 2) Foot soldiers carrying banners.

From left to right:

1) Foot banner.

2) Wilhelm von Weimar.

3) Pikeman.

Kulmbach Show

2007-08-13T20:25:00.000+03:00

The 2007 Kulmbach exhibition took place from Friday 10th- Sunday 12th of August in Germany. People that visited the show uploading their pictures at the British Flat Figure Society's forum. Please visit our society's forum at http://www.britishflatfigures.org.uk/forum/default.asp the next 2-3 days for some spectacular flat work by many known and not so known artists. Pictures can be found at General and Gallery sections.

Marshal Jean-BaptisteJourdan

2007-07-22T23:20:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Marsal

Jean-Baptiste, count Jourdan

(Limoges, 1762 - Paris, 1833)

Jourdan, wire of a surgeon, engages at 16 years, in 1778, in the Armies of the king and combat in America. On its return in France, it is reformed for disease and is established as draper. When comes the Revolution, its liberal ideas and its military past make it elect Capitaine of Hunters. He climbs the hierarchical levels and is distinguished in Belgium in 1792. July 30, 1793, it is named major general and obtains little after the command as a head of the Army of North. LE October 16 and 17, it gains the battle of Wattignies. Suspect to have been opposed to the plans of the Committee of the Public Hello, it is relieved but soon recalled and placed at the head of the Army of the Moselle, March 9, 1794. After have take Dinant and Charleroi, it gain the decisive victory of Fleurus, the 26 June 1794, with head of various body which take the name of Army of Sambre-and-Meuse. It beats the Austrians on June 4, 1796 in Altenkirchen. In 1796, beaten beyond the Rhine, it is replaced by Hoche.
Eread with the Council of Cinq-Cents in 1797, it makes vote on March 5, 1798 the law on the conscription which bears its name. In October 1798, it takes the command of the Army of the Danube and beats the Austrians with Stockach (March 26, 1799). But it is obliged to fold up itself and is replaced by the Masséna General. It leaves the army on April 3, 1799.
In October 1799, it starts by being opposed, as a néo-Jacobin and a member of the Council of Cinq-Cents, with the coup d'etat of the 18-Brumaire. However, it joins quickly in Bonaparte. The First Consul, who wishes to be surrounded of the heroes of the Revolution, names it on July 21, 1800 ambassador in Piedmont. It is made advise of State in 1802, then senator and finally marshal in 1804. But Napoleon does not entrust to him significant stations, if not the Army of Italy in 1805.Jourdan follows Joseph Bonaparte to Naples, as governor of the city in 1806 then to Spain. It is named major-General of the Spanish Army. It takes part in the campaigns of Spain in 1808 and 1809. It controls the French Armies at the time of the battle of Vitoria (June 21, 1813). Re-entered to France, it remains in a half-disgrace. Napoleon makes it nevertheless even France during the Hundred Days and controlling as a head of the Army of the Rhine. Under the Restoration, Jourdan joins in Louis XVIII who confers the title of count to him, then in Louis-Philippe, who appoints it provisional police chief with the Foreign Affairs, finally governor of the Invalids. It dies in Paris in 1833.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Jean Baptiste Jourdan. He has the classic ceremony coat of Marshall, with gold embroideries in oak leaves. Well distinguished general during the first campaigns after the Revolution and in the Consulate (Italy 1797 and 1800), he was one of first Marshalls created on May, the 19 of 1804.

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Jourdan.html

Marshal Laurent Gouvion Saint Cyr

2007-07-22T23:14:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Marshal

Laurent, marquis of Gouvion-Saint-Cyr

(1812)(Toulon, 1764 - Hyères, 1830)

Bivouac of the battle of Polotsk on August 18, 1812National museum of Versailles and Trianons

Born: April 13, 1764

Died: March 17, 1830

Place of Birth: Toul

Cause of Death: Natural causes

Gouvion, wire of a tanner, is only three years old when his/her mother leaves the residence. After a voyage two years in Italy, he becomes Master of drawing, in Toul then in Paris. In 1792, it decides to engage in the republican army. It is there that it adds Saint-Cyr to his name, to be distinguished from his/her cousins. It fights in the Army of the Moselle. It intelligent, is informed, able, it has an excellent blow ofœit; Gouvion-saint-Cyr climbs the military levels quickly. June 16, 1794, it is already major general, a record of speed. It controls a division with the Army of the Rhine-and-Moselle and is distinguished with the seat from Mainz. In 1798, it receives the provisional command of the Army of Rome, which invades the Papal States and creates the Roman Republic. Gouvion brings back the discipline in the row of the officers, who have just relieved Masséna. It is pointed out on July 26, 1798. It is useful in the Army of Italy and takes part, under Joubert, with the battle of Novi, August 15, 1799. After the battle, it manages to make the junction with the remainder of the army. Quand Masséna comes to replace Joubert, killed with Novi, Gouvion obtains to be affected with the Army of Italy and beats the Austrian armies. For his exploits in Italy, Bonaparte decrees to him the patent of first lieutenant of the Army and a sabre of honor. Affected with the Army of Germany under Moreau, it seizes Freiburg and takes part in the battle of Hohenlinden, December 3, 1800. In 1801, it is charged to assist Lucien Bonaparte in Spain. Two years later, he is a lieutenant of the occupying army in Naples, under Murat. However, it appears a little too independent on the political level with the taste of its superiors. In 1804, it will not be made marshal, but becomes colonel-General of the cuirassiers. In 1805, it is useful in the army which must subject the kingdom of Naples, whose Joseph is the new King.
IL controls an army corps during the program of Poland of 1807. In 1808, one entrusts the command of VIIème body to him, with white card to operate in Catalonia. Gouvion-saint-Cyr aligns victory over victory. In spite of the lack of artillery and ammunition, it manages to take the fort of Pinks on December 4, 1808 and Barcelona. It then receives commands which it considers unrealizable, learns its replacement and leaves its station prematurely. This new mark of independence is worth the stops to him and new forty.
EN 1811, Napoleon recalls it to the Council of State and entrusts to him the command of VIème body of the Grande Armée. Gouvion-saint-Cyr gains battles; he demolishes in particular Wittgenstein with Polotsk, August 7, 1812 and receives the stick of marshal. March 1813, sick, it re-enters to Paris. Controlling an army corps, it takes part in the battle of Dresden (August 26-27, 1813). Napoleon entrusts the defense of the city to him, but with court of food and ammunition, it capitulates on November 11, 1813. He is a prisoner until June 1814. When it returns to France, Louis XVIII is on the throne and A named Pair of France. With the return of Napoleon of the island of Elba, Gouvion, in Orleans, makes carry the white rosette to its men.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Laurent Gouvion Saint CyrRepresented here with the uniform of Colonel General of the Cuirassiers, personally studied for him to wear during the ceremony of the "Sacre", when Napoleon self proclaimed Emperor. Talented artist, painter, student of the Roman Empire and fine arts, and also actor of theatre, he began the military career as drawer of maps for the French Army.

http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/G/gouvionStCyr.html

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Gouvion.html

http://napoleonic-literature.com/Book_15/V1C5.htm

http://www.napoleon.org/fr/salle_lecture/biographies/files/gouvion-saint-cyr.asp

Marshal Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte

2007-07-22T23:04:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Marsal

Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte

Portrait by Kinson
National museum of the castle of Versailles and Trianons

The only case of independent success in the entourage close to the Emperor. Bernadotte, which one called Sergent Beautiful-Leg, is the single marshal who crosses the Revolution and the Empire to finish on a throne!
This lawyer wire enrôle in the royal army in 1780. It is the Revolution and the war with Austria which enable him to become officer. Kléber names him sergeant general. In 1797, Bernadotte leaves the Army of the Rhine to give his support for Bonaparte to Italy.After the peace of Campoformio, Bonaparte gives him a command subordinate. The Directory entrusts to him a short mission of ambassador in Vienna then appoints him Minister of the War from July to September 1799. Bernadotte reorganizes the army, then badly in point, but the Directors end up drawing aside him. His antipathy for Bonaparte becomes manifest. He refuses to engage frankly in the strike of State of the 18-Brumaire, which is worth a reputation of néo-Jacobin to him. Become controlling Army of the West, his name is mixed with the conspiracy with «the pots with butter»(in which circulated of the tickets anti-Bonapartists). Moreover, he marries Désirée Clary, formerly been engaged to Bonaparte, now sister-in-law of Joseph.He becomes marshal in 1804 and prince of Laying-Corvo two years later, although there remains discrete in the great battles, as in Austerlitz for example (December 2, 1805). At the time of the double battle of Auerstadt and Iéna, October 14, 1806, Bernadotte, which has the role of supporting the body of Davout to the catches with the large one of the Prussian army, awaits the evening to move! Napoleon does not seem to hold rigour of it to him.On the other hand, when it is a question of continuing the remainders of the Prussian army, he fits the boots of seven miles to traverse all Prussia from the south in north. After having forced the Prussians of Blücher to capitulate in open country, he treats the officers of Swedish division made captive with Lübeck with courtesy and respect. This behavior, specimen with the eyes of the Diet of Stockholm, as well as the desire of Sweden to approach France to counter Russia, has an unexpected consequence: August 21, 1810, the States General of Œretro choose this French marshal as hereditary prince of Sweden. Napoleon will not oppose it, would be this only because one French marshal on the throne of Gustave-Adolphe is one of the prettiest turns played in England.For the moment, he still fights under the commands of Napoleon. It is during the campaign of Poland, in 1807, that he shows his best control of the command. He folds up brilliant manner towards the Russian armies of Benningsen, making it possible to Napoleon to engage the maneuver of Eylau (February 8, 1807).
On the other hand, his body takes part neither in this last battle, nor with that of Friedland (June 14, 1807). Bernadotte is finally relieved by the Emperor for control of the Saxon body of which he has the command at the time of the battle of Wagram (July 5-6, 1809). His body does not manage to take the Prussian lines and is folded up in rout at the time of the first day of the battle (July 5). The following day, whereas the forces under the command of Napoleon are victorious, he launches an eulogistic proclamation to his troops, which had relaxed the day before.Bernadotte, called near the Swedish throne, August 21, 1810, cherished by Charles XIII, appears a true Swedish. He abjures Catholicism and takes with care the businesses of his future kingdom. The interests of his new fatherland run up against those of France. If Bernadotte yields initially to the injunctions of Napoleon and declares the war in England, he reconsiders his decision since 1812 and signs an alliance with the tsar, Alexandre 1st. In 1813, Sweden enters in the coalition against France. Bernadotte brings an army of 30 000 men and his knowledge of the napoleonian tactics . His army beats Oudinot at Gross-Beeren (August 23, 1813) and Ney at Dennewitz (September 6, 1813). In Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813), he once again shows good maneuver, but avoids directly crossing iron with his rival.
At the time of the campaign of France, in 1814, Bernadotte controls the Army of North. He invades his old fatherland while passing by Holland and Belgium. Without being determining, his role was very significant in the rout of the French Army. Some speak about him like future king of France. It will not be the case, but he obtains Norway, January 14, 1814, in reward of his services. February 5, 1818, he succeeds Charles XIII, under the name of Charles XIV, king of Sweden and of Norway. He is the ancestor many monarchs who reign today still in Sweden in Norway, but also in Luxembourg, in Belgium and in Denmark. Beautiful course for the former republican sergeant Beautiful-Leg, which one says that he carried on the chest Mort «tattooing to the kings»!

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte. This rare uniform of Republican style is reprised from a portrait executed in 1807, already in the Imperial period, out of spite to Napoleon, cordially hated. Bernadotte would represent his love for Republican period and democracy, because he did not want an Emperor and his power. Owing to his contrast with Napoleon, when the Kingdom of Sweden, allied with France after some years of wars, asked to Napoleon for an heir for his old King Charles XIII, after the death of the crown Prince, Napoleon was very happy to send away Bernadotte. But he became King, with the name of Charles XIV, and betrayed his Country, entering in war during the campaign of 1813 with the Coalison against Napoleon and France.

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Bernadotte.html

Marsal Jean Lannes

2007-07-22T22:47:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Jean Lannes,

duke of Montebello,

Marshal (1804).

(Lectoure (Gers), 1769 - Vienna, 1809)

In uniform of under-Lieutentenant with the 2nd Battalion of Gers in 1792, by Guerin.

National museum of Versailles and Trianons

Born: April 10, 1769
Died: May 31, 1809
Place of Birth: Lectoure
Cause of Death: Mortally wounded at Aspern-Essling

This wire of stable boy gives up his work of apprentice dyer for enrôler in a battalion of volunteers in 1792. Its courage returns it quickly celebrates. Drawn aside for political reasons in 1795, whereas he is an already head of brigade, he re-enlists the following year for the campaign of Italy, like private. He is under the commands of the General, Bonaparte, who quickly restores it with the rank of head of brigade. Lannes is one of those which precipitate ahead with the bridge of Lodi (May 10, 1796) to encourage the soldiers to face enemy artillery. November 14, it receives two balls with battle of Arcole. The following day, learning that the fight continues, it saddle its horse and precipitates on the place of the battle, to fall soon disappeared after having received a blow on the head.
He is still in Rivoli (January 14, 1797) two months, hardly given later. Bonaparte, who noticed his exploits, eulogistically quotes it in his report/ratio and names it brigadier general. The two men become friendly. Lannes will not be able to cease besides addressing as tu the Emperor lately crowned. After Rivoli, Lannes takes the town of Imola. The pope decides to conclude a treaty. Bonaparte dispatches Lannes to him. This last, while it discusses pleasantly with sovereign pontiff, restores the command in the Papal States, in particular by the arrest and the execution of some leaders.
C' is then the campaign of Egypt, in 1798. Lannes is distinguished particular lies to the head office of Saint-Jean d' Acre (March 19 at May 20), where it is seriously wounded. In Aboukir on July 25, 1799, it takes fears it Turkish with the head of two battalions. Named major general, it re-enters to France with Bonaparte to take part in the coup d'etat of the 18-Brumaire. The First Consul entrusts the command of the consular Guard to him. At the time of the second campaign of Italy, with the head of the avant-garde, it fights in Montebello (June 9, 1800) and in Marengo (June 14, 1800). At the time of this last battle, it contains the Austrian attack during seven hours.
He is made marshal on May 19, 1804. It controls the 5th body at the time of the campaign of Austria of 1805 and the left wing with Austerlitz, December 2. It takes part in the campaign of Prussia in 1806 and beats prince Louis of Prussia with Saalfeld. Present still with Iéna (October 14, 1806), it controls the center of the Grande Armée there. Wounded in Pultusk (December 26, 1806). It takes again to it command lies of an army corps. It controls the avant-garde of the Grande Armée with Friedland and resists during four hours the attacks of the Russian army of Benningsen. In 1808, it is in Spain where it gains the battle of Tudela and directs the head office of Saragossa. It is made duke of Montebello. It remains in Spain until 1809.
Napoléon calls it near him for the campaign of Austria. It takes part in the operation of Landshut and takes part in the battle of Eckmühl (April 22, 1809). Its body is present at the seat of Ratisbon, and it empart him even of a scale to climb the walls. One of its aide-de-camps arrives at in empêcher.A Aspern, Lannes advances on the troops of the Charles archduke to divide them into two. The manœuvre succeeds but the bridges which make the junction between the two parts of the French Army are broken. The men of Lannes find themselves isolated under Austrian fire. Their head is with the face when it receives a ball of gun. Transferred onto rifles towards the island of Lobau, it is cut down by the two legs. During six days, Lannes fails. The Emperor comes to collect his last words. May 31, 1809, it succumbs in Vienna where it was transported. Its body rests in the Pantheon. Lannes is the first marshal of Empire died in the combat.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Jean Lannes, one of the three Marshalls died in battle (Bessières and Poniatowski the others). Honest, courageous and well estimated by Napoleon. Here he has a red coat, instead of the classic blue, to remember his charge on 1807 of Colonel General of the Swiss troops included in the French Army

http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/L/lannes.html

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Lannes.html

http://napoleonic-literature.com/Book_15/V1C6.htm

http://www.napoleon.org/en/reading_room/biographies/files/lannes.asp

The Funeral of Gustavus II Adolphus Part I

2007-07-12T09:52:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

This will be a two part article regarding Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus the 2nd. The set is depiciting the funeral of the Swedish King after his death at the Battle of Ludzen. In the first part some historic notes along with a general guide of the painting is presented. Twenty three out of a total of forty three figures are ready and presented here. The rest twenty figures, along with some specific information on painting, will be the topic of the second part, and will presented as soon as the figures are ready.

PART I

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden

Above:
Gustav II Adolf (also known as Gustaf Adolf the Great).

Historical Notes

Swedish Gustavus II Adolphus; December 9, 1594 – November 6. 1632), widely known by the Latinized name Gustavus Adolphus and referred to by contemporary Protestants as the Lion of the North, was King of Sweden from 1611 until his death. He is the only Swedish king to be styled "the Great". He was born in Stockholm, the son of Charles IX of the Vasa dynasty and Christina of Holstein-Gottorp.
He was King of Sweden from 1611, and as such, he was one of the major participants in the Thirty Years' War. Gustav Adolf was married to the daughter of the elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, Maria Eleonora, and chose the Prussian city of Elbing as the base for his operations in Germany. He died in battle on November 6, 1632 at Lützen in Germany.
During his reign, Gustav Adolf founded the city of Gothenburg as well as a number of smaller cities. He is also the founder of the University of Tartu in Tartu, Estonia, which then belonged to the Kingdom of Sweden. At this time, the three largest cities in the Swedish kingdom were Riga (the capital of Latvia), Stockholm and Tallinn (capital of Estonia). Gustavus Adolphus organized the strongest army of the early seventeenth century, courageously led his forces from the front, and earned the title of the "Father of Modern Warfare" because of his innovative skills in the tactical integration of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and logistics. His advancements in military science made Sweden the dominant Baltic power for the next one hundred years. Future commanders who studied and admired Gustavus included Napoleon I.
As a general, Gustav Adolf is famous for employing mobile artillery on the battlefield, as well as very aggressive tactics, where attack was stressed over defense and mobility emphasized over the usual linear tactics. His musketeers were widely known for their shooting accuracy and reload speed, three times faster than any contemporary rivals. Carl von Clausewitz and Napoleon Bonaparte considered him one of the greatest generals of all time. He was famed for consistency of purpose, and amity with his troops.
The king was an active participant in his battles. He was prone to lead charges himself at crucial moments, and was wounded several times as a result, including gunshot wounds to the neck, throat and the abdomen. Because a musketball was lodged in his neck near the spine and would cause extreme pain if he wore the customary two-part metal shell cuirass, the king adopted a flexible armor of hide. This is what he wore in his final battle. His leather armor is currently on display in the Livrustkammaren at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
Gustav Adolf occasionally used the name Captain Gars, especially early in his reign, to travel incognito. Gars is derived from the initials of "Gustavus Adolphus Rex Sueciae", Latin for "Gustav Adolf King of Sweden". He was a highly enlightened ruler, and held the Swedish nobility on a firm leash, supporting both the merchant and worker class against the nobility.
Gustav Adolf was killed at the Battle of Lützen, when, at a crucial point in the battle, he became separated from his troops while leading a cavalry charge into a dense smog of mist and gunpowder smoke. After his death, his wife initially kept his body, and later his heart, in her castle for over a year. His remains (including his heart) now rest in Riddarholmskyrkan in Stockholm.

Above:

Battle of Lutzen

Before Gustavus, groups of uncoordinated mercenaries composed most armies, with little overall organization or chain of command. The Lion of the North (as he was known) instituted permanent units, assigned a fixed chain of command, and established a philosophy of cooperation among all combatants. Instead of independent action by many different parts, the entire Swedish army now united to fight as a single team. Gustavus's use of supply lines and bases and his integration of infantry, cavalry, and artillery enabled him to form the first truly professional army in military history.
In February 1633, following the death of the king, the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates decided that his name would be styled Gustav Adolf the Great (or Gustaf Adolf den Store in Swedish). No such honor has been bestowed on any other Swedish monarch since.
The crown of Sweden was inherited in the Vasa family, and from Charles IX's time excluded those Vasa princes who had been traitors or descended from deposed monarchs. Gustav Adolf's younger brother had died years ago, and therefore there were only female heirs left. Maria Eleonora and the king's ministers took over the government on behalf of Gustav Adolf's underage daughter Christina of Sweden on her father's death. He left one other known child, his illegitimate son Gustav, Count of Vasaborg.

The Painting

The Funeral of Gustavus II Adolphus by Mohr is a classic Wimor set consisting of 43 single or group figures of magnificent detail. They are so well engraved that one has to consider if these small jewels would be better unpainted.
They required only some minutes each for clean up and priming to get them ready for painting. Which was a good think for me because I couldn’t wait to start painting them. Each figure received 2 coats of thinned white humbrol paint and set aside for a couple of days to dry totally.
What is important when you painting a set of figures that will be grouped together is first to keep the light source direction constant. I chose a rather common approach of upper left illumination, which it was rather difficult as I found out later because all the figures are presented by their right side and faces are faced to the left. That means that most of the faces are in shadow. What I did for this situation was simply to produce a bit darker mixtures in all flesh tones and create some deep shadows where appropriate, while keeping highlights on the softer side... I tried to highlight upper left sides of all figure a bit more than the lower left sides. Maybe if I should have thought better I would choose an upper right approach for convenience since painting 43 figures isn’t something easy by itself.
Next important thing you have to consider is that since there are many figures with various hues and tones, it would be better if you paint them in small groups of neighboring figures. That simply means that for each 3-4 figures that are close with each other, tones must be kept in harmony so a better aesthetic result will be produced when they are finished and displayed. Hues that “suit” each other such as yellow and brown, or red and green were used for this purpose with shadows mainly produced by their complementary colors respectively.
Another small trick which I strongly advise when doing such a big set is to keep color mixes simple. Every piece of flesh, every cloth they wear, every item they carry, is painted by an individual mix. No two reds are identical, not two blacks are of the same mixture or not two whites are of the same color temperature. Instead, I started from scratch for every color I used for all figures. While you vary your colors, keep the color mixes simple. I personally never use a color that is produced from more than 3 or 4 different hues maximum. If you keep adding colors, end result will be either a mud pool or the actual color will have lost its chroma or temperature somewhere in the process.
I chose to display them in a left to right facing direction with Adolph’s funeral cart and its horses as a central piece and all other figures surround it symmetrically as I though it would produce a nice aesthetic result when they will be finished. I will use black velvet background and after putting each figure on it, measuring distances between lines, rows and individual figures, I will give the whole canvas with figures to a specialist for making the frame. I will chose a simple frame so as not to out power the subject since it is most complex by itself. Name tag will also come from a specialist engraving shop.

Conclusion

Mohr’s set of “The Funeral of Gustavus II Adolphus” is one of the best set of figures I have ever came upon. Attention to detail is stunning even for the tiniest parts. Although is not an easy task to paint all these figures, surely the end result, when they are finished eventually, is most satisfying. I would recommend this set to any collector of flats, especially of this period, but not for beginner painters. Not only the great number of figures, but the small details that most of them have, make it a rather challenging task. Slow and careful painting, good references and lots and lots of time spent and coffee drunk is all that is needed.

The Figures

Above from left to right:

1. Swedish Cavalier.

2. Swedish Aristocrat.

3. Weissenfels Burguomiester.

Above from left to right:

1. King's Life Guard Rgt, Timbalier.

2. Cuirassier Officer.

3. King's Life Guard Rgt, Timbalier.

Above from left to right:

1. Groom.

2. Kettledrummer.

3. Officer, Blu Rgt.

Above from left to right:

1. Duke Bernhard of Sachsen (Second-in-comannd).

2. Germa Life Rgt Usslar, Arquebusier.

Above from left to right:

1. Swedish cavalryman, Arquebusier.

2. Arquebusier Officer.

Above from left to right:

1. Swedish Infranty, Qrquebusier.

2. Swedish Official.

3. Major General Dodo von Innhausen (Third-in-command).

Above from left to right:

1. Swedish Officer.

2. King's Life Guard Rgt, Timbalier.

3. Swedish Officer.

Above:

1. Streiff, the King's horse.

Above:

1 & 2. Horses of the King's cart carrying casket.

Above:

1. The King's casket draped with Swedish flag, escorted by Swedish officers.

Chapter 12 - The Yellow & Oranges

2007-07-11T08:58:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 12
The Yellows & Oranges

Above:
Yet another Franzoia Serge’s masterpiece of the Swedish banner series. Now an example of yellow.

Yellow is the third and last primary color. Added to blue produces green, added to red produces orange. It’s a warm color with purple violet as its complimentary hue. Cadmium yellow series has brilliant, rich chroma while lemon yellow has less chroma, being a little cooler tone. Yellow can be shadowed with orange hues, or brown hues for darker results. But, anything is permitted. Try blue, purple green, anything is possible and no one can say its not correct. If the result is what you re after and it pleases you then why not. I usually use white for highlights or a lighter tone of yellow than the base and using white only for highest highlights. Cadmium yellow replaced. chromium yellow since the latter is poisonous due to zinc content and it has great tinting and covering power making it very useful as for basic painting and for glazes. Remember that its brilliant thought, so if you want to cut its power a bit add small amount of white to decrease its chroma.

Although ochre family doesn’t really belongs here, I will mention about it in this chapter. There are a lot of useful ochres available out there. I like yellow ochre, which contains a bit of black and green even if it’s not obvious, golden ochre and brown ochre. Some people call them earthen yellows. Shading can be done with brows for shadows and napples yellow light or white for highlights. More about these colors in the chapter dealing with replicating metals.

Orange is the result of red and yellow mix. It’s not a difficult color to paint and shade convincely. It has the same properties of the parent colors, so by using opaque parent colors, the orange will be opaque. And same applies for transparent hues. Cadmium orange is the most common hue available. An all time and purpose color. Amber is a light orange also widely used. Orange can be shaded with reds and browns and highlighted with lighter tones of the same color, yellows and white for the maximum highlights.

Above:

An excellent example of yellows and oranges both on same subject painted by Amalia Retuerto.

Chapter 11 - The Blues & Greens

2007-07-10T16:50:00.001+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 11
The Blues & Greens

Above:
Another Swedish banner from Franzoia Serge. Nice example of shading turquoise blue.

Blue is a ubiquitous color used from antiquity since present days. A favorite color of ancient Egyptians, Greeks and later abundantly used in medieval and renaissance times. There isn’t anything extraordinary in painting and shading blue hues. Usually a deeper blue can be used for shadows with some burnt umber for shadow variations. It is advisable to shade blues with a lighter shade such as turquoise but titanium white is also used by many painters. Result is somewhat grayish in appearance so its better stick to turquoise or cerulean hue for highlighting. Prussian blue and Winsor blue are 2 very useful colors but be careful when you re using them. They have tremendous tinting power and can overwhelm easily any other colors.

Above:

Far above, Konrad Schulte’s Prussian officer of 1st Dragoon Rgt.. A 54mm own figure.
Above, Peter Ferk’s Lancer trumpeter. A 90mm figure by Quadriconcept.

Use them in small quantities adding just a hint of them in a strepped fashion. Prussian blue is a very opaque color, while Windsor blue is semi transparent. When using it, it is preferable if you undercoat with a similar color in enamels or acrylics . You should know that military blues usually have a greenish shade and they are usually dark with some exceptions, like for example the lancer trumpeter of the photo above. Straight prussian blue or with the addition of some ivory black can be used as the starting color for dark uniforms. Any shade of purple of deep violet could be used for shading, keeping ivory black only for the extreme shadows. Remember, black kills the brightness of colors. Any lighter blue like cerulean blue or some turquoise can be used for highlighting. Don’t use white. Also keep your hand a bit when highlighting otherwise the finished uniform will look faded and worn, except from when you actually are after of this effect. Sometimes I like experiment with napples yellow, or some other similar color for highlighting blue. When done with minor quantities of yellow and slowly, the greenish cast of the highlighted areas look extremely convincing, with the very tips of the highlights with titanium white.
Blue is a classic example of color with cool temperature, so it can be used to tint other colors giving them a cooler appearance. For example, some controlled glazes with very thinned blue hues can give white tunics a cooler, somewhat bluish appearance. Remember also the picture of Detlef Belasch’s bust from the chapter discussing whites.

Above:
Napoleonic Grenadiers, 30mm figures from Berliner Zinnfiguren. Unknown artist. Observe that although nearly all figures wearing full blue clothing, with variation in the mixtures, there is a visual variation in the end result.

Above:
A Swedish banner in 30mm with a green flag with the royal emblem painted by Fanzoia Serge.

Green is not a primary color. It is produced when blue and yellow are mixed. In my mind there are 2 ctaegories of greens. One is the brilliant all purpse greens we use for all eras and the other is the green hues modern military uniforms tend to use as for camouflage. Usually my green mixtures are produced randomly without any specific formula. Have in mind though that if you use transparent blues and yellows then the green will also have the transparent quality, so for basic colring it is advisable to use some more opaque blues and yellows. Try also oranges instead of yellows. The red component in them will produce some quite unsual green hues which by the way have warm tones since red is warming the coolness of the blues.. When I am looking for some modern military green usually I start either from indigo or, and please don’t scream from black. Yellow and black gives olive green tones and adjusting the black or by adding some blues all kinds of green grays can be produced. Shadows can be done with some deep tone of blue, for example Prussian blue or indigo. Try also different shades of red for shadowing. It’s the complementary color of green and its a warm temperature color so it will give warmer shadows too. Highlight with any kind of yellow. Brilliant yellows like cadmium yellow will produce brilliant highlights, while napples yellow or similar will produce toned down highlights. Again, white should be avoided, except in cases we look for worn, faded results.

Above:
A rather unusual flat of some fantastic orce creature. Painter or the origin of flat is unfortunately unknown to me. It’s a good example of olive green with excellent shading not only of green but of all details.

Chapter 10 - The Reds & Purples

2007-07-10T10:57:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 10
The Reds & Purples

Above:
An excellent example of reds in this Swedish banner from Franzoia Serge.

In my opinion, red is the most difficult color to shadow and highlight effectively. If not careful shaded parts will be muddy spots and highlights simply another hue i.e. rose or violet. In my mind I have made two categories for reds. Cadmium reds, light and dark and scarlet is the first, while burnt sienna, Indian and light red, that is the earth reds are the second one.
As we travel back through the ages, colors were not of the rich quality as they are now. Reason is because people were using what nature could provide. Reference will dictate a rough estimation of what pigments were available. For sure, red was a color known since antiquity. Greeks and later Romans used it abundantly for their everyday or military clothing.
When painting cadmium reds start with a darker tone than the one you intend to use. You will see why later. When shading, experiment with adding burnt sienna or burnt umber. Alternatively, try the complementary to red, green. You will be amazed by the results. Shade in steps and don’t try to achieve the final result by first layer. I would advice not to use black for shading because it kills the chroma of red. If you try to highlight with white then violet will be produced. If you try yellow, then orange will appear. This is the reason why you need to start your basic mixture darker than the red tone you are after. Light reds such as cadmium red light, scarlet or bright red can be used as highlights. Add tiny amount of light yellow or white for the outmost highlights but do it really sparingly. On the other hand if you are after a faded, worn look, you can use white a bit more freely. Another good highlighting solution is to use your premade flesh color, in steps, adding a touch of yellow to maintain red temperature.

Above and Below:
Above Peter Ferk’s General Lassale (Quadriconcept 90mm), below “Poetry” by unknown artist (Detlef Belasch 120mm). For the first figure highlights are done with yellow while on the second white have been used producing some pink violet highlights.

The actual color of Tyrian purple, the original color purple from which the name purple is derived, is the color of a dye made from a mollusk that, because of its incredible expense (many times more expensive than gold), in classical antiquity became a symbol of royalty because only the very wealthy could afford it. Therefore, Tyrian purple is also called imperial purple. Tyrian purple may have been discovered as early as the time of the Minoan civilization. Alexander the Great (when giving imperial audiences as the emperor of the Macedonian Empire), the emperors of the Seleucid Empire, and the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt wore Tyrian purple. The imperial robes of Roman emperors were Tyrian purple trimmed in metallic gold thread. The badge of office of a Roman Senator was a stripe of Tyrian purple on their white toga. Tyrian purple was continued in use by the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire until its final collapse in 1453.
In medieval Europe, blue dyes were rare and expensive, so only the most wealthy or the aristocracy could afford to wear them. (The working class wore mainly green and brown.) Because of this (and also because Tyrian purple had gone out of use in western Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476), Europeans' idea of purple shifted towards this more bluish purple known as royal purple because of its similarity to the royal blue worn by the aristocracy. This was the shade of purple worn by kings in medieval Europe. Also it is considered a funereal color and for that, can be used alternatively for black.
Purple is an interesting color. It can be produced from mixing blue and red and with various proportions you get various purple tones. It can be shadowed by various blues and highlighted by its complementary yellow for some rich violets or white for some faded look. Alizarin crimson belongs to the purple family and not to the reds as many time mistakenly considered. Crimson mixed with blues produces some very interesting shades of purple. I would advice shading it with black as it kills chroma making purple appearing muddy. Some purples are more transparent than others so experiment and use the more opaques for covering work and the transparent for making purple washes when a tint of purplish is needed.

Above:
An excellent painting of purples for the dresses of this French queen and for the embroidery by unfortunately by an unknown painter.

Chapter 9 - The Dreadful Black & White

2007-07-09T10:02:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 9
The Dreadful Black & White

Above:
Swedish banner painted by Franzoia Serge. Observe the excellent black and white checked pattern of the flag.

For the next five chapters I will deal with various colors grouped in categories. Let me say it from the start. I am not a professional artist nor I have finished any art school. What will be presented here coming from personal observation, experiences and notions. Feel free to agree or disagree with it, accept the tips and use them for your painting or don’t accept them, make your own observations and go from there. For example someone can say, hey don’t shadow red by using alizarin crimson. Why not? If the shadowing made by it pleases me then by all means I will use it. I have shadowed red with darker red, brown, green, crimson, even blue. And I ask again, why not? In the end, we are amateur painters that like to experiment and try new things and if the end result is what we were looking for, then we are allowed to use whatever irrespective of rules.
Before we begin discussing about the various colors lets clear some words using the following table.

Hue
The specific character of a colour, e.g. an orange-red or a green-blue, its position on the colour wheel.
Value
How dark or light a colour is, from 0 to 10, black to white. Cadmium Red Medium is typically about value 5.
Chroma
How intense (bright or dull) a colour is, for example Cobalt Blue is high in chroma, Chromium Oxide Green is low in chroma.
Primary
A colour that cannot be mixed from other colours, e.g. red, yellow and blue.
Secondary
A colour mixed from two primaries, e.g. orange, green and violet.
Complement
The colour opposite to another on the colour wheel, e.g. red and green, yellow and violet, blue and orange.
Subdue
To dull down, to lower the chroma of a colour, usually by adding its complement.
Bias
The leaning of a colour towards another, e.g. a green-yellow or an orange-yellow.

Let’s start with black. When you want something painted in black color, simply don’t use black. Instead either mix some blue with ivory black for a cooler shade or flesh for a warmer shade. Adding some brown, red, violet or green will tint the black color slightly giving our blacks a greater variety. Add some titanium white to lighten the black a bit. In reality you will have made a gray but in our eyes still be black. Now add shadows with pure black, lamp black preferred and highlight with turquoise or flesh depending on if you want cool or warm temperature and minor quantities of white. Don’t exaggerate the highlights though. Blend as well as you can for subtle transitions between shadows and lights. Look at different painted figures and you will notice after careful observation that no straight black is used anywhere. Instead different shades of dark gray, with the appropriate shadows and lights create the effect of a black surface even if its not. Otherwise if you start straight with black, there won’t be any color for shadows. Ivory black is a color that can be used to darken other colors without overwhelming them.

Above:

Composite figure from Mohr’s set “Funeral of Gustavous Adolfus” painted by Greg Di Franco. Lots of black clothing but nothing too difficult if you don’t start with straight black.

Same story is white color but from the opposite side. If you start with pure white, there won’t be any color for the highlights. Instead make different combinations of white adding nearly any color you like. Ochres and browns will create a tan-white, warm in color shadowed with more brown and highlighted with straight white. Red, green, purple or blue can be used for spectacular variety for your whites. Blue and green will give a cool temperature to your white. What is very challenging to make and interesting to observe after, is when different shades of white or black are side by side like a figure wearing a white tunic, with a white sash and white trousers.

Above:

A bust of an unknown artist from a Detlef Belasch creation. Observe the cold temperature of the white shirt. Instead of gray black boring shadows, some shade of blue has been used.

If you make 3 different mixes of white with 3 different hues added, your end result will have all 3 surfaces white but each will look different from the other. Titanium white is the most used white, opaque all purpose white that you will use it in nearly every color mixture you make. Flake white is a transparent white, useful for white glazes. Zinc white is rather rare lately because of its zinc component which is poisonous.

Above:

An amazingly painted Napoleon in coronation robes by Greg Di Franco. Here shades of ochre have been used for shadowing, Compare with previous photo. Also observe how direction light is implicated by the careful painting.

As with every other color, use the amount of shadows and highlights you feel happy with them. Don’t consider that a black item has less and a white has more. They can have as many as we want them to have. Just be patient when you paint and don’t rush for finish.
Black and white will be also discussed in the chapter about painting metals since they can be used to implicate a metal surface by careful shadows and lights. Although I don’t own any gray oil tubes, only exception is Payne’s gray. It’s a dark gray, rather transparent color than can be used as a shortcut when we need a gray fast and it’s perfect for white metal simulation but more about this later.

Chapter 8 - Painting Flesh

2007-07-07T10:17:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 8
Painting Flesh

Above:
“Diagonal of Dreams”.
A Vladimir Nuzhdin figure based on a Luis Rojo painting masterfully painted by Catherine Cesario.

We start our specific color discussion with Flesh. Actually, flesh is not a specific color itself. We use it to describe a number of colors that human skin can be painted with. It varies not only between races like for example Caucasian and Asians but also among people of the same race. Theoretically not a single person have exactly the same skin color with another.
Flesh skin color varies with race, with geographical location, with the person’s own occupation, with his/her present medical condition and also in different parts on the same body. First difference is easy to understand. A Caucasian has a more “pinkish” skin color than an Asian inhabitant, whom faulty consider as “yellowish”. Geographical location plays important role as we all can understand the skin difference between a Northern European Swedish lady and a Southern European Greek lady. Occupation plays its role too since someone who is outdoors most of his life (i.e. soldier) have a much different skin color than an aristocratic lady spent most of her life into a palace. Also, the face of a man that likes to drink a bit more, like some Napoleonic veterans has different color than from someone who is outdoors in Russian winter, barely surviving the cold. Finally, we all can see the color differences onto our own body. Our palms and soles don’t have the same color as the rest of our body. Or better yet, we all have laughed with the color difference between what is covered and what is not after two hours of sunbathing. What is very useful for us, is to always observe people around . See how their body is “painted” by nature, observe how skin tones change with occupation or by different sun exposure. Observe all these minor details such as the small reddening of the chicks, or the bluish hue below tired eyes. I have said that photographs of figures are very important and useful for us. Here we need not only photos from figures but photos from real people that can be used as reference to help us achieve the skin tone we are after.

Above:

A marvelous 90mm Quadriconcept figure of a French Trumpeter by an unidentified artist.

Let’s start from the “easiest” race to replicate in miniatures, the Caucasian race. This is the traditional flesh tone that we encounter from our very first figure, flat or round. Basically it’s a mixture of ochres and reds, shadowed with deeper reds or even browns for the extreme shadows such as hairlines and highlighted with lighter ochres or even white for hot spots. All colors of this chapter are W & N unless otherwise stated. What I use for Caucasian flesh tones are the following: yellow ochre, golden ochre (Van Gough), brown ochre (Van Gough), burnt sienna, indian red, light red, burnt umber, vandyke brown, titanium white, napples yellow and jaune brilliant. I won’t mention ratios. I strongly believe that for a successful rendering of human flesh one should experiment and test different mixtures of the above colors and in different quantities. Just test the final combination onto your own skin of the back of your hand (not palm!) and see how it goes from there. Also check your photographic reference for endless possibilities. This way, you get to know colors and certain tones and you understand how different hues are obtained. In the end every figure will be a tad different from the previous ones, even if it’s not easily noticeable.
After you primer a figure is a matter of choice if you will block the basic colors with an undercoat. Sometimes I do it sometimes I don’t. Depends on the scale, the mood, the general feeling of the face you want to paint. If you block the flesh color go after a similar tone of your base oil color either in acrylics or enamels. After this step apply the basic tone in all flesh areas but do it in parts. First finish the face, and then proceed to the hands, body, feet etc. Start with some mild shadows with the addition of the reds in your basic mixture like burnt sienna or light red. Face shadows should go under the chicks, the eyes, the sides of the nose, bridge of the nose, the mouth, ears, temples, sides of the mouth. Don’t worry about neatness at the moment. Blend with a dry, brush with the base color. Now add the first highlights adding some jaune brilliant and titanium white to the edge and tip of the nose, upper portion of chicks, forehead, chin, earlobes. Blend again but be careful not to touch the shadowed areas. By now, face has started to take a human appearance. Now its time to let the colors settle and dry and you to go get a refreshment. When this primary coating is dry, usually next day, make darker and lighter mixtures of the shadow and highlight colors respectively and touch again the appropriate areas. They are about the same as previous ones but a bit narrower in each spot. You can do this as many times as you feel like. Personally and for 30mm figures, I find it more than enough to stop right here. Remember to use an extremely dark shadow and outline eyes, nose, lips and details of the ears, if they are any visible at all at this scale. Also put some “hot spots”, nearly pure titanium white in very selective, most light caching part of a face i.e. tip of the nose, upper chicks, chin. Now is time to define and work on eyes, lips, eyebrows moustaches, beards and hair. For 30mm, usually a dark spot or a dark line, depending on the position of the face is all that is needed. For larger scale figures you can choose any eye color you like but use dark tones of each selected color since lighter colors don’t seem realistic. Highlight lower portion of the iris and add a black dot in the middle for pupil. Adding a catchlight, that is a white spot a bit of center adds realism. Lips can be painted with the basic flesh color with some alizarin crimson added and lower lip highlighted.
Now hair is another story. Don’t rush painting the hair as something of no importance. As a frame of a picture can influence the actual picture, hair can add or not to the beauty of a painted face. Decide if their hair will be black, brown, blond, gray ore even white. Black hair are never pure black, Go for a very dark brown black or blue black color. Brown hair is from deep brown until nearly blond and for the love of god, blond hair are not yellow! Instead use some ochres or raw sienna. Depending on scale, hair detail can be added but don’t try to paint every single hair. It’s not possible. Instead shadow and highlight tufts of hair. Looks much more convincing. When face is finally finished, be brave, make a very thinned mixture from the base color with some lamb black added, and apply it to all areas that need shaving much like a wash. This is the so called “5 o’clock” shadow.

Above:

An interesting Golberg set title “The Slave market” superbly painted by the British Ken Pipes.

Hands and feet are also very important. Viewers eye always focus on these two parts after the face. Deal with them accordingly. Shadow the areas between fingers and knuckles and highlight the knuckles or the parts towards the light source. If scale permits we can even add nails with a lighter whitish ochre color, not pure white or add some basic veins with a bluish color very thinly and lightly painted. If other parts of the body are exposed, study some real life photos and treat each musculature group as a whole when shadowing and highlighting. Remember that auxillas, groins, popliteal fossae, navel and intercostals spaces are a bit darker. If you paint a nude, add body hair with thinned dark gray or black but do it very sparingly or else your figure will look like a Neanderthal fellow.
Now, how we can produce the difference of rational variability in the Caucasian race? Easy. By altering our base mixture and by changing the amount of shadowing and highlighting. People of the Southern regions tend to be more tanned due to increased sun exposure much like a veteran soldier on campaign is more tanned than a gentleman of French aristocracy of the Louis XV era. Adjusting the reds and ochres in our mixtures and making sharper contrast between shadows and highlights can produce a tanned appearance. People of Northern Europe, the traditional “blonds”, have a paler skin that even when exposed to sunlight becomes reddish rather than dark tan. A touch of cadmium red or even violet to our mixture will give a “pinkish appearance, much needed for such a skin tone.
As a side note, don’t forget the tonal differences between a woman’s and a man’s skin. Women tend to have a lighter toned skin, due to less melanin pigments in their skin and also due to a more even hair growth. Simply adjust your mixture a bit lighter than usual and try it onto a female figure. Don’t forget what we have said over and over. Observe nature around you, study photos of real people and painted figure and experiment, experiment and experiment.

Above:
Excellent skin rendition in this Mohr’s 54mm set for Holy Inquisition by the Italian master Gianfranco Speranza. Observe the hair growth of the tormentor on the left.

A bit more difficult matter is the successful rendition of the widely and wrongly called “Black” people. First let’s clear something. There is no black, white, red or yellow people. Clearing this, the notion “black” includes a wide number of different ethnicities. Even in the same geographical region, for example Africa, not all Africans have the same skin tone. Their skin ranges from nearly very dark Caucasian to very dark brown, even to the point that might be called black, but again, its not.
Some painters start this type of skin straight onto the white primer. They paint their base color, usually a burnt umber or something close and then dry brush the whole skin area leaving only a thin film of base color. Highlights have been produced by dry brushing so what is left is to shadow a bit with black, retouch their highlights here and there and voila. I prefer start with a Caucasian flesh painted onto the primer. I paint my blacks with various combinations of burnt umber with indian red, ran umber, raw sienna, or ivory black. After taking away all of the excess paint, some flesh tint of the underlying flesh color is visible but not much pronounced as if it was straight onto white primer. I proceed with highlights using raw sienna, ochres and on very few selected spots some touches of titanium white. Shadows are done with the base mixture plus lamp black, sometimes with very tiny amounts of Prussian blue or Venetian red. As I have told before I try to vary my mixtures so I never have a same color, even if its not visible. I know its true so I am happy anyway.

Above:

“Zulus”, a nice set of figures from Paul Krog of Ritter Zinnfiguren.

A good trick is to paint the base coat green and start from there. The end result will be a unique negroid color. I use this method when I want to paint Zulu type ethnicities. On the other hand Nubians are very dark chocolate to nearly black so make a deeper than usual mixture and add a tiny amount or blue. When highlight them with small amounts of titanium white, highlights will have a light bluish appearance which is truly marvelous for these people. Northern Africans, are a bit lighter, while Egyptians, especially of the northern part of Egypt are not negroid but they seem like very tanned Caucasians. and African Americans can have the whole range of tones. Hair color is black and eyes are always dark in color, that is brown. Photographs of the actual people to be our “models” will do the trick and help you decide which “black” you must paint.

Above:
“Tribute to Pharaoh”. Figures from a magnificent set by Cortum figures painted by Ken Pipes.

Asians is a huge category including nearly all type of human skin tones. As we move away from Mediterranean, tones become darker and darker until the middle east and India. Colors vary from light to very dark tans and browns. Mixture should contain higher amounts of various ochres tones, with less reds in it. Shadows can be done with different browns like burnt umber or Vandyke brown and highlights with light ochres, napples yellow and titanium white. Chinese and Japanese, the traditionally called “yellow” are not yellow of course. The predominant color is various shades of ochres but they don’t differ much from Caucasians in reality. I usually add some touches of jaune brilliant or napples yellow to the basic mixture but I do use brownish reds for shading. Again , hair is nearly always black with dark eyes. I like painting this kind of hair blue black actually adding some Prussian blue to my black mixture. When highlighted have a pleasant bluish appearance making hair very shiny.
Native Americans, the so called Indians or “red skins” are another major category of peculiar color to render convincebly. Sometimes I leave my figure just with the primer, sometimes I use the flesh color as a blocking color. I usually add a bit of more burnt sienna, or indian red, or light red. Shadows are done with reddish browns and highlights with titanium white, sparingly.

Above:

Amalia Retuerto’s Indian. Her figures are simply a joy to see and a lesson to study.

Adding some skin marks can be fun and very rewarding for the finished figure. Scars, moles, freckles or veins all can be reproduced easily with just a bit of color. A reddish brown line with a lighter shade above it can look like a scar while a bluish line fading proximally and distally can represents vein very convincible. Use your references and when you are painting personalities check if that person had any skin mark. They add variety to your flesh painting and personalize the finished figure.
A final word about tattoos. In reality tattoos are made by colors injected with specific hypodermic needles under the skin, coloring it. Predominant color is blue gray but red, green and yellow are used sometimes for more exotic designs. Stick to the blue gray ones for your figures. Colored ones don’t look realistic. Use very thinned paint and very thin brushes. Don’t try very elaborate designs. A little goes a long way.

Above:
Another example of exotic skin painted by Amalia Retuerto.

Chapter 7 - Artist's Oils

2007-07-04T22:58:00.001+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 7
Artist’s Oils

Above:
Another masterpiece of the French painter Serge Franzoia. An excellent painted background with equally good painted figures. Observe how careful selection of vibrant colors can make the theme so eye-pleasing.

For many flat figure painters, myself included, artist oils is the preferred painting medium. They are a versatile painting medium mainly because they have a slow drying time that enables to paint and blend colors and to create shadows and lights quite easily and with no rush. Also mistakes can be corrected easy enough, since you can simply wipe the paint of the figure and reapply it again.
When painting with oils, always try to have a selection of various colors of the best quality you can afford. Personally I am using W & N artist series with an assortment of some specific colors from other brands. Below is a list of the tubes I consider as basic and from which all other colors can be prepared.

Ivory Black
Titanium White
Burnt Umber
Raw Umber
Burnt Sienna
Raw Sienna
Yellow Ochre
Prussian Blue
Cobalt Blue
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow
Magenta

Theoretically by combining these basic colors someone can produce literary any color or any hue available. A great help can be a color wheel which shows what happens when two colors combine. Remember also what we said in the chapter about general thoughts of paint about complementary colors.

Above:
Some basic knowledge of the color wheel and some good use of it can produce virtually any coloring possibility available.

In reality, we all have more colors than the few basic ones. More reds, blues, yellows and of course purples and greens. I haven’t mentioned metallic paints at all. Partly because I will discuss about them in a later chapter and partly because I prefer using grays and yellows for replicating metal. More about this later on.
Whatever oil colors we have in our disposal is useful to know their properties, how they behave alone or in combination with other colors. Some are opaque, some are transparent so their coverage degree is not the same. While we can use an opaque color alone or combined with some other for basic coverage of a surface, we can use a transparent one, thinned as a glaze to change the tone of another surface. For example we can warm up a white tunic by a careful application of a yellow transparent glaze in one or two coats. Some are very strong like for example Prussian blue. Use them sparingly. When pigment comes out of the tube usually come along with the oil they are mixed with. Put a small quantity of the color you want to work with on your palette, (anything can work as a palette, I usually use a glass with rounded edges covered with an absorptive white paper), let it settle for a moment and then add, with the tip of the brush, some white spirit and mix thoroughly. Consistency of the oil should be like “ warm butter” as Shep Paine says. Apply it on the figure and then take the excess oil with a dry brush. Leave only a thin layer of oil color onto the figure. Now we are ready to add our shadows and highlights with some darker and lighter tones that we have either premade or we can do it straight onto our figure using a lighter or darker tone of the same color. Avoid white or black for this job. Although they are neutral colors they tend to alter our primary color. Careful blending of the edges with a dry brush is imperative so we won’t end with a sea of mud onto our figure. When figure is completely dried we can come back and enhance some shadow or highlight areas some more until we are satisfied with the result.

Above:

Hittite Chariot painted by Konrad Schulte.

Usually oils dry after 24 hours or more and they are completely dry after some days. There is a shortcut though. If we place our figure under a light, in a reasonable distance from it, or into a specific for this job made oven , oils not only can get dry in a couple of hours but they loose their seen, a property that we are after when we paint material like woolen or linen cloth. Animals furs, especially live horses and leather have a natural seen, that oils produce with much success and without a particular effort. If we want this slight seen then we simply don’t “bake” them. Some people prefer matt finishes, some other a slight seen, an “egg shell” finish as they call it and still some prefer a glossy appearance. This is a matter of personal preference. Personally, I am going for a realistic finish. Some materials are mat, some have a seen. This is what I am after.

Above:
“Snail Mail” figures from Detlef Belaschk painted by Jerry Mortimore.

If you use the advantages and disadvantages of each color and manipulate them with some common knowledge and according our experience we can produce some very spectacular results quite easily. Well, as easily as a 30mm face, sleeve or boot permits…I want to stress out how important is the smooth, even covering onto the figure. If paint doesn’t “sit” onto the figure smoothly, since we are working in tiny areas of 30mm, even the slight imperfection will be visible to our finished figure. Always make sure, the color has the proper consistency before apply it onto the figure. Test it onto a scrap figure. Apply more than one coat if necessary and don’t rush it trying to finish a figure in 1 hour. Its neither a competition nor a race. We do it for the pleasure of the creation and of collecting flat figures. I know how difficult is not to rush finishing a figure. I am very anxious to see the finished result in every figure I paint but we need to resist the urge to finish it fast and work slowly and carefully for the best possible results.
Observing carefully the selection of the accompanying photographs and putting what we have discussed so far on them, you can more readily understand how things work practically onto a figure.

Above:
Burgundian Romance by Scholtz (edited by Fritz Menz) painted by the very talented artist Catherine Cesario

For specific properties and techniques for each color and for replicating flesh or specific materials like leather, metal, silk and others, a more detailed discussion will follow in the next chapters.

Chapter 6 - Enamles / Gouaches / Acrylics

2007-07-03T21:37:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 6
Enamels / Gouaches / Acrylics

In this chapter will be discussed the methods of painting a flat figure using enamels, acrylics and gouaches. I must confess that I don’t have a lot of experience from these 3 mediums. So only a brief discussion will take place. For more information about each method I will point out the appropriate reading.
Starting with enamels, there are a lot of resemblances with oils but there is a big difference. While oils need hours or even days to cure so they are still workable, enamels have a much shorter drying time, making things a bit more difficult. When painting with enamels never use the paint straight from the little tin jar. Instead, take a small quantity of paint from the bottom of the jar to your palette and add 1-2 drops of thinner to make a workable mix. It is recommended to use the specific thinner each brand has for its colors. When the new mix is ready and homogenous apply one or two thin coats of the base coat to the figure and let it thoroughly dry. Next day, prepare a shadow mix from the base coat plus the darker tones appropriate from each color. Its very important to make this mixture very diluted and apply it in all the areas that will be in shadow, folds, creases and so on. If paint is not diluted enough you will end up painting dark brash strokes which is not what we are after. Dip the tip of the brush into white spirit and whip it of onto a tissue paper and blend the edges of the shadow color and base coat to get a smooth transition between colors. You may need to do this step more than once, in small increments so you get the shadow color gradually. When this is dried make a light mixture from the base color plus some lighter tones appropriate for each color you paint and apply them thinned onto the areas that will be highlighted. Do the above technique to smooth the borders of the base color and the highlights. Now the figure has its base color, shadow and high lights applied. You may need to repeat the shadow and highlight steps for more contrast between shadows and lights. Don’t underestimate any painting medium. Many people think that oils is the only paint that should be used if an artistic result is what is after. This not true. Bill Horan, Mike Blank or Dough Cohen use enamels exclusively on their round figures with spectacular results. For specific techniques about enamels I strongly recommend Bill Horan’s or Mike Blank’s books. See Appendix 2.

Gouache is the next examined color of this chapter. It’s a not very known painting medium used mainly by the advertisement business. I have never used it, nor I have seen how it looks like at the shops. I have seen painted examples of flat figures though, that are really amazing at the same level with figures painted with oils or other mediums. For this I will include a very informative article written by a member of British Flat Figure Society, Simon Hoggett, of which I am a member also.

“Painting Flat Figures in Gouache by Simon Hoggett.”

It is generally accepted that you paint flat figures in oil paints. Well, that’s all very well but what happens if you can’t paint with oils to save your life? This article will look at one possible alternative that you might not have considered – Designers Gouache Oil paint! I never could get to grips with the horrible stuff, despite studying art to A level standard at school and later doing graphic design at university. Whatever it was that you needed to be able to achieve success with the medium, I just didn’t have it! Perhaps it was my lack of patience. Maybe it was the fact that I never knew when to stop fiddling, until the whole lot blended into a uniform brown colour. Of course, if I’d restricted myself to painting figures of female mud wrestlers I could have been a master of the genre. As it was, my efforts looked simply awful. So, the oil paints went in the dustbin, taking a well-deserved place next to the empty tins of cat food and baked beans. I had to find something else. To be honest, when I started modelling it didn’t matter much. I was building Historex kits straight out of the packet, armed only with a blunt craft knife and a tube of glue. Not for me the finely customised masterpieces of Bill Ottinger or Shep Paine. Most of mine looked like extras in Dawn of the Dead. As for painting, a quick coat of Humbrol usually did the trick, plus a few rash experiments with acrylics with invariably bad results. The family yawned with indifference which I happily mistook for stunned admiration. Ah, those were the days! But then I discovered flat figures, or re-discovered them really because I had a small collection from my childhood. At that time, my aunt, who was quite a catch on account of the fact that she ran a pub, was energetically courted by the dubious owner of the local militaria shop. As part of his valiant campaign to win her hand in marriage he showered her favourite nephew (me, of course) with gifts of flat soldiers and military books. Unfortunately, she dumped him in favour of her life-long love affair with gin and cigarettes. He sold up and disappeared without trace, broken hearted but no doubt consoled by a fair chunk of her savings.

Above:
French Line Chasseurs from Glorious Empires painted in gouache by Simmon Hoggett.

But I digress. In the early 1990s I began to see beautifully flat figures in the magazines and shows and I was instantly hooked. Flats are like that. It’s an instant thing. You either love them or hate them. I loved them. The childhood figures, with bent weapons and broken limbs, injuries sustained in a disastrous skirmish with Action Man in the early 1960s, were marched out from the dark recesses of the attic and became the basis for a new collection. New purchases were added and I started to face the
problem of how to paint them. It’s the painting that makes flats come alive and Humbol just doesn’t cut it for me. It’s too flat, especially on horses. I tried again with acrylics but that didn’t work for me either, especially as I failed to screw the tops on the tubes properly and they all went rock-hard overnight. My options
were disappearing fast.
Then I remembered Designers Gouache. (Remember, this is an article about gouache!) I had used this regularly whilst at college and for a short while afterwards when working in design studios. This was in the days before computers and all design and artwork had to be done by hand. Whilst rubbing down the Letreset and inhaling Cow Gum fumes I had
gained a reasonable competence with the stuff.
It’s a water-based paint, but more opaque than standard watercolours. Lots of watercolour painters use it, especially White, to beef up their paints and add highlights. Hence, a traditional name for gouache is ‘body colour’. You can find them in all good art shops and most of the bad ones as well. They come in tubes which cost an arm and a leg, but they are a lot cheaper than oil paints. The two main manufacturers are Winsor & Newton and Daler Rowney. Although, there isn’t a huge amount to choose between them, I happen to prefer the Winsor & Newton. I find that there’s something odd about the consistency of some of the Daler Rowney colours, although that could be my imagination. But I don’t like the horrible stripy design on the tubes anyway.
I tend to use a fairly small palette, mainly because I’m a cheapskate, but you do have to watch the transparency and permanence of some of the more obscure colours. Check the label codes closely before splashing out a few quid on some beautiful shade of red that will vanish faster than the pies at the weight-watchers Christmas party.
There are several blacks and whites available but personally I prefer Ivory Black and Zinc White because they are most versatile. Avoid Lamp Black like the plague because it is far too ‘sooty’. The other colours I use are: Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Spectrum Red, Scarlet Lake, Red Ochre and Paynes Grey. I also use a tube of watercolour called Neutral Tint which is really useful for shading white.

Above: French Line Lancers by Thiel painted in designers gouache by Simon Hoggett.

You will notice that the names of the colours are the same as oils. This means that you can take advantage of all the wonderful colour mix recommendations you find in this magazine. In fact, my colour mixing bible isn’t for gouache painters at all. It is the “Oil Painter’s Pocket Palette” by Rosalind Cuthbert. If you haven’t got a copy of this, I advise you to rush out and bag one right now.
This is not an article on how to paint flats. This isn’t the place for learned thoughts about chiaroscuro, directional and reflected light sources, trompe l’oeil effects etc. I will leave that to other more skilled exponents. But I thought I’d share some of my experiences with gouache. A few slightly different techniques are needed to gain a level of success. As with all flats, the first thing to do is get rid of all the flash on the shiny metal figure and cut off any extra limbs on ‘combination figures’. Some flats have more arms than a Hindu god, which allows you to create several different figures from the same master. Pure genius isn’t it? The cleaning up should be done with a sharp knife and some mouse-tail files. I would also advise having a damp cloth and a glass of brandy close by. The cloth is for wiping up the blood when you plunge the knife in your hand and the brandy is, of course, for purely medicinal purposes. Many flats painters will tell you not to worry unduly about minor pitting in the surface of the figure because the paint will fill it. Well, oil paint might but gouache won’t, so you need to make sure they’re filled. The figure then needs undercoating. There are several options here. You can spray it with Car Primer but if you don’t shake the can well, it comes out like all blotchy like fake snow. This is not an ideal starting point, so shake it until your arm drops off and you have a migraine from listening to the ball-bearing rattling around inside. I recommend that you spray the figure outside in the garden and particularly suggest that you void using it on the dining room table because the paint is a devil to get off the polished wood and all the inhaled fumes make you fall over a lot. Not that I’ve tried this, you understand. Honest!
Some people undercoat with Skull White paint from Citadel Miniatures. If you’ve got any left over from painting your skeleton army then use that, but otherwise I would recommend Humbrol Matt White enamel, which you should thin down so it doesn’t clog up the fine detail on the figure. Many people use two coats of this, allowing it to dry between coats. They say they like the pure white base to work on. I personally only use one coat and work on a figure that is dull and grey to match my winning personality.

Above:
Medieval peasants by Golberg painted by Simon Hoggett

The real problem with gouache is getting it to key to the figure at all. If there is any grease on it at all, then you haven’t got a hope in hell. Even the slightest fingerprint will give you serious problems. So the first thing to do is to de-grease it. To do this, I dip the whole figure in a vinegar bath. There’s nothing special about the vinegar – I use the regular brown stuff that I put on my fish ‘n’ chips. I know it sounds bizarre, but it works. I then attach the figure to an old poster paint jar which I use as a holder, without ever touching it with my fingers, and allow it to dry off. I am now ready to paint.
Getting the consistency of the paint right is important. You mix in the water until you’ve got something that approaches the consistency of single cream. This will be fine for blocking in colours. For the intricate bits you might want it to be a bit thicker, which will allow you to put in fine detail such as braiding and buttons. Because gouache dries quickly, you can add detail in light colours such as white and yellow straight on to dark colours like Black and Prussian Blue only minutes after you have painted it. That means that you can paint a complete figure at one sitting if you’ve got nothing better to do for nine or ten hours. No more waiting for stuff to dry. On the other hand you can return to a delicate blending job weeks after you’ve put the initial colours in place.
Gouache dries to a slightly different shade than when it’s wet, so you need to compensate for this. Come to think of it, do all paints do that? I’m not sure. Answers on a postcard, please. Anyway, I don’t even think about it. It just seems to work. However, you do have to watch it when you’re shading and highlighting, because what looks like a slightly lighter mix of your base colour can look much lighter when it’s dry.
Shading takes some practice but is very achievable. This is how I do it. I lay down the base colour first and then create a slightly darker mix to block in the shadows. To get rid of the hard edge between the shades, I then take a damp brush (not wet, or you’ll take the paint off, which is not quite a disaster but comes pretty close) and feather the edge, blending the darker shade into the base colour. Having done this I mix another darker shade and repeat the process until I am happy that I have the ‘depth’ I need. The more steps you take the better the result. I tend to go for about three or four. I then use the same process for the highlights, blending the edges of progressively lighter mixes of the base colour until I’m satisfied - or bored.
A flat-collecting colleague recently said “but surely they aren’t waterproof?” Well, true, but this hasn’t been a problem since I stop playing with them in the shower! Seriously though, most collectors mount their figures in frames or box dioramas, or display them in cabinets. So, I don’t think that their failings in the waterproof department is really a problem. Okay, they won’t take rough handling but who’s going to do that anyway? If you really must, you can protect the painted figures by spraying them with a matt varnish. This works well, but it does change some of the colours slightly, which can be pretty irritating so I recommend that you do some tests first. I’m not claiming the gouache is the best paint to use on flats. If you’re getting good results already, then fine. However, if you struggle with oil paints, why not give it a try. It does work. Well, you can judge for yourselves, from the pictures with this article. Okay, so I’m no Michael Taylor or Ken Pipe but I have achieved a standard that I’m happy with."

Acrylics is another option someone has to consider. They have become a trend lately by the Spanish school of artists and many people use them exclusively for their work. When you get the feel of it, it can become a tremendously artistic medium producing amazing results. Since I never seriously used them in any other way other than undercoating (although I tried a couple of times), I will include an excellent article of Mario Fuentes in this chapter explaining how you can get amazing results using this type of painting medium. Although the article is written with round figures as examples, same techniques apply to our flat figures with minor modifications due to scale or the obvious difference of three dimensionality.

http://www.ttfxmedia.com/vallejo/cgi-bin/_modelis.asp?p1=ing&p2=modelcolortecnicas

Above:

Napoleonic Officers. 54 mm flat figures from Glorious Empires painted in acrylics.

Chapter 5 - General Thoughts about Painting

2007-07-03T18:05:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 5
General Thoughts about Painting

Finally the time for real fun is about to begin. A paint job can make a mediocre figure stand out or an excellent figure look like a cartoon. Key points for a successful painting job are:

Quality of the paints and brushes used.
Constant direction and quality of the light source.
Some planning of the painting patterns from the beginning.
A simple knowledge of colors and basic color combinations.
Understanding simple concepts such as light and shadow, or shape and form.
Careful and slow, without rush, painting.

Some general thoughts about painting are required before dive deeper into the certain materials and techniques. For many people, including me, painting is a mental process. Forms, shapes, light and shadow, all are there in the depths of our mind even without consciously knowing it. When we see a painting or a painted figure our mind uses this information to process the image and the result will be to like or not what we see. For flat figures particularly, some people enjoy to see just some colors on them, others to see the exact colors that they think they are correct for the particular figure while still others prefer to see a highly detailed painting job until the last small shadow and highlight on a 30mm pommel of a sword. I have heard a saying states that if we give a figure to 1000 painters we will see 1000 different painted figures. And that’s so true. Each of us has his/her own likes and dislikes, preferences and notions of what is visually nice or correct and what’s not. What is best for sure when we start a new figure is to try to do our best for it and to paint and finish it as good as we can. The goal is to achieve a personal satisfaction when finish it. If we are satisfied by the end result then we succeeded on what we did, no matter what other people say. Of course it’s very useful to listen to other people comments, especially the “master” ones, and try to use their comment, knowledge and tips for improving our work. But then again, if we like our newly finished figure then we achieved our goal. Always try to add a bit more to the next figure. Adding a bit more to every figure we paint will eventually takes us to a master level, without effort and without even consciously knowing it.

Above:
An interesting example of how two painters produce two results. Figure is called “Dance” and is 120mm from Detlef Belaschk. On the top painted by Amalia Retuerto. Below artist is unknown.

I said in the chapter discussing materials that I would talk about paints and brushes in this chapter. So let’s start with brushes. A ubiquitous truth is ALWAYS buy the best brushes you can afford. These small weapons of ours, can make our life much better or much worse only by their quality. A good brush is the one that even after some use it retains its tip unharmed. When buying brushes check the tips thoroughly. Many good shops may let you dip the brush into a bowl of water to check if the tip is sharp after. I have tried many brands so far but Winsor and Newton Series 7 with natural hair is by far the best. Brushes come in 000, 00, 0, 1, 2 and so on. They also can have short or long hairs, can be pointed or flat, soft or tough, with synthetic or natural hairs. For painting flat figures it’s always good to have an assortment of the above types. Each of them can have its use. Bigger or smaller are useless for us. Another good brush is the Andrea 000, 00 and 0. They have few very pointed hairs that makes it ideal for outlining, drawing very thin lines or adding dots for eyes, buttons etc. Always try to use the biggest brush possible for each surface you paint. That produces a more even finish with less brush strokes visible.
A very important factor for a brush’s life besides the way we use it, it’s the way we clean it. Thorough cleaning with the respective cleaner, like for example good turpentine for enamels or oils and alcohol or distilled water for acrylics or water based colors. Always wipe the brush with gentle movements from the handle towards the tip of the brush. Always store upright with their protective cap tagged.
A last word of caution before we proceed to paints. Try to keep a separate set of brushes for acrylics and for oils or enamels. Mixing the painting mediums for brushes leads to their fast destruction and should be avoided.
The golden rule of always buying the best possible applies for paints too. I have some tubes of oils paint more than 10 years and with proper care and storage they are like new, with less than half of their quantity spent. Winsor & Newton, artist series is the best you can buy with Van Gough, Talents, Maimeri and Rowney and Georgian following. Personally I keep a selection of W&N plus some additions from certain brands. Humbrol is the king of enamels which by the way have a very nice and useful series of metallic paints, the metalcote series. Andrea and Vallejo are the main acrylic colors but I can’t say a lot about them because I don’t use acrylics besides using them as undercoats. A very important parameter in our painting of flats is the light. I mentioned earlier about the color temperature different kinds of light bulbs have at the chapter about material. Here I will discuss about the direction of light. Why the direction of light is so important for us? Because on the contrary with the traditional round figures, we have to produce the illusion of three dimensionality by our careful placing of highlights and shadows onto our figure. Put an unpainted figure below a light source that is coming from directly above. Observe the shadows that produced onto our figure.

Left: Napoleon Bonaparte at the Egyptian campaign. A spectacular example of overhead lighting painted by Greg Di Franco.

Then place the light source on the above left and then on the above right sides of the figure. Observe again how these shadows change with the change of the light direction. If you do the same with a painted figure, assuming that this was painted with a constant light direction you will see the figure changes drastically in each case. Now you understand why the constant light direction is so important. Above left, above right or directly above is a matter or personal preference. A trick that can help a beginner produce a good result is to place it towards the face of the figure. Shadows and lights will be easier to form. Later you can experiment with other configurations for some spectacular results.
Careful planning of the color patterns from the time we start to work with the figure is imperative. That is especially true for military figures for which there are certain colors and hues that we have to consider for clothing and equipment. References along with some common sense will do the trick here. For example we can’t paint a tunic of a Knight of the St John order at the crusades red. This is simply wrong. Reference will dictate a black tunic. Common sense and a little clever thinking will dictate that the tunic wont be a rich, pure black but will be somewhat faded from the worn and the sun during the campaign. Maybe if we add some dirt on it will look even better. Planning this from the beginning will help us envision the end result so we know what we aim for and what other colors can be used that are correct for the particular figure but pleasing to the eye too. Civilian themes gives much more freedom but again some common sense is needed. Painting a sword of a medieval peasant foot soldier with rich golden embroideries can be pleasing to the eye but on the sphere of science fiction since the poor fellow couldn’t’ even afford to dream such an expensive weapon.
A simple knowledge of colors and color combination is also imperative. I will discuss specific colors later in other chapters. Now is enough to say that when planning on the color patterns, always take into consideration that each color has various hues, can be deep or light, can have a warm or cold color temperature and that maybe a color A will look better and will be more eye pleasing next to color B than to a color C. Also, by using the so called complementary colors can produce various effects. Complementary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, red and green, purple and yellow. These colors, when used side-by-side, make each other appear brighter. When they are mixed, they neutralize each other. How you know all this? Basically by experience that comes from careful observation of everything that surround us and from years of painting. Of course, there are dedicated books or internet web sites for someone that wants to study colors and their properties. I would suggest at least for once to read such a book or web site. I am sure that there will be many things to gain and nothing to loose.
The most crucial factor in flat figure painting is understanding of the concept of shadows and highlights. If someone understands and learn how to use shadows and highlights onto his/her figures then he/she can paint anything, no matter how difficult the painting scheme is. The three dimensionality onto a flat figure can be achieved only by careful placement of the shadows and lights with the appropriate color tones. Shapes will be formed out of nowhere. Body parts will be enhanced, clothing, equipment and other objects will take a geometric form otherwise impossible to visualize. A head wearing a helmet is nearly flat onto our figure. When painted correctly, the viewer will be tricked to think that the head is actually close to spherical and the helmet on it follows the same shape. How we actually create shadow and lights by colors though? Easy. Let us prepare 3 different color solutions. Solution A will be called light, solution B will be called base and solution C will be called shadow. And let us envision a flat figure wearing a shirt. Paint the whole shirt with the base solution. Then careful add the shadow solution to all surfaces that are away from the light source, in all creases and folds and around any belt or other item in contact with the shirt. Blend these two solutions so there is no abrupt stop from one to another. Take your time when blending colors. With a dry brush with soft hairs unite the two colors and don’t leave visible strokes. Then paint all the areas closer to the light source and all the raised areas and top of folds. Blend careful again and be careful not to extend this solution to the places where the shadow solution was painted. By now you have created you basic shirt color with basic shadows and lights. If you darker the shadow solution and lighter the light solution you have 2 new solutions for deep shadows and high lights. You can keep doing this procedure until you are completely satisfied with the end result. By now the shirt of the figure looks three dimensional already. By careful blending of the solutions you can make things appear whatever shape you want. Study the next figures and observe how form is achieved simply by adding shadows and lights one next to the other.

Fig 1. A real sphere. Observe how it gets darker and darker as we move from the light source (left side) towards shadow (right side)

Fig 2. Light (white) and Shadow (black) solutions are added

Fig 3. Base solution of the intermediate colors is added (grey).

Fig 4. Now the 3 colors are blended. No one can say that this object is not a three dimensional sphere.

Fig 1. Actual box

Fig 2. Base, light and shadow mixtures have been added. Shape is starting to be formed

Fig 3. The finished result after blending.

Fig 1 A Cylinder.

Fig 2. The 3 mixtures added.

Fig 3. The finished shape of a painted three dimensional cylinder.

On the above 2 figures observed how hard edges between shades can produce another geometrical pattern of a polygon instead of a cylinder and how the soft edges from blending can transform the polygon into a cylinder.

Fig 1. A cone. Remember always to identify the light source direction. This case is upper left which is the most usual direction flat painters use.

Fig 2. Base color, lights and shadow added.

Fig 3. Complete Cone after blending. Observe how smooth transition produces the curved side of the cone.

Fig 1. A ring

Fig 2. The three basic mixtures added.

Fig 3. Our painted ring complete. Who can say it’s flat and not 3-dimentional?

A final touch when shadowing and highlighting our figures is to add a crescent of light color onto the most shadowed parts of our painting. This is called reflective light and adds to the 3 dimensionality of the figure. Study the above figure of the ring.
Now apply all these basic concepts to a painted flat and see how it is onto the actual figure. Study how light and shadows have produced a three dimensional white tunic on the native Egyptian or the camel lost its flat shape and got curves from musculature.

Above:

Figure from Mohr’s 30mm set of Napoleon at the Pyramids depicting French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet painted by the author.

Another trick that many painters use is the painting of a cast shadow. This is the shadow that is produce from an object that gets in the way of the light source. For example a sword hanging from the side of a figure casts a straight shadow onto the trousers. Many times during painting we use two certain techniques people call dry-brushing and wash. They mainly come from armor modeling but can be of some value to flat figure painting. For the first technique we take some color with our brush, wipe it almost clean onto a tissue paper and we brush a surface lightly so any raised detail will be softly painted. In this way we can produce some grainy textures or make some raised details stand out. Remember to wipe the brush of almost all of the paint otherwise a brush stroke will be visible onto our figure. Always test it onto the paper before you touch the figure itself. Wash is a kind of reverse technique. When we want to define some shadows more we can use a wash of the shadow mix at the crevices and folds of our figure by using a very diluted mixture of our shadow solution thinned with thinner to high ratios of 1:8 and above. Its better to be more diluted and to repeat the process a couple of times than to actually put a splash of the shadow color if its not thinned enough. Again test it onto tissue paper before touch the figure. Although these two techniques sound easy and promising, not many painters use them on flat figures but they prefer to produce similar results with actual painting and blending.

Left: Another figure from Mohr’s 30mm set Napoleon at the Pyramids of a soldier clearly shows us the effect of the cast shadow of the weapon onto the body of the soldier, painted by the author.

Left: A scene from Carl Spitzweg geniously painted by Kevin Dunne showing the use of shadowing and highlight in achieving geometrical patterns out of nowhere, like the small table or the glass sphere.

A specific technique that uses wash and it can be really helpful for us, produsing some spectacular results is glazing. This is simple a highly diluted wash of a certain color that can change the overall appearance. For example if we paint a white tunic and we want to give it a colder appearance we can use a glaze of very thinned blue color. This way white will acquire a cold blue cast but still will be white to our eyes. It may be needed more than one washes but again its better to do it in steps than to actually make our nicely highlighted and shaded white tunic a blue tunic.

Above:
Figures from Mohr’s 30mm set title “Das Bohnefeast” painted by the author. Observe how lights and shadows produce shapes and three dimensional feeling even in such tiny surfaces. Remember that a face is half the size of a head of a matchstick in this scale.

The next two chapters will present various painting mediums along with some photos with figures painted with each specific medium. What anyone chooses is his or her own choice as long as he/she feels comfortable working with it. What must be remembered is that by observing other people’s work or reading about it and then assimilate it into our own style is the key for a successful, enjoyable painting.

Chapter 4 - Preparation

2007-07-03T09:27:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 4
Preparation

Above:

The Medieval Dentist by Eric Talmart.

This is the first stage of working with any kind of model or figure. For us, prepare our flat figure for painting is a really simple and fast process. Always start by spending some time observing and studying the figure. Look at it from every direction, turn it upside down or observe it with different light direction. Make a mental note of what have to be done to clean it, where attention must be paid or even start mentally putting some preliminary colors. Having a good feeling of the figure and a plan of actions to be made can pay off eventually by avoiding mistakes, unfortunate accidents of removing that annoying piece of protruding metal that later was discovered to be the pommel of the sword and even save time from correcting mistakes later, if they are correctable of course…
After we are aware of what is what onto our small person, we start by cleaning the flash metal residues from the figure’s edge. Do this with gentle, controlled movements, always perpendicular to the edge by sliding the blade up or down. Start from a point and don’t stop until you do a complete circle of cleaning and be at the starting point again. Use fresh blades and discard them as soon as you feel they are not sharp enough. Pay extreme attention to small details, like weapons, sticks, noses, hair tufts, clothing or hat detail, anything that protrudes from the general shape, first not to remove it surgically and secondly to define all these edges. The more sharp and defined detail is, the better will get the paint and will be defined and visible in the finished figure. Special if not equal attention must be paid to the small metal base that the figure is standing upon. Never remove front or back of it for 2 simple reasons. If we observe it closely we will see some odd numbers and letters on it. They are not there accidental. These are the signatures of the designer, engraver or editor that allows us to accurately identify each flat figure. Another more practical reason is that if the figure is displayed upon some background framed, the back edge can be inserted into the background of the frame securing the figure with minimum glue needed. I am sure that all of us have cut these bases of our firsts figures thinking it was an unnecessary burden. I have done it. Next step is the bathing step. Quite a fun step actually. When figure is cleaned it needs a bath with a solution of warm water and vinegar, the plain, cooking form, usually overnight. This is needed mainly with old casts that contain high amount of zinc to prevent oxidation and clean all kind of oily residues from casting or from our fingers during cleaning stage. The next day, rinse with plenty of water and brush the figure with an old used toothbrush and set it aside standing straight. From this points touching the figure is not allowed anymore because the oil of the skin will react with the paints later and problems may arise. When figure is dried, it can be attached temporarily using some blue tack (material which is used to stick posters onto walls), either onto a simple base for holding it or onto a cardboard. Just a small note for each situation. If you choose the small base option, go for one that is easily and comfortably held into the palm so the figure can be manipulated easily, precisely and for long time without tiring and making the handle tremble. If you choose the cardboard option , choose a rather hard one, a bit oversized so it can protect the edges of the figure. You may want also to paint it a dark, neutral color to allow contrast with the figure. Personally I paint it either black because I like the contrast of black with my colors and also because most of my flats are displayed against a black velvet background or the same color as my final framed background so I can have a better feeling for the end visual result. Preparation stage is nearly finished except the last final step of priming. Even the slowest working people finish this rather boring but very important stage in less than 1 hour (if you don’t count the bath time of course) and proceed to primering of their figure.

Above:
On the left figure is primed and ready for painting. On the right figure is right after bath. Both figures from Moh’s set of “Funeral of Gustavus Adolfus”.

The reason for primer a figure is to seal metal and to make a friendly surface for the paints for good covering by the different layers on the figure. Primer acts as a grip for paints, not only allowing good and even coverage but also, when painting in oils, absorbs some of the oil component of the paint, making painted surfaces more mat than usual. I almost exclusively prefer to use white color as a primer but I know of other people who prefer gray or even black. I guess it’s a matter of personal preference. All is needed is a couple of very thinned white paint coats, evenly and smoothly painted onto the figure allowing at least a day between coats so each coat is completely dried before the next is added. Spray cans, humbrol enamels, acrylics, or airbrushing, all have been used by various people. I prefer the old trusted humbrol enamel white, thinned to a ratio of 1:3 with thinner brushed evenly onto the figure. If you choose spray cans be careful not to clog the smallest details with more than enough paint. Acrylics can be used also but I feel they neither grip the metal surface nor the following oil layers strong enough.

Above:

Unidentified figure and artist, exceptionally painted. Observe how the careful placement of shadows and highlights make the figure three dimensional.

Chapter 3 -Materials

2007-07-03T01:26:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 3
Materials

Comparing the expenses someone might have when painting flat figures with other aspects of modeling, not to say other hobbies, we are the lucky ones. Very few tools and materials are needed and used even by the professionals. Of course someone can invest in more exotic materials but then, it’s a matter of personal taste and preference. As an old Greek saying states “tools don’t make you an artisan, skill is”. What is important, is to realize that even with 2-3 good brushes, half a dozen of paints, 1-2 files and a scalpel, everything is possible. For descriptive reasons I will present more materials but always have the above statement in the back of your mind.

Above:
Author’s workspace.

Let’s start from the very basics. Our workspace. All some people need is a steady table, a simple light and a comfortable chair. Others, for various reasons, paint onto the kitchen table along with our beloved other halves. The luckiest have a dedicated room or at least a big portion of a room all for them. Whatever the case might be, go for a steady, large enough table, 1 or 2 good light bulbs and a comfortable chair.

Let there be light. Light is one important aspect in all kids of modeling but it becomes so important for flat figure painting, that a wrong light, or a constantly altering light source can destroy days of painting. Daylight, but not direct sun light is a blessing but since most of us have a real life other than figures, most of the painting will take place during the night. Day light bulbs are a good option in this case. It is important to remember that normal incandescent bulbs have a yellowish-orange hue, fluorescent lamps are closer to green spectrum while iridescent ones tends towards purple or blue. We can always compensate with our painting but its better to solve this problem from the beginning. Also stick to the same kind of light and from the same direction (see also painting chapter) from the start to the finish of a figure or a group of figures if they are destined to be displayed together.
In some point or another you will most probably need a kind of magnifier to add small details or simply to paint everything because age plays its role. Most of the painters are using an optivisor, a kind of magnifier that you can wear it much like a hat. It has 2 advantages. It let you hands free giving freedom of movement during painting and gives good laughs for the family when they look at you. You can of course use any kind of magnifying device as long as you feel comfortable with it.
Moving to tools, a scalpel with changeable blades is maybe the single most important and very cheap tool someone can have. Due to profession I have used all kinds of blades, each of them have a number that denotes its shape and size. The most useful one is No 11, the one with a straight edge ending to a sharp tip. It’s an all purpose tool that besides the obvious use of cutting, it cleans flash from figure’s edge, or engraves some detail lost from the cleaning. Its use is limited only by lack of imagination.
Files are the next most useful, simple tool that we have in our disposal. Don’t be cheap when buying them. Choose the smallest, expensive ones that jewelers or watchmakers use. Buy 4-5 different shapes, triangular, round, flat and mouse tail. They won’t last forever but surely last long enough to worth the investment. Replace when they start clogging from metal residues. Remember that metal residues can be cleaned with an iron brush easily.
A small iron saw, precision tweezers, a pair of scissors, an iron ruler, pins and paper clips, a small hand drill or any other simple tool someone might think can be stored easily in case they are needed. Some form of strong glue like a cyanoacrylate type can be used for gluing parts, rarely, or attaching the figure to the base or frame.

Left: A selection of simple, cheap tools. These are more than enough for flat figures. Dremel power tool is a luxury but once you get it, you can’t live without it.

A personal favorite tool, although rather exotic for flat figures is a power mini drill. I had bough a really good one some years ago from Dremel and is so good and with so many accessories for sanding, cutting, engraving drilling and such which I’m sure it will accompany me till the end.
We will deal with brushes, airbrushes, paints and painting mediums at the appropriate chapter. All I can say here is DON’T be cheap with paints and brushes. ALWAYS buy the most expensive ones. Good paints and brushes can make our painting sessions a nightmare or the most enjoyable experience.

Above:
Serge Franzoi's Swedish Banner.

Chapter 2 - References

2007-07-02T23:36:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 2
References

Not many people realize that half the job in a collection or in any art form is references. References can be nearly everything that is in any way related to our subject. Lists with flats available, information about history of a certain figure, about the history of what this certain figure represents, its place in space and time, all have a value in the mental process of collecting and painting flat figures.

Left: One of author’s bookcases. Good and plenty of references can make our living much easier when we paint flat figures.

One can give several examples of the importance of good and plentiful references for a subject. Through time human civilization evolved from the Stone Age to our present, highly sophisticated day. Accordingly, the everyday items we use were evolved too, both civilian and military. Different colors through ages, with some civilizations even have favorites like for e.g. Egyptians and turquoise, or Greeks with white, red and purple and so on (See later chapters). When we want to accurately depict of a soldier that fought in Waterloo we need to know how he was dressed, what he was wearing, what he was carrying, even what season of the year was because everything has an effect on our tiny figure.
Once someone understand the importance of the reference material then can start thinking where and how he or she can find all these information. Books and magazines are the easiest answer. There are three kinds of books a flat figure painter would need. First, books (and magazines) about the actual historical period that the flat figure depicts. Books about different techniques that can be used to finish the figure and last, general books about art, always useful as a source of inspiration and lessons in painting or sculpting.
Internet can be a very powerful and effective tool to collect such information, most of the times for free. In fact, some people say that it’s nearly infinite, so much information on a particular subject that sometimes becomes a problem of how to filter all this information. There are sites for every subject and with a little patience one can collect everything that is needed even for the most accurate representations of that subject.
My own experience has showed me that a book, a specialized magazine or an article stored, is never a waste of money and time. It’s very probable that you will need it sooner or later. Maybe it is a general story about life in that particular era or maybe a small detail of the armament, which by adding it, will accurately represents what was actually used. Or maybe a facial or somatic feature that was so distinctive about that personality we will start painting that even by looking at it someone will say: “ah yes, this hand into this waistcoat can belong only to one person, Napoleon”. After all no one would want his Egyptians palace slave girls to have nice blond hair! But even if you are not a “detail fanatic”, it’s more than sure that good references will have their use in time. So my small hobby library consists of books, articles and photos exactly of the above three mentioned categories.
I have intentionally left out of counting a fourth category of books and internet sites. This is the one that consists of photographs of the actual painted figures. Please, don’t make the mistake to reject a photographic portfolio from a show simply because it doesn’t contain any photo of flat figures. Every, and I mean every photo of a painted figure can be of tremendous value as a reference. Even if it’s not in our particular period of interest, it can be useful to observe different painting effects, or approaches of a certain subject by different artists. Or simply because we don’t know what subject will intrigue us in the future. It could be useful even as pure inspiration for our next project, even if we don’t know it beforehand. Collect all possible books and magazines with photos of painted figures in it. Round and flat ones. Collect even the bad ones. Even these can be of a value to us of what to avoid or not to do in our own figure.
In the appendix 2 I have listed all those books I collected through time and found useful in one way or another. Most of them will be “technical” books of how to paint, highlight and shade and so on. Some other are listed because I consider them very useful for the history they provide or simply because I got something out of them. Inspiration, entertainment or knowledge. Also, some of the links provided in Appendix 1 can open forums, or homepages of artists that share historical or technical information.

Above:

Collection of painted and unpainted flat figures by the French Quadriconcept.

Chapter 1 - Buying Figures

2007-07-02T23:26:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

CHAPTER 1
Buying Figures

Above:

Crusaders from Berliner Zinnfiguren, Germany.

Buying flat figures can be an adventure by itself. Traditionally, these figures were flourishing in Germany , so the easiest place to find them is there. There are quite a lot of shops dealing with flat figures, most of them having internet services to facilitate the acquisition of these small jewels. Fewer shops are located in England, France, USA, and to my knowledge, that’s about it.
Before dealing with internet services, I would like to emphasize a special place where someone can purchase flat figures but unfortunately this can only happen for a three day period every two years! Kulmbach! The Mecca of the flat figure business. A three day show-bazaar that takes places in August every two years. The lucky ones that will manage to visit the event will have the chance to admire thousands of flat figures, painted and unpainted, singles, sets, vignettes, dioramas and to meet and chat with the artists, the editors and dealers. Most of them are really friendly people, ready to help with their stock, their historic knowledge, or their artistic expertise. Besides figures, someone can find everything that is related to them, from old and rare books, showcase cabinets, frames and bases to present them, paints, brushes and any kind of artistic material. All in all, a real must for every serious artist and collector who has an affection for flat figures.
Coming back to internet trade, in my opinion this is the easiest, quite safe lately, and fastest way to collect flat figures. Most of the editors and dealers have online services so there are quite a few possibilities. Also, through e-bay, an online auction procedure, we can bid and win/get some really rare flat figures.
How an online transaction is done? Easy. Most of the editors and dealers have online catalogues displayed in their sites, in PDF electronic format for downloading or they can send them for some very small fee by mail. After selecting the figures we want to purchase, we can pay with various credit cards, deposit money in bank accounts or using an online transaction service called paypal. Nowadays, online money transaction is quite secure and personally haven’t heard any friend or foe had any problem.
Now, the only thing that is left is to eagerly wait for the arrival of the precious order. A bitter-sweet suspense. One very important thing someone must have in mind is to either check the quality of the casting when he/she is at the shop or check it immediately after opening the order that just came with the post. If the figure is not good enough, or has many flaws from the casting process, then do yourself a favor and don’t buy the particular figure or if it came with mail simply contact the editor. Most of the times, they will replace it with a new, much better one or compensate in some way. Besides, it’s much cheaper and easier to buy a new one than to attempt to correct the existing one. Some people like to correct these problems or even to convert the original figure into something else but besides pay my admiration to them I wouldn’t recommend such an adventure. At least for the first few years . More specific, figures must be of a “shiny” appearance with no visible corrosion from oxidation, well engraved, with maybe a small amount of flash around the edges.
In the appendix 1, you can find many internet links to various editors and dealers, with a vast selection of flat figures along with some very interesting links for collector’s homepages, Society’s made by flat figure enthusiasts and forums dedicated to discussions about various aspects of the art of flat figures.

Above:

Mohr's set depicting the Funeral of the Swedish King Gustavous Adolfus.

Introduction

2007-07-02T23:18:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Introduction

Above:
Landsknechts. A masterpiece showing a camp of landsknechts painted from the collaboration of Franzoia Serge (background) and Gianfranco Speranza (figures).

Modeling is a love at first sight. As most of the people involved in one way or another in this hobby, I started assembling and painting plastic kits of any kind. It didn’t’ matter if it was a plane, a ship or a tank. At the beginning at least. Soon after my first plastic kits, I discovered the world of figures in a form of a 90mm Samurai, a Hussard du Marais old metal kit. Assembling and painting took me 2 days and the result was monstrous. Still, the figure was so good to my eyes that I bought my second one and then everything begun. Every figure had something new for me. Different historical periods, different techniques, different painting mediums, each figure was a new experiment and a new excitement. Meanwhile, collection of modeling and historic books became a must since I wanted to accurately reproduce each figure as a personality or a human being that lived, breathed and fought a long time ago.
While browsing the books and web for new products or various references, I kept catching myself being fascinated more and more from a peculiar form of a figure, nearly flat with a slightly engraved detail on it. Buying something like this in my country was out of the question, but with the help of internet services, I bought my first series of 30mm flats. The famous “ Napoleon at the Pyramids” by Mohr. It was then that I realized that flat figures was a passion that overshadowed all other kinds of modeling art.
Since then, I have bought quite a few series of flats, not all are painted of course but they are on queue. The real beauty of these figures is the amount of detail that is engraved on them, even in the tiny ones of 28mm. You can actually see eyeballs, facial expressions, decorations on swords, embroidery on cloths, anything that their much bigger and rounded cousins have sculpted upon them. A second advantage is the amount of space needed for displaying or storing them. Even the larger scale flats need minimum amount of display space either as singles, or in groups mounted onto simple or elaborate frames, or even in boxed dioramas and vignettes. Storing them is equally easy since hundreds or thousands of them can be carefully placed into cardboard boxes protected by foam. Small paper labels and an index is all that is needed to keep tracking them
But the most attractive feature of the flat figure collection is the variety of subjects. We want prehistoric hunters hunting down a bear? Here it is. Biblical themes? Sure. Ancient Greeks, Assyrians, Sumerians fighting? Of course. There is no end in the variety that flat figures cover the human history. Prehistoric times, Ancient, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Napoleonic, until modern times of today, all are represented from various designers, engravers and editors. And not only themes from military history, but thousands of civilian figures accurately representing nearly every aspect of everyday life through the ages.
So what choices someone has when the time to buy a flat figure comes? Answer is: Plenty of choices! Flat figures come in scales from 10mm to 150mm with various steps between these 2 numbers. Traditionally, most of flat figures are 30mm (or 28mm if we want to be accurate) but lately 54mm and 90mm have also a quite large variety of subjects depicted. For starters, I would recommend a small sample of these 3 scales so everyone can see if the scale suits his taste and/or his craftsmanship. Personally I tried different scales, before I settled for the 30mm one. Of course I won’t reject a beautiful figure simply because it’s larger. Some figures are excellent in any scale and you just have to paint them.
One other choice someone has to make before buys a flat figure is what this shall represent. Will it be some ancient people taking a bath? A party of medieval people having a good time in a tavern? A phalanx of Macedonians advancing? Or maybe an elephant tries to squeeze some poor fellow bellow its ferocious sole? Again choices here are limitless. One approach would be just to pick any figure or set of figures that look nice to our eyes and taste. Nothing wrong with this. In fact many people buy goods this way. I know, sometimes I do it. Another approach, a little more sophisticated, is to decide if we want civilian or military subject. After this, decide which time period we are interested in, which nationality we would like our figure to be part of, foot figure or mounted? And so on. Step by step we can easily narrow our choices and decide exactly what we want to collect, buy and paint. Most probably it will be depicted in one way or another in flat figure form anyway.
Let’s start our journey through the wonderful world of flat figures from the very beginning. Where to buy these figures?

Above:
Magnificent French Carabinier from the Danish artist Kjeld Buchholtz.

Upcoming articles

2007-07-02T23:04:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

During the next few weeks, I will post some articles in the forms of chapters of a book about flat figures. These articles gonna cover everything from how and where to buy these small fellows, how to choose among what is available, different techinques of painting them untill the time of dispalying them. In addition, every chapter is gonna contain a selection of photos from well known or not so well know artists, demonstrating different techinqures or simply dispalying amazingly painted flats.

Here is a sample of what is coming up.

Index/Chapters

30mm figure from the Landshuter Hochzeit (1400 - 1500) range by Golberg.

Introduction
Chapter 1 : Buying Figures
Chapter 2 : References
Chapter 3 : Materials
Chapter 4 : Preparation
Chapter 5 : General Thoughts about Painting
Chapter 6 : Enamels / Gouaches / Acrylics
Chapter 7 : Artist’ Oils
Chapter 8 : Painting Flesh
Chapter 9 : The Dreadful Black & White
Chapter 10 : The Reds & Purples
Chapter 11 : The Blues & Greens
Chapter 12 : The Yellows & Oranges
Chapter 13 : Replicating Metal
Chapter 14 : Special Materials
Chapter 15 : Embroideries & Details
Chapter 16 : Painting Animals
Chapter 17 : Finishes & Varnishes
Chapter 18 : Displaying
Epilogue
Gallery
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3

Star Wars

2007-07-02T17:09:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Here is a finished set of Karl Rieger's "Star Wars" a set of 31 flats at 40mm. Although the photo and the lighting is bad and not many details can be seen, the figures are of excellent quality. The engravings are clear and well defined and the figures come clean without flash or pitting onto their surface. Mr Rieger's service is of first rate and can be contacted through his web site http://www.zinnfiguren-rieger.de/

Painting Figures in Acrylics

2007-06-30T18:20:00.000+03:00

An excellent article about painting figures in acrylics by Mario Fuentes.

http://www.ttfxmedia.com/vallejo/cgi-bin/_modelis.asp?p1=ing&p2=modelcolortecnicas

La Sellerie - Le Harnachement

2007-06-28T00:38:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Here is a collection of various drawings about saddles and harnesses by Historex.

Color Mixing

2007-06-27T22:24:00.001+03:00

Color Mixing by William F. Powell

This information is published by William F. Powell as an aid for painters who need assistance in color theory and mixing and may not be altered, copied, reproduced downloaded or distributed in any manner without the written permission of William F. Powell. Thank you for your cooperation.
Some General Guidelines
All color mixtures come from the three primary colors, yellow, red and blue. When we mix these three primary colors together, we obtain a neutral gray. However by mixing only two of the primary colors together, we obtain colors known as secondary colors. For instance, primary yellow and primary red make the secondary color orange, red and blue make the secondary color purple and blue and yellow make the secondary color green.
Think of a tube of white as a tube of light...not white paint. If we do this, we use it in a similar manner that light rays affect colors we see. White can be considered a combination of all visible colors since all perceived color comes from white light.
If white paint is considered white light, then black paint must be considered darkness and therefore the absence of light and of course, color.
Colors directly opposite to one another on the color wheel are known as direct complements. When these complements are mixed together they neutralize each other. Any direct complement has the ability to neutralize its complement more than any other color on the color wheel. When these colors neutralize one another, they make a gray.
When any of the neutralized gray colors are mixed with a pure color, they will neutralize the pure color and create a softer and less gaudy version of the color.
Experiment with color by mixing a color with its complementary (color directly opposite on the color wheel) to gray it rather than reaching for the black. Mixing black with a color does not gray the color. Black only shades a color (takes light away from it) and the color is not as fresh as when mixed with a complementary color.
To obtain softer and more pastel mixes of colors, try intermixing white to the two basic colors to lighten the value of each and then mix the lightened versions together. This will result in some delicate values that can even be lightened more, brightened by the addition of one or both of the basic colors and/or bronzed by adding complementary colors.
Experiment with color mixing and do not be afraid to try something new.
Make notes of everything you do! If you come up with mixtures that work, and have made step progression notes all along the way, you will be able to repeat the process again. Without notes, the mixtures are lost forever. When making notes, place a swatch of color alongside the formula. If you don't, the mixture will be difficult to repeat and the exact value of the mix is lost. (see my book "Understanding Color" published by Walter foster Publishing, Inc. for numerous examples of notes, color smearings and swatches).
Never mix thinners directly into your paint as it washes away the bonding agents and oils and leaves a very weak and dull finish.
Do not be discouraged with your efforts in early color mixing. It comes slowly but surely with practice!
Arranging Colors
Try to think of colors in families. Categorize and arrange them into family groups such as yellows, yellow greens, blue greens, blues, blue purples, purples, red purples, reds, red oranges, and oranges. By doing this, you have created a group of color families that compare with those on the color wheel.
Color Strength / Warmth and Coolness
The strength of a color does not affect the warmth or coolness of that color. Strength only relates to the ability of one color to tint and neutralize another color. For instance, prussian blue is intensely strong and will tint white quickly and overpower most other colors. Manganese blue on the other hand is very weak and it takes a lot of it to tint white and affect other colors. A spec of prussian blue added to white will create a noticeable tint of blue. The same size spec of manganese blue added to the same amount of white will hardly be noticed. Though these two blues are both considered cool blues, their strengths vary greatly.

Controlling the Warmth or Coolness of Color Mixes
Remember that the more red a color contains, the warmer it is considered to be while the more blue a color contains, the cooler it is considered to be. In each color family, there are warm and cool colors.
For instance, a yellow that appears to have an orange tone contains more red and is considered warmer than a yellow that contains blue which makes it appear to be greenish and cooler. There are warm yellows (those containing red) and cool yellows (those containing no red and a bit of blue).
As a visual exercise, place a small swatch of all of your yellows in a line and notice how individual they are. Some look orangish (warm) and others will appear a bit greenish (cooler)
The same thoughts are applied to the colors in the blue family. The more purplish a blue appears to be, the more red it contains making it warm. The more cool yellow a blue contains, the more greenish it becomes making it appear cool.
Lay your blues out in a line the way you did the yellows and notice the difference of each color. Dark colors absorb light rays and are difficult to see. In order to see the dark blue colors well, add a touch of white to the darkest blues. If you are using a white palette, you can also scrape the mixes on the palette making a thin transparent glaze of the pure colors. This will allow you to see the white of the palette through the dark mixes creating a true sense of the pure color mix.
Some Color Mixing Formulas and Color Families
Following are some thoughts and guidelines to assist in arranging color mixtures into families and still control the warm and cool tones of each.
Greens have always been a problem mix for many students. Because of this, let's mix some greens. When mixing these, make notations whether they are warm or cool and dark or light.
We know that by mixing a yellow color and a blue color together we get a color known as green. The warmth of this green color depends upon the warmth of both the ingredients, blue and yellow. In the visual strength department, yellow seems to control the warmth of a mixture more quickly than a blue color.

Making Greens Look Natural
Study your subject and notice the toning of the different greens in the trees, shrubs, grasses and bushes. In nature, it is rare to find a bright - right out of the tube - green. If we find that a green mix is too bright, we can alter it by adding various colors to bronze the mix or white to lighten the tint or lighter colors to tint and weaken the mix.
Bronzing Greens - Lightening and Creating Delicate Greens
Bronzing Greens To make raw, bright greens appear bronze (or brownish) as they do on some foliage in nature, add a tiny spec of red or orange. Good colors to use for bronzing greens are: alizarin crimson (a cool red), cadmium red light (a warm red), cadmium orange, burnt sienna (a deep value of reddish orange), burnt umber (a deep value of yellow-orange). Phthalocyanine reds also act beautifully as a different bronzing color.
Mixing Light and Delicate Greens To make lighter and more delicate green mixes, study the subject and concentrate on the "delicate" tones of the color needed. When searching for a delicate color of green, instead of mixing pure yellow with a pure blue and then lightening the color, try mixing the basic yellow with white to get a lighter and more delicate tint. Do the same with the selected blue and then mix these two lighter and more delicate colors together. The end result mix can always be adjusted and strengthened with the addition of a spec of either or both of the pure colors and/or a touch of any complementary red to bronze.
To lighten a green, add more yellow along with a little white. Any other lighter color can also be added too but be careful not to mix too many colors together or a muddy green will result. There are however, no ugly colors! Sometimes we are just not thoughtful about how we use them. If they appear muddy and unpleasant, we most likely have used them in the wrong place and against other colors that make them appear out of place. I know of many beautiful, muddy greens along many creek banks in West Virginia.
Be thoughtful with your mixing. Test colors. Make the mixes happen, don't just hope it will.

Some green mixes to get started...
Here are a few dark mixes for interior of trees and foliage:
1. 2-burnt umber + 1-prussian blue = blackish green. Very dark green for underpainting dark interiors masses of bushes and trees.
2. 2-burnt umber + 1-phthalocyanine blue = blackish green. Also for underpainting
3. burnt sienna + phthalocyanine blue = dark rich green
4. ultramarine blue + cadmium yellow medium = dark, rich green
5. spec of phthalocyanine blue + cadmium yellow deep = dark, rich green
6. cobalt blue + cadmium yellow deep = dark, warm green (more dull than previous mix)
There are many, many more...experiment!
A few mixes for secondary light within trees and foliage:
1. 2 yellow ochre + 1 ultramarine blue = warm middle sunlight value green.
2. 3 naples yellow + 1 cerulean blue = cool middle value sunlight green
3. raw sienna plus ultramarine blue = warm sunlight middle value green
4. raw sienna + spec of phthalocyanine blue = rich middle value sunlight green
5. cobalt blue + spec of cadmium orange = rich middle value green
6. cerulean blue + raw sienna = dull middle value green
There are many, many more...experiment!
A few secondary highlight within trees
1. cadmium yellow medium + spec cerulean blue
2. cadmium yellow light + spec cerulean blue
3. cadmium yellow light + spec manganese blue
4. cadmium yellow light + tiny spec phthalocyanine blue
5. naples yellow + any of the above blues.
There are many, many more...experiment!
A few highlight greens (keep these on the yellow-green to yellow side)
The following are to be used as final highlights within the foliage and on areas where sunlight is strongest. Keep the mixes light and on the yellowish side. For the coolest appearing bright, sunlight greens, use both a cool yellow and a cool blue. For a slightly warmer but still cool and bright sunlight green, mix with a cool yellow and a warm blue.
1. Cool: zinc yellow + a small amount of any cool blue such as manganese, phthalocyanine blue, prussian blue, cerulean blue, etc.
2. Less cool: zinc yellow + a small amount of any warm blue such as ultramarine, permanent, cobalt, etc.
3. Warm or cool: hansa yellow + spec of warm or cool blue
4. Warm or cool: cadmium yellow pale + spec of warm or cool blue
5. lemon yellow + spec of warm or cool blueTo brighten and accent any of the above highlight yellow-greens, mingle an accent here and there with a spec of white + zinc yellow, white + spec lemon yellow, white + spec hansa yellow. Place these highlights here and there within the general highlighted area to emphasize the play of sunlight on the foliage.-------------For a lighter more bluish green such as the olive tree or eucalyptus, add a spec of cool yellow such as zinc yellow, a spec of cool blue such as cerulean blue, a spec of burnt sienna to bronze and a little white to lighten to value.
Some Color Thoughts Regarding Black and Blue Pigments
Any color that makes a green when mixed with yellow can be considered to be within the blue family of pigments.
Any color that makes a purple color when mixed with a cool red can be considered to be within the blue family of pigments.
Mix any black with any yellow and the result will be a greenish color! The green is more dull and not as chromatic as the pure pigment mixes but non-the-less, the result is still a greenish color!
Mix any black with a cool red such as alizarin crimson or phthalocyanine red, and the result is a purplish color. The purple is more dull and not as chromatic as the pure pigment mixes but non-the-less, the result is still a purplish color!
Now...this tells us that we have another avenue of green colors to try. Try mixing different yellows with different blacks.
There are warm blacks and cool blacks. For instance, ivory black and mars black are warm while lamp black is the coolest black available. Warm and cool blacks will result in warm and cool appearing green mixes.
You can mix your own version of a wonderful black by using equal parts of ultramarine blue + equal parts of burnt umber. The result is a charcoal black that can be cooled by the addition of more blue or warmed with the addition of more burnt umber.
A soft silver black can be obtained by mixing burnt sienna with ultramarine blue or cobalt blue or cerulean blue.
A rich black green can be mixed with burnt umber + phthalocyanine blue or prussian blue as used in the dark foliage above.
The real key to "Understanding Color" (the title of my first book...I couldn't resist the temptation) is practice! Experiment with mixtures and most importantly, make notes of every color you mix. If it doesn't work, no one will know...but if it does!!! you have the record of how you obtained the color and how to repeat the mixture again.
I hope the forgoing has been helpful to you in your color mixing and painting. The greens especially seem to be a real problem for many beginning painters. Hopefully this information will be of assistance. Practice mixing colors every time you have the opportunity!

Color Theories

2007-06-27T22:22:00.000+03:00

By Rob Howard

COLOR THEORIES____The Good, the Bad and the UselessAlthough the use of color is not without pitfalls, unlikedrawing or pictorial composition, it is the most flexible andtolerant of individual taste of all the aspects of painting. Whilemany of us a seem to born with the ability to draw, few of us areborn colorists simply because good color can be achieved onlythrough an intelligent approach born of proper study.No other element of Art has more mystery surrounding it thanthe study of color. From that mystery have arisen countless colortheories. Some theories have strong foundations built on provenand observable fact. Other of these theories are, well---frankly,they are bizarre. In the beginning of this chapter we'll discuss abit of the history surrounding a few of the more bizarre and,unfortunately, influential theories which continue to bring newterrors to students of color. My opinions may fly in the face ofwhat you've learnt at university, but please give them a hearing.
In the chaos following the First World War, the ashes ofGermany became the breeding ground for a new social order.Socialism took firm root in the fertile ground of post-wardiscontent. Socialist thought crept into everything, even unlikelyareas like the arts, and it gave birth to the artisticmanifesto.With their many manifestos, the new men of the NewSociety shouted down figurative painting as merely "illustratingthe myths of the intellectual bourgeois." These new anti-intellectuals set about to create art forms which would becomeillustrations of their social and political manifestos.Out of that curious period came this call to arms of theNovembergruppe; "Painters, Architects, Sculptors, you whom thebourgeoisie pays with high rewards for your work---out of vanity,snobbery, and boredom---Hear! To this money clings the sweat andblood and nervous energy of thousands of poor hounded humanbeings---Hear! It is unclean profit . . . we must be truesocialists--- we must kindle the highest socialist virtue: thebrotherhood of man."Walter Gropius, apart from founding the Bauhaus, was alsochairman of the Novembergruppe's Arbeitsrat fur Kunst (WorkingCouncil for Art). He sought to join all of the arts together"under the wing of a great architecture." Appointing himself GreatArchitect and sounding much like the jackbooted men who would soonfollow, he wrote "the intellectual bourgeois has proved himselfunfit to be the bearer of a German culture." He predicted aBauhaus/Socialist New World Order arising from unsuspectedquarters when he wrote, "New, intellectually undeveloped levelsof our people are rising from the depths. They are our chiefhope." Unfortunately, he got his wish . . . and the world got Hitler.A common thread joined those art forms spawned by the newanti-intellectualism. Artistic movements like Futurism, Vorticism,Orphism, Purism and Surrealism, were distinguished not so much asaesthetic movements but as esoteric codes designed to baffle thehated bourgeoisie (never mind that later Socialists would rejectthese incomprehensibly coded aesthetic messages to seek comfort inthe most puerile and saccharine of bourgeois art, and never mindthat the artists themselves became the prototypes of thesuccessful capitalist). It was only natural that, in those giddyearly years, The Movement would produce its own peculiar theoriesconcerning politically correct ways of seeing. Rising out of thisyeasty mix of aesthetics and politics and armed with correct newcolor theories and a reformer's zeal, sprung Josef Albers andJohannes Itten.Albers and Itten's color theories had little to do with thepractical problems encountered by the figurative artist. To their way ofthinking, that was all to the better. But when World Socialism finallyrejected their ideas as counter- revolutionary, they, along with Gropius, beat ahasty retreat to those places still cordial to arcane and unprovabletheories...the universities. The sheltered hot house atmosphere of theuniversity provided a congenial rallying place where countless studentsjourneyed forth to kneel at the feet of their idols. The trouble was, thosestudents never got up off their knees--- they went on to teach thoseunworkable coded theories to the next generation of easily gulled students.Itten's book, The Art of Color, attempted to validate histheories through a clever technique well known in advertisingagencies. By juxtaposing his color charts next to the work ofgreat painters he hoped to add credence to his theories.Strangely, Itten chose painters who died well before the advent ofthe modern pigments and colors shown in his charts. Those greatmaster's pictures have as little bearing on his color theories asare the trim young models in beer commercials a result of drinkingthe advertiser's product.To appear original, Itten abandoned the ten-colorwheel of the Munsell System in order to create his idiosyncraticTwelve Color Star and a seven value Color Sphere. The dilemma was;how was the artist to apply rigidly circumscribed charts, blocks,stars and spheres of color to painting the delicate passagesinherent in figurative painting? Those uncompromising Bauhausprecepts have proved to be coarse, clumsy tools ill suited toproducing that grace and finesse we associate with figurativepainting. Thus far, the only application of Alber's and Itten'stheories have been in short-lived art fads like Color Fieldpainting and Op Art.I don't want to leave you with the impression that all formal colortheories are useless to the illustrator and painter. Quite the contrary.Unlike Albers and Itten (both of whose theories are never mentioned inserious writings on color), a few well grounded color theorists like FaberBirren, concentrated on practical color effects of use to the artist andcraftsman. Birren's book, Creative Color should be required reading for anyillustrator or painter. The color effects shown in Creative Color are asextraordinary as they are useful. Birren was not the only one to developpractical color theories with the artist in mind. Far ahead of its time wasthe fundamental work from which much practical color theory grows--- M.E.Chevreul's 1839 book, The Principles of Harmony and Contrast ofColor. It was from within this book that the color theories of theImpressionists took root. Although approaching color from a more scientificstandpoint Ogden Rood, Albert Munsell, Wilhelm Ostwald and Denman Ross allproduced work of lasting value to the artist.The Munsell Color System:A decade before the Novembergruppe issued its first artisticmanifesto in the city of Weimar, Albert H. Munsell had developedan elegant system of color notation in the city of Boston. Thatsystem has become the universal standard by which colors arejudged. It should be the standard by which color theories arejudged. Professor Munsell sought to bring color description awayfrom whimsical and confusing names like 'Firecracker Red' and'Chinese Red' into a standardized language by which color could beaccurately specified. He succeeded in doing much more than that.
Munsell separated color into three fundamental components.The first dimension was HUE, "The quality by which we distinguishone color from another, as a red from a yellow, a green, a blue ora purple." He divided the hues into ten equal steps on a band. Theband was bent around to form a hoop---the Color Wheel. In namingthe Hues, he did not use names like Orange. What is commonlycalled orange, for example, he called yellow-red because it is amixture of those two primary hues.The second dimension of color is the easiest one tounderstand. VALUE is "The quality by which we distinguish a lightcolor from a dark one." The scale used to depict value is avertical pole divided into nine increments of neutral grey. A pureblack was added at the bottom and pure white added to the top.CHROMA describes the brilliancy or strength of a specific Hueat any given Value. By extending a scale horizontally from theneutral pole of the Value scale, an easily understood graphicrepresentation of Chroma Strength can be made. Red is at its mostbrilliant (has its highest Chroma Strength) at Value 5 on theneutral pole, it extends on the horizontal scale to its maximumChroma Strength of 10. As the horizontal scale approaches thepole, the colors become more and more grey until, at a ChromaStrength of 1, at become almost a pure grey. Shorthand notationsare used which first list an abbreviation of the Hue followed bythe Value and the Chroma Strength separated by a slash and statednumerically.The scientific principles upon which this system is basedare beyond question. Since the inception of the Munsell Color System,hundreds of new colors and pigments have been introduced. Without exception,all of them conform to the system's principles. That is; no color can behigher in Value than white or below the Value of black. Every new color has aHue name which can be precisely located on the Color Wheel. The variablescale of Chroma Strength can be logically extended to accommodate morebrilliant pigments as they become available. As an example, when ProfessorMunsell designed his system, the Red Hue at Value 5 attained its highestChroma Strength of 10 (the Munsell notation is R 5/10). How can the Munsellsystem accommodate the fluorescent pigments which were undreamt of in thebeginning of the century? Quite easily. The complete collection of HolbeinDesigner Gouache has a fluorescent color called 'Opera." Its Hue is describedas a 7RP, meaning a Red with a cool overtone. The Value is described as 5.5.Because of Opera's fluorescent pigment, its Chroma Strength is a whopping18.5, almost twice that of the original Value 5 Red. Opera's Munsell notationis the rather longish 7RP 5.5/18.5.Earlier, I stated that Professor Munsell achieved a greatdeal more than creating a neat system for cataloguing colors.Residing within his system is a well conceived plan for achievingcolor balance. In comparing the Chroma Strength of Value 5 Redwith the Chroma Strength of its visual complement, Value 5 BlueGreen, we can see that although the Chroma paths touch at theneutral pole, the Chroma Strength of Red extends to twice that ofBlue Green. If we mixed equal parts of Red with Blue Green wewon't get a perfectly neutral grey, but one in which the Redpredominates very decidedly. It would be like a tug-of-war withten men on one side, each representing a step of Chroma, and onlyfive on the other side.
Visualize a bar representing the five stepsof Chroma for Blue Green and the ten steps of Chroma for Red. If thebar rests upon a fulcrum at the neutral point it obviously willnot balance. But if we cut off steps 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 from theRed side of the bar, it will balance upon the fulcrum, or neutral grey. It isthis simplicity which is characteristic of the Munsell Systemthroughout.Of course, as artists, we don't want to be limited to usinghalf-strength reds in order to balance its complement. We musthave other means at our disposal for attaining balance. If ourpurpose was merely to make a neutral grey, we would use a greateramount of the weaker color. If we wish to produce a balanced andharmonious color design, we can employ a larger area of the weakercolor. If we do this in the correct proportions, relative to theChroma Strength of each color, we will attain balance. It's asthough we used ten blocks of the weaker Blue Green (BG 5/5) tobalance five blocks of Red (R 5/10).For the artist, all of these color theories have a majorshortcoming---they do not deal with artist's paints, especiallyopaque paints. Chevreul's admirable work was created primarily asan aid to the weavers at the Gobelin tapestry works. By layingsmall dots of color next to each other, like stitches of coloredthread, the Pointillists were able to make full use of histheories. On the other hand, mixing pigments on a palette does notproduce the same results. Thus, not all of Chevreul's theorieswere applicable to the pictorial painter.While it lies at the foundation of modern color theory,Munsell's color system does not easily accomodate itself to makingaccurate mixtures with artist's colors. Early in the 20th century,attempts were made to locate the complements of various artist'spigments. The Dudeen Color Triangle was one of those earlyattempts. The Dudeen Color Triangle was not widely acceptedbecause it was, to be frank...poorly designed. The Modular ColorSystem was another system designed to be used by artists. It wasan elegant and useful system designed by Nathaniel Jacobson andintroduced in 1975 by Liquitex. It consisted of a set of acrylicsformulated to have the highest Chroma Strength according to theirparticular Value. A set of Reds would range through the Valuescale from pale pink down to deep maroon. Aside from Red, theModular System included various values of Neutral Grey, Yellow,Green, Purple and Blue, all arranged according to their positionon the Value scale. It was very easy to use. Sadly, it was notgreeted with the success it deserved. Perhaps we artists needpoetic sounding color names, like Cadmium Red Light and LightPortrait Pink rather than R5 and R8.Color mixing was made much more understandable in 1989 withthe publication of Stephen Quiller's Color Choices. Quiller is anaccomplished landscape painter whose work is distinguished by hisexcellent use of color. He mixes color with his brains---and acolor wheel of his own invention. The Quiller Wheel is createdfrom actual artist's paints, not printer's inks. Thus, CadmiumOrange lies opposite Ultramarine Violet rather than the Munsellnotations of a 4 Yellow Red across from a 9 Purple Blue. Althoughthere are variations between manufactures, the true complements ofartist's paints are located on the opposite side of the wheel---nomore color shifts resulting in 'mystery mud'. Quiller's colorwheel is the foundation for an easy-to-understand color course.Landscape painting offers great latitude for demonstratinga variety of spectacular color effects. Landscape offers far greater latitude thanthat is allowed by the subject matter of most illustrations---people and products. Still, Quiller's sensible approach to colormixing makes this book one of the most useful books the painter orillustrator can own.During Hans Holbein's day, color theory was a moot point. Youjust couldn't build much of a theory around a palette with onlyhalf-a-dozen colors. As more colors became available and the useof color became more than merely tinting monochrome pictures,color became the subject of serious study. But that study wasalways done by the practitioners---the artists. Rubens certainlydidn't need a theorist to tell him that blue was calming, red wasenervating and yellow could be cheerful.Over the centuries new colors were slowly added to thepalette. But with the discovery of aniline dyes in the 1850's arainbow of brilliant colors exploded onto the market---colorswhich found their first use in women's fashions. What followed wasa demand for portraits of women wearing those brightly hueddresses. That in turn, created a demand for paint manufacturers toproduce the brighter pigments needed to adequately depict thosenew fashions. It was this bright palette of colors that theImpressionists and the Pre-Raphaelites inherited.Fortunately, techniques for the practical employment of colorin pictorial (not abstract) paintings has been passed on to us bynumerous illustrators and painters. Howard Pyle, Harvey Dunn,Norman Rockwell, Andrew Loomis and Frank Reilly are a few of theworking artists who wrote extensively concerning the effective useof color in painting. Their approach to pictorial painting wasbased on the observations we all make when observing nature. Theybelieved that, if in looking out a window you saw an area of greensituated below a large expanse of blue, you'd be right in assumingthe green represented grass and the blue was that of the sky. Ifyou looked out the same window and saw blue on the bottom andgreen on top, you might suspect that someone had turned your houseupside-down. Despite newer theories, we still hold those truths to be self-evident.
The use of color in pictorial paintings derives from equallysimple observations of nature. The information resulting fromthose observations is known to everyone, not only artists. If youdrew a picture of a person with one too many fingers, the mistakewould be obvious to anyone. Like the odd products of Bauhaus colortheories, drawings of six-fingered people just won't convince mosthumans. Of course there will always be a self-proclaimed elite whocan persuade themselves into seeing The Emperor's New Clothes, butthe rest of us still remain unconvinced and, like Queen Victoria, not amused.I won't try to persuade you that learning to use color iseasy. It's not---but following these suggestions will help keepyour paint clean and bright.First: always keep your brushes clean. Use copious amounts ofwater or solvent to clean your brushes. Dirty brushes (and dirty water or solvent)will turn the brightest color mousy and dull.Second: do not allow the colors on your palette to run intoeach other. Be especially careful that you do not dip into acolor with a brush which contains another color.
Third: Keep your eye on the white paint on your palette. Ifyour brush is contaminated, it will show up here first.Fourth: use your grey card to compare the values of yourcolor mixtures. The grey card helps you to get it right thefirst time, thus avoiding an overworked picture. Properlychosen values are the key to convincing color.Fifth: get a color wheel. It will make order out of thechaos. Grumbacher's Color Computer is handy because it helpsyou to find direct, split and triadic complementaryharmonies. It also shows tints (colors mixed with white),tones (colors mixed with grey), and shades (colors mixed withblack). Far and away the artist's most useful color wheel isthe Quiller Wheel, of which we spoke earlier.Sixth: your palette is one of your most important tools. 90%of an artist's work is done on the palette; tones and colorsare tried out, as well as the thickness or thinness of thepaint. The palette must be kept clean and organized becauseit is where you do your thinking. Your painting can be nobetter than your palette.
PAINTING WITH COLOR: The Short CourseRather than approach color as though it was some sort ofspecial science, let's approach it with the knowledge we'vealready developed as artists.* We know that, to be successful, all pictorial paintingsmust be based upon the structural truths of tone, light andshadow.* Color is not only subject to the same pictorial approachgoverning tone, light and shadow; but also to the effects ofatmosphere and reflected light.Colors and their Characteristics:In order to use color in a pictorial painting we must be ableto carry any color from its lightest value down to completedarkness. Although nature contains far darker darks andlighter lights, Black and White represents the extreme valuerange of opaque paints. Although any color can be lightenedor darkened with white or black, that method seldom producesthe most brilliant (highest Chroma Strength) color for anygiven value.YELLOW:Although you can get a wonderful richness by using Black tolower the value of Purple, using the same Black to lower thevalue of Yellow will produce, not a darker yellow but anOlive Green. However, lowering Yellow's value is easy onceyou understand that many of the earth colors like YellowOchre, Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber are just duller, darkeryellows. Because it is located near the top of the Value scale,the value of Yellow can only be raised with White.PURPLE:The various shades of Purple, or Violet are very important increating the shadow areas of its complement---Yellow. Don'tforget, Alizarin Crimson is a violet, not a red. AlizarinCrimson mixed with Pthalocyanine Blue produces a dark purple.Alizarin Crimson can also be mixed with a small amount ofPthalocyanine Green to produce a cool violet. AlizarinCrimson mixed with a Neutral Grey produces a wide range ofvery useful violet tones.RED:Red can be very difficult to paint with because so many redpigments have cool overtones which aren't apparent until youtry to mix them with other colors. Cadmium Red Medium andCadmium Red Deep turn almost violet when mixed with White.Until you're really familiar with your colors, use CadmiumRed Light for your bright red. When raising the value ofCadmium Red Light, mix a tiny touch of Orange into your whiteto keep it from getting cool. You can also use a premixed "Flesh" insteadof White to lighten your reds. In order to maintain thecharacter of Cadmium Red Light while lowering its value, mixit with Alizarin Crimson tempered with a bit of Burnt Umber.ORANGE:Cadmium Orange is the most useful orange pigment. It can bedarkened with Burnt Sienna and lightened with Flesh or NaplesYellow mixed with White.GREEN:Straight from the tube, Permanent Green Light is the highestchroma green. It's also difficult to use in pictorialpainting. Pthalocyanine Green is very dark but staysbrilliant when brought up in value with White.BLUE:Pthalocyanine Blue has extraordinary tinting strength. It'svery dark as it comes from the tube, but if you needadditional depth to your blue shadows, add Burnt Umber.Pthalocyanine Blue (Winsor & Newton calls theirs Winsor Blue)can be lightened with White. Be careful when mixing it withother colors because a little bit of Pthalocyanine Blue goesa long way.WHITE:Before we go any further, let's discuss the different typesof white paint and their proper uses. Titanium, or PermanentWhite should not be mixed with colors unless you want pale,chalky pastels. Titanium White is useful for creating opaquewhite passages against dark backgrounds. To lighten a colorto a clear and bright tint, it must be mixed with Zinc White.The virtual unavailability of Zinc White in acrylics accountsfor much of the chalkiness seen in pictorial acrylicpaintings when compared to oil and gouache paintings.Although gouache dries to a matte finish, gouache colorstinted with Zinc White show far greater brilliancy and depththan similar tints made with acrylics mixed with Titaniumwhite.BLACK:Just as some white pigments are better mixers, the same canbe said for blacks. Ivory Black is the most transparent ofthe blacks. It darkens colors without overwhelming them.
* Pictures which are built on a few basic values---a light,one or two middle tones, and a dark---seldom go dead.* Large amounts of pure, bright colors won't producebrilliant pictures. A patchwork of colors and values placedagainst each other, compete for attention and the brilliancyof the whole picture becomes reduced.* One primary plus its neighbors, opposed by itscomplementary will never go dead. These colors, supported byneutral and semi-neutral colors, plus black and white, willalways be brilliant...always.* Mix your colors from as few colors as possible. Every coloradded to a mixture reduces its brilliancy.* Large areas of color should be toned down with a complementor grey, in order to give other colors a chance. Remember theaxiom, "The larger the area, the softer the color needs tobe."
Here's an interesting fact:
The size of a pictureeffects our perception of its color harmony. Bright colorscan be quite pleasant when used in a small color sketch, butwhen we use the same colors in the enlarged version, thecolors appear coarse. The reason lies in the limited numberof color cones in our retina. Because we have only so manycolor cones to register the different color vibrations, oureye tires quickly when scanning large areas of color. Theillustrator whose pictures are photographically reduced forreproduction should understand and exploit this phenomenon.A common cause of dead pictures is too much raw unrelatedcolor rather than not enough. Here are some ways to bring yourpicture back from the dead.* Trying greying all but two colors.* Tie your palette together by mixing a single color into allbut one or two of the other colors.* Create your pictures with simple tone plans consisting of alight tone, one or two middle tones, and a dark tone. Keep itsimple.* Reduce your palette to three or four basic colors fromwhich you'll mix all the rest. This is a lot easier and moreeffective than it sounds.* Don't put bright colors into your shadows.* Put your brightest colors into areas of light, especiallytransitional areas where light meets shadow.* Never use all three primaries in their pure state, in thesame picture. If they are there, that's your source oftrouble. Tone two of the primaries with the third one. Onlyone primary should dominate.* Introducing black, white or grey can help restore thebrilliancy of a picture which is too full of color. You haveto sacrifice color in one place to gain brilliancy elsewhere.* If the picture doesn't respond to any of the above, itmeans that the values are wrong. The overall relationship oflight to shadow has gone wrong. A color cannot be right untilits value is right.I know that much of this goes against what you think comprises goodcolor, but these aren't my rules...these are nature's rules. Stick yourhead out of the window. What do you see? If your studio is in the city,you'll likely see a lot of greys and dull browns. But if your studio isin the country, you'll still be looking at lots of greys and browns. Mostof the permanent things in the landscape; earth, tree trunks and rocksare greyed down colors. Except on golf greens, most grassy areas aregreyed or brownish greens. The bright colors are reserved for rare andfleeting effects; flowers, sunsets, fruits, feathers and the spectacularcolors of autumn. Those bright colors always appear to be at theirmaximum brilliance because they are surrounded and buffered byneutralized tonalities of themselves. Perhaps there's an important lessonawaiting on your next walk through the fields.
Light and Shadow:Outdoor light comes from the sun, not the sky. That's whysunlit highlights are warm, especially as we approach sunset. Theblue of the sky reflects into the shadows causing shadows toappear cooler than the lights.In a studio with a north facing window, the opposite is true.Because there is never any direct warm light from the sun, theblue of the sky reflects its cool light through the window.Because of optical contrast, the shadows appear warm. Your pictures will become livelyand lifelike if you remember to create a warm/cool interplaybetween, and within, your shadows and your lights.Shadows are affected by more than just the warm or coolreflections of the light source, thus we have the axiom, color isrelative to all surrounding influences. What this means is, theareas of a warm yellow cube illuminated by a warm light sourcewill get warmer and more intense, while the color on the coolshadow side will become neutralized. If we place the cube on ablue ground, that color will be reflected up into the shadow. Someof the blue would mix with the yellow causing the shadow to lookgreener than the above example. We call the actual color of anobject its "local" color. Yellow is the local color of the cubesused in our example. This brings us to yet another axiom, localcolor should never completely lose its identity in the shadow.All colors are modified by the conditions surrounding them.Warm light shining on a warm color will give it greater brilliancy. Thesame warm light shining on a cool color will subtract brilliancy.* When struck by light, all colors become a source ofreflected light and will reflect themselves into adjacentshadow areas.* All colors in shadow take on the reflected colors of theadjacent light struck area.* Any two colors become harmonious when one (or both) aremixed with some of the other.* No color can be more intense in shadow than it is in light.* Colors at their greatest intensity should be relegated tothe lights and halftones. In shadow, these colors should begreyed or neutralized---or changed by the influence of theadjacent colors.* The most brilliant colors are usually found in thehalftones.Although the painter's axiom of, greys make the picture hasmuch to recommend it, too many neutral greys can deaden a picture.Overly neutralized greys can be fixed by "spiking" them with thecolor they lean toward. Although this technique is particularlyeffective in the halftones, shadow colors can also be intensifiedto good effect. However, to avoid a gaudy and unconvincingpicture, greater delicacy and taste must be used when spikingshadows.Pre-mixed greys can be very useful to tone down colors without alteringtheir value. If we hold a color, let's say Flame Red, next to ourgrey card we see that it's between a Value 3 and a Value 4---mytube of Flame Red is a Value 3.5. By mixing increasing amounts ofgrey with the color, we can lower its intensity without changingits value. If you paint a square with the toned down mixture andplace a square of the pure color in the middle, the color willappear to be much more brilliant than if just painted on white.Experiment with varying proportions of grey and red. See how easyit is to create the effect of a glowing red area. If you squintyour eyes the differences between the pure color and grey willdisappear. Remember, if you photograph this with black and whitefilm, it will look like the entire square has been painted in aValue 3.5 grey.Colors which are direct complements, meaning they appeardirectly opposite each other on the color wheel, will usuallyneutralize each other if mixed together. The neutral and semi-neutral tones made by mixing direct complements are called visualgreys. One of the best known combinations is Alizarin Crimson andViridian. The chart shows three values of a neutral mix at thetop. The three values in the middle are semi-neutrals favoringAlizarin Crimson. The three values at the bottom are semi-neutralsfavoring Viridian. The same system applies to the other examples.Learning to mix and use visual greys is one of the mostuseful skills a colorist can develop. I spent more than a yearpainting with nothing other than mixtures of Ultramarine and RawSienna. I never exhausted the possibilities offered by those twocolors. Painting with such a limited palette gave me a greaterappreciation of color. Again, this is something which must beexperienced firsthand. Pick two complementary colors and execute apainting. Although you may use a full range of values, you'llprobably not use the full range of color. This execise is a realeye-opener. I recommend it.Like many of the techniques in this chapter, the followingtechnique was first shown to me by Andrew Loomis in his classicbook Creative Illustration. Although the illustrations in Loomis'book may appear dated, his solid advice is timeless. In order togive you the flavor of Loomis' approach, I'll quote him directly."Here is one of the best ways in the world to obtainbrilliancy of color: Keep your color most intense on the edges ofthe lighted areas, where it merges into shadow. This seems to castan aura of additional color over the whole area. Just taking alocal color of the light and rubbing it into a darker color of theshadow (which most of us do, most of the time) produces nobrilliancy. It is apt to be just color in the light, then mud,then reduced color in the shadow. This is one of the least knownand least practiced truths." It also is one of the best and mostuseful pieces of advice I've ever received.That wraps up the our abbreviated introduction to colortheory and basic color principles. I hope that the information inthe beginning of this chapter saves you from wasting time withdead-end color theories that just don't work. Don't expect toabsorb everything after reading it just one time. Let it sink infor a while. Experiment by applying these principles to littlecolor sketches. If you run into any trouble, come back to consultthe "bullet points" in this chapter or Stephen Quiller's ColorChoices and Andrew Loomis' Creative Illustration. If I werelimited to owning just two books about color, these would be the two.

Painting Tattoos

2007-06-27T21:41:00.000+03:00

Author Unknown

I am an oils guy, and I have recently done a couple busts with tattoos. I paint all my flesh tones as per usual. Let them thoroughly dry (2-3 days). I then mix up my tattoo color with my oils. I use sap green, phthalo blue, paynes gray, and usually just a smidge (tiny bit) of yellow ochre (ochre really helps to "gray" down the mix and since I use this in my flesh tone mix, helps tint the color to the flesh tones) until I get what I see as a satisfying color. Somewhere in the bluish to kinda greenish range. I then use one of my smallest "liner" or "spotter" brushes to apply the paint (usually around 5/0 to 10/0 brushes depending on what I'm painting and where). These brushes are generally thin and keep a nice sharp point when painting.One thing to mention here, I ALWAYS plan the tattoos ahead of time with a small sketch or, what I do with almost all my figures, is bring an image of the figure into Photoshop and work out what I want to do before I start painting so I have a good reference with me while I work on the project. This has proven particularly helpful when doing tattoos, because I draw them on the figure freehand with no reference lines to start with. Any type of reference would look unrealistic at this scale. Particularly since the paint goes on VERY transparent and would show the reference lines underneath.I apply the paint in VERY thin coats. I keep very little paint on the brush, just enough to hold the point. I then apply it as if dry-brushing slowly drawing the basic shape of the tattoo on the surface. This is a slow build up of color. It goes on quite light and transparent at first as I build up the color to what I think is satisfactory. I let the paint stay just a bit "modelled" and not perfectly even as to let it appear a bit worn. The beauty of painting with oils is the fact that they stay wet more than long enough for you to make any corrections right away with thinner should you need to correct a line or two. I go back and forth, paint a couple lines, fix what ails them, and so on. One other thing to mention here would be shading. I have seen tattoos painted with highlight and shadow on them before. I don't really agree with this, to a point. Tattoos are generally perfectly flat on the skin and would generally not get a great deal of catch-light or strong highlight on the top (overhead lighting technique). So, because I am applying mine in so transparent a manor, I basically let the underlying flesh tones do my shading. I might be tempted to add a bit darker color for shadows if the tattoo goes somewhere to require that, but generally, if it is out in the open it will stand on it's own adequately without forcing too strong highlights and shadows.

Painting Silver Lace

2007-06-27T21:17:00.000+03:00

By Lou Masses

For the complete article of Silver lace and more articles including one about gold lace visit Lou Masses excellent blog at https://home.comcast.net/~lrm1/

While essentially the same technique as painting Gold lace using only yellows. Replicating silver can be a bit more daunting because from a distance it looks well, white. The figure at right (Poste Militaire's Officer of Orleans Cavalry) was painted in oils and acrylics but all of the lace both on the figure and the saddle are white and grey. The key difference between painting gold lace using yellows and silver lace using whites is that with silver, the highlights tend to be more extreme.

Photo 1

Paint the entire area in a coat of black-grey. It's important to do this in thin layers vs. thick coats because the last thing you want to do is obscure surface detail-without it, you're stuck.

Photo 2

Mix the base coat with a lighter bluish grey. Using that mix, carefully paint all raised detail except that which would not be exposed to light in any way (such as the part of the saddle at right in the shadows). At this stage it is ok to have most of the detail painted in the lighter tone if it is actually exposed to light in any way.

Photo 3
Carefully go over all areas that have more exposure to light with a mixture of the second tone and white. (see sidebar on the best way to tell where to apply the paint). At this stage it's starting to look like something. Be careful however at this stage not to over do it.

Photo 4

Now for the very highest highlights use a very light grey applying it only to areas that would catch the most light. Again, with silver, unlike god, you will have more areas that reflect light. Look at the arrows at right to see.

Photo 5

Using white, touch the tips where the most light would hit-apply only to areas that would capture the most direct light possible. If you compare the two pictures at right you will see that only the very tops of surfaces are affected.

Viola! You're done. While time consuming, because you are effectively just layering the paint, it is not as overly complicated as you might think. The most important aspect to understand is the effect and position of the lightsource you are trying to replicate. Without an understanding of that, the whole thing will just blend into itself and will end up looking white.
There are actually two ways to practice this technique that might help you learn the effect of light more quickly. One is real easy, simply look at paintings of soldier wearing lace. You'll see that the artist replicates the lace using yellows or whites and grays only yet your eye is fooled into thinking it is actually metallic only because the manipulation of light. The other method is to photograph your figure under a lamp and note carefully where the light hits and where it doesn't. The best thing to do is to prime you figure, place a 100 watt lamp over it (do not use flash) wherever you would like to see the light coming from, and photograph it. You will see EXACTLY where the shadows and highlights are supposed to go.

Painting Gold Lace

2007-06-27T21:10:00.000+03:00

Painting Gold Lace by Matt Springer

Here is some info on how I paint gold lace without using metallic paint. In this case, I've used the technique on this 75mm figure from Pegaso Miniatures. Unless mentioned, all colors are Vallejo Model Colors.

I start with a base coat of Burnt Umber on all the gold lace areas. As with all acrylics, I apply the base in several thin coats to assure good coverage and also to prevent the loss of sculpted detail that thick coats of paint can hide.
Once the base coat is dry, I mix a little Yellow Ochre into Burnt Umber and with a good detail brush (W&N Series 7 Red Sable) I apply the paint in small lines across each section leaving some of the base to show through. Once this dries, I do the same with more Yellow Ochre added to the Brown Umber and add more small lines in only in smaller areas than before that are more directly exposed to light. Next, the same is done with pure Yellow Ochre and then yet again with Yellow Ochre plus Golden Yellow. Final highest highlights are pure Golden Yellow. Once done, I applied a glaze or a wash of burnt umber and a bit of yellow ochre to unify and bring all the tones together. The key is to leave some areas with little highlights and have others with lots of highlight to create large jumps in contrast from one lightening stage to the next. This helps create the illusion of reflectivity associated with gold lace without using metallic paint.

Painting a Flat Cavalry Figure

2007-06-27T20:41:00.000+03:00

Artist Unknown

Without coming into too big a theoretical storiy I just decided to show at this page how one of my flats has been painted. I just explain what colour is used and hope that most of that what I was doing will be self-explaining by added pictures.

Picture 1

After priming of flat using HUMBROL mat white *, I started with face and headdress. The face and its natural appearance will always "make or break" a flat or any other miniature. If to choose between frog-eyed guys and "blind" I always choose the last option. So most figures on these pages don´t have any visible eyes painted (though I have produced some frogs before, too). Oil used are of "MUSSINI" brand.
For some reason a face will never get a complete satisfying appearence with first paint. So I added some more light and shades after first paint has been dried completely. I useed 30% Naples yellow deep and 70% English red light for basic fleshtone. Lights beenig added with a mixture of 10% Naples yellow deep and 90% opaque white and a third layer of pure opaque white. Shadow area at face - here coming from busby - has been added with English red deep .
The Busby has been painted with mixture of 40% Vandyke brown and 50% lamp black (being more dark than ebony black) and 10% brownish grey . Lights beenig added consisting of a mixture of 50% brownish grey and 50% opaque white.
* I use the essence only, thinned seperatly with turpentine substitute as HUMBROL´S thinner is less "liquid" than requested.

Picture 2

I added pure lamp black at shadow areas of busby after first paint has dried completely. During drying procedure the white will always getting darker and vice-versa. This effect is very nice where this is requested, but where hard contrasts are required, a second paint (at least) will be necessary.
Here a light brown horse colour was chosen, which consisted of English red deep, yellow raw ochre and a little black. Lights have been made from Naples yellow deep, cadmium orange and yellow raw ochre. Shadows were again executed with Vandyke brown. Moreover I added some pure English red deep to some parts ttrying to achieve a more natural appearance.My blue colour consisted of 80% indigo and 20% Prussian blue.(BTW: I don´t like the pure Prussian blue colour mostly used for blue uniforms being much too colourful and greenish, especcially when high-lightend with white) Light and shades were added using Opaque white and Lamp black added to basic colour.

Picture 3

After drying completely again (!) I added a first layer of grey using Opaque white, Lamp black and a little bit of Prussian blue. Then I executed a "priming" of light carmine at parts of uniform. This is necessary, as this colour mixed from Alizarin madder lake deep, Cadmium red deep and Caput mortuum is still very transparent and wouldn´t show at all without a priming.
Furthermore added a second layer of very thin colour on blue parts of uniform to receive a better contrast. The reason to do this in a second step is the following : When trying to execute at first shading process it is far more complicated to achieve a neat structure of paint.

Picture 4

After drying completely again, I added a second layer of colour to horse for deeper shadows (especcially mane and tail) and better defined lights.Added shadows to blue uniform and worked on contrast with grey (silver) parts.

Picture 5

After dryed completely adding various layers on any part where needed. Only new part to be added was red stripe on shabraque and some light and shade on trowser piping which was executed with Caput mortuuum and Lamp black.
But I have to mention, that my decision to work with many thin layers of colours on a basic paint leads to a "shabby" effect which is requested. I know that on the other hand, that many painters prefer a "clean" appearance of flats. I don´t like this for giving always an artificial attitude. But this being a matter of personal taste.
But I admit there being at least one problem with my method of painting: I never know when being finished with my figure. When looking at them closely, there is always a part where something could be added or improved.

Picture 6

The Complete Figure

Marshal Adolphe-Edouard-Casimir-Joseph Mortier

2007-06-27T20:16:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Marsal

Edouard Mortier

Duke of Trévise 1768 - 1835

Born: February 13 1768

Died: July 28 1835

Place of Birth: Cateau

Cause of Death: Assassinated

Mortier made solid studies in Douai, is useful in the national guards of Dunkirk and Cateau, then is elected captain by the volunteers of north in September 1791. He is present at all the significant battles of north: Jemmapes, Hondchoote, Fleurus, with the head office of Maastricht, before passing on the Rhine in 1795, with the rank of general adjudant head of brigade. Having refused the rank of brigadier general to the peace of Campoformio (1797), he obtains it only in February 1799. On the battle field of Zurich, Masséna made him the major general, on the 25th September 1799. In May 1803, Bonaparte orders to him to occupy Hanover, which he makes in one month, forcing the enemy army to the capitulation. Before doing him marshal, Napoleon appoints him general colonel controlling artillery and the sailors of the consular guard. During the program of 1805, Mortier controls the infantry of the guard.
In 1806, he is given the responsability to occupy Germany of North, before joining the Grande Armée and directing the left wing in Friedland. Duke of Trévise in July 1808. Mortier will fight in Spain during three years: Licinena and bridge of Arzobispo (August 8, 1809), Ocaña (November 19), where he is wounded, Fuentes de Cantos (September 15 l810), Gebora (February 19, 1811), etc. During the program of Russia,he controls the young guard, is in Moskova, governor of Moscow, in Krasnoïe, Berezina. He makes all the battles of the campaign of 1813 in Saxony.During the program of France, he is with the head of the old guard that he fights the last battles against the invader and defends Paris. During the Hundred Days, he accompanies the king to Lille, then joins Napoleon but, patient, cannot fight in Waterloo. Disgraced when the court-martial, of which he forms part, states itself inefficient to judge Ney, he covers peerage in 1819, becomes ambassador in Russia in 1830, Minister for the War and president of the Council of November 18, 1834 to March 12, 1835, he is killed by the explosive device of Fieschi at the time of a review of the guard national and buried with the Invalids. The name of Mortier is registered on the triumphal arch of Etoile.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Adolphe Edouard Casimir Joseph Mortier, Duke of Treviso. Dressed as Colonel Commander of the Artillery and Marines of the Guard, charge received on 1805. Eight gold chevrons on the breeches and the sleeves! Survived to the Russian campaign and to the fall of Napoleon and the Empire, he remained close to the new Monarchy. Killed on 1835 owing to an attempt make by the Corsican man Giuseppe Fieschi, who had built a strange war machine firing 25 rockets and killing 18 peoples. But the King and his family remained alive...

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Mortier.html

http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/M/mortier.html

http://napoleonic-literature.com/Book_15/V1C9.htm

Marsal Jean-Baptiste Bessières

2007-06-27T20:07:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Jean Baptiste Bessières in 1792

In uniform of Adjudant of the Legion of the Pyrenees

By Guerin

National museum of Versailles and Trianons

Marshal

Jean-Baptiste Bessières, duke of Istrie (1804).

(Prayssac (Batch), 1768 - Rippach (Saxony), 1813)

Bessières takes part in all the campaigns. When he dies on the battle field, Napoleon written to his widow: " the loss that you make and that of your children is undoubtedly large, but mine is more still. The duke of Istrie died of most beautiful death and without suffering. He leaves a reputation without spot, it is the most beautiful heritage which he could bequeath to his children. Without the Revolution, Bessières had certainly been a doctor like his father. When it occurs, it engages in the Guard national and joined the constitutional Guard of the King in April 1792. Later, its body, the 2è hunters, joint with the Army of Italy. Promoted head of the body of the guides by Bonaparte, it is illustrated with the battle of Rivoli (January 14, 1797).
At the time of the campaign of Egypt, it is distinguished with the seat from Saint-Jean d' Acre (March 19 at May 20, 1799) and with the battle from Aboukir (July 25, 1799). become one of familiar of Bonaparte, it form part of those which it accompany in France and take share with coup d'etat d' Etat of 18-Brumaire. In reward, it is named second in command of the consular guard, the future imperial Guard.June 14, 1800 in Marengo, its control at the time of the load of the cavalry saves to him the rank of brigadier general. Two years later, it became major general (September 13, 1802). When comes the Empire, in 1804, it is on the list of the marshals, accuracy: its name is the last. When the campaign of Austria begins the following year, Bessières controls the Guard. In Austerlitz (December 2, 1805), its cavalry collapses the Russian imperial Guard. It is the beginning of the reputation of invincibility of this famous body.Bessières is present at Iéna (October 14, 1806) and at Eylau, February 8, 1807, where its cavalry and that of Murat manage to stop the Russian attack at one critical time. In Poland, it carries out the reserve of cavalry lately formée.En 1808, Bessières is sent in Spain to direct the army corps which occupies Salamanque. It goes to the meeting of the Cuesta General, who threatens to cut his communications with France. A 14 000 men against 40.000, it gains the victory with Medina LED Rio Seco (July 14, 1808). By learning it, Napoleon exclaims: «Bessières put my brother on the throne of Spain». The following year, Bessières is named duke of Istrie and again controlling cavalry of the Guard for the campaign against Austria of 1809. In Wagram, a ball kills its horse and makes him lose consciousness. The Guard, which adores it and believes it dead, is afflicted. Napoleon says to him: «Bessières, here is a beautiful ball! It made cry my Guard».
In 1811, governor in Spain, it makes watch of a great probity and great cares for the civil populations. The following year, it takes again service, always with the head of the Guard, for the campaign of Russia. In October, it draws the Emperor from a critical situation; 6 000 cossacks melt suddenly on the headquarters, in the village of Shorodina. Bessières runs with his men and pushes back the attack. For the campaign of Saxony of 1813, it receives the command of all the cavalry. With the battle day before of Lützen, May 1, 1813, it is in recognition when a ball of gun reaches it in full chest. Its body rests with the Invalids.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Jean Baptiste Bessières, Duke of Istria, he wears the green "surtout", as commander of the legendary Chasseurs de la Garde à cheval. Honest, faithful and courageous, one of the preferred By Napoleon. One of the few Marshals to die in battle (as Lannes and Poniatowski) Five gold chevrons on the breeches to represent the rank of Colonel of Chasseurs.

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Bessieres.html

Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout

2007-06-27T19:52:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Marsal

Louis Nicolas Davout Marshal (1804)

Duke of Auerstadt, prince d' Eckmühl

(Annoux (Yonne), 1770-Paris, 1823)

Born: May 10 1770

Died: June 1 1823

Place of Birth: Annoux

Cause of Death: Illness

Davout, after attending the Paris military academy, is in 1788 a second lieutenant, serious with a keen interest in. This son of a ruined family of ancient aristocracy adopts the revolutionary ideas. In 1792, He commands a battalion of the volunteers of Yonne in the army of Belgium. He takes part in the battle of Neerwinden, March 18, 1793.When Dumouriez abandons the French Army, Davout goes to his headquarters to arrest him. Dumouriez manages to escape. Davout is sent to the Army of the West and is named brigadier general (June 1793). He refuses his nomination as major general, considering that he lacks the experience for such a function. Prisoner of the enemy, in inactivity or service, Davout remains constant in its objectives of career, to the point to study military treaties. He follows an exemplary career progression in various army corps, binding friendship with Desaix. Who introduces him to Bonaparte in 1798. Davout is part of the Egyptian expedition , commanding a brigade of cavalry of the Desaix division. In 1800, the only General to have refused to sign the capitulation after the departure of Bonaparte, he returns to France in May 1800. He is promoted major general on July 3, 1800. He then takes the command of the cavalry of the Army of Italy, under the direction of the General Brune. In 1801, his marriage with the Aimee Leclerc made him a brother-in-law of Pauline, sister of the Emperor. With the creation of the first Empire, in 1804, he is named marshal.
Sent to Boulogne, he forms the III corps, the future left wing of the Grande Armée. During the 1805 Austrian campaign, he follows with precision the orders of the Emperor and makes his troops march 144 kilometers in 36 hours to take part to the battle of Austerlitz, December 2, 1805. Rewards follow: general colonel of the imperial Guard, Grand-officer, Grand-eagle of the Legion of Honor...
Always at the head of the III corps, he beats the Prussian army of Brunswick at Auerstadt, October 14, 1806, despite numerical inferiority of one three while Napoleon is fighting in Iéna. This decisive stunning victory, initially underestimated by the Emperor, won him the honor to first enter Berlin on October 27, 1806 and the title of duke of Auerstadt in 1808.
At Eylau, with his its 14.000 men, he forces the Russian armies to retreat on the right flank . At that time governor of the duchy of Warsaw, he took-back his service of soldier, perhaps irritated by the suspicions of the Emperor about his aspirations to the Poland crown.
In Eckmühl in April 1809, the Davout's III corps faces alone the main Austrian army. He takes the initiative of attacking and manages to make it retreat. In Wagram on July 6, he leads a decisive attack. On January 1, 1810, he is a head of the army of Germany, functions which leads him to denounce the fraudulent activities of Bourrienne posted in Hamburg.
Davout is then appointed governor of the Hanseatic cities ensuring the good application of the continental system in north Europe. Above all he has to reorganize the Grande Armée (600 000 men!) before the Russian campaign. Davout is persuaded of the madness of this enterprise but, for this soldier, an order is an order. At the beginning of the year 1812, he leaves Hamburg at the head of the Grande Armée I corps. Throughout the campaign of Russia, his I corps is characterized by its behaviour and discipline. In the first weeks of the campaign, he is sent to the south to encircle the Russian army of Bagration. Despite his manœuvers, the plan fails because of the slowness of Jerome Bonaparte, in charge of the right wing of the Grande Armée.
In Borodino, his horse is killed under him. He briefly loses consciousness, but quickly takes back his command. Regarded as an iron man, he cries the death of the faithful major general, Gudin, killed in front of Smolensk. During the retirement retreat, Davout I Corps placed in rear-guard manages to contain the enemy attacks.
After this campaign, Davout is sent in Germany, to subdue the up risings of the population. He does not apply the orders at letter, being satisfied to requisition the money and the labour necessary to the defense of the fortified towns. In May 1813, he occupies Hamburg. During one year, it defends the besieged city, which he returns only on express command of Louis XVIII. He sends to the new King a letter to explain his behaviour, without receiving answer. When Napoleon returns from the island of Elba, Davout is the only marshal who did not give oath to the King. He is also one of rare to have not been defeated. He is finally convinced to accept the ministry of War. In a few months, he succeeds to recreate an army. When he learns the Waterloo disaster, Davout understands that all is lost. The government delegates him to ask the Emperor to leave the capital.
On July 3, 1815, he signs the armistice with the Allies and leaves Paris while making evacuating all the valuable items of the artillery museum. He returns however to defend Ney, put in trial. Deprived of his revenues, he knows a difficult period before finally recovering his titles in 1817 and being admitted to the Chamber of Peers in 1819. He dies four years later.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Louis Nicolas Davout, Duke of Auerstaedt, Prince of Eckmuhl, probably the best strategist of Napoleon. As commander of the Guard Grenadier, he wears a rich version of the uniform of his men, with square lapels and gold embroideries and laces. On the breast, the medal of the "Legion d'Honneur" and the "Corona di ferro" (Iron crown) the equivalent Honour Italian medal, so named from the old crown of the Emperor Charles the Great. Orange outlined green ribbon, gold and blue enamel eagle. This medal was given to the distinguished commanders of the Italian campaigns.

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Davout.html

http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/D/davout.html

http://napoleonic-literature.com/Book_15/V1C4.htm

http://www.napoleon.org/fr/salle_lecture/biographies/files/marechaldavout_princedeckmuhl.asp

Marshal Josef-Anton Poniatowski

2007-06-27T19:44:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Marhsal

Josef Antoni, prince Poniatowski
(Vienna, 1763 - Leipzig, 1813)

Born: May 7 1763

Died: October 19 1813

Place of Birth: Warsaw

Cause of Death: Killed in action at Leip

Prince Poniatowski, nephew of the king de Pologne Stanislas-Auguste, is a colonel of dragons in the Austrian army. In 1789, it enrôle in the capacity as general major in the Army of reorganized Poland. Demolishes by the Russians (1792), it must exile itself.
After the victory of Napoleon with Iéna and Auerstadt (October 14, 1806), prince Poniatowski receives the command of a division. He is distinguished in particular in Dantzig and Friedland, which is worth to him to be named Minister for the War of the provisional government, then, in 1808, généralissime of the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw (created on July 22, 1807).
Prince Poniatowski gives on foot the Polish army, which worries Austria and Prussia. On command of the Emperor, who takes in the passing his prestigious elements to form the regiment of light horsemen of his imperial guard, part of the Polish army leaves to fight in Galicie. Poniatowski resists ataque Austrian against Warsaw (April 1809) and reconquers parts of old Poland by beating the Austrians with Gora and Grochow. By way of reward, Napoleon grants to him the large-eagle of the Legion of Honor, a sabre of honor and a shako of lancer. For as much, Poland is far from being reconstituted.
Poniatowski, remained faithful to Napoleon, continues his activity of Minister for the War. It creates schools of engineering and artillery and organizes the fortification of many fortified towns. In April 1810, it is in Paris for the marriage of Napoleon with Marie-Louise. In 1812, to the head of the 5th body at the time of the campaign of Russia, it gives all its measurement to the battle of Moskowa. Poniatowski is the only foreigner to receive the stick of marshal of the hands of Napoleon (October 16, 1813). But, a few days later, by covering the retirement of Leipzig, it is embedded in Elster.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Joseph Poniatowski, the Prince of Poland, faithful allied of France. He joined Napoleon hoping to free Poland from Prussia and Russia, but in the facts his Fatherland passed under the French control. He died on 1813, during the Leipzig battle, three days after receiving the Marshall stick. Classic uniform of Polish lancers, with the blue sash of the Polish Order "Virtuti Militari".

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Ponia.html

http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/P/poniatowski.html

http://www.napoleon.org/fr/salle_lecture/biographies/files/Poniatowski_Joseph.asp

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/Book_16/V2C22.htm

Marshal Joachim Murat

2007-06-27T19:36:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Joachim Murat

By Gros

Museum of the Louvre, Paris

Born: March 25 1767

Died: October 13 1815

Place of Birth: La Bastide-Fortunière

Cause of Death: Executed

Joachim, the junior of twelve children, landlords parents, undertakes studies with the seminar of Lazaristes of Toulouse. In February 1787, following a quarrel with a comrade, he gives up the ecclesiastical way to engage in a regiment of hunters with horse. In two years, he becomes sergeant. Mingled with a mutiny, he is returned army. When his father sees him returning, he closes his purse to him. Murat is made grocer. Already, his plume impresses and he is indicated by his canton to take part in the festival of the Federation of July 14, 1790. The following year, he obtains to be reinstated in the rows of the army like private. He is named second lieutenant on May 30, 1791. One moment worried by the fall of Robespierre, this enthusiastic republican went until adopting the name of Marat finds himself finally without assignment in this end of the year 1794, in Paris. With the paddle of the 13-Vendémiaire, Barred and a young Corsican General, Bonaparte, ask for a volunteer to recover the guns parked with Fine sands. Murat proposes.
He returns with 40 parts, which will make him possible to choke the royalist insurrection.By this epic, Murat binds his destiny to that of Bonaparte. This last appoints him head of brigade on February 2, 1796 and does of them one of him aide-de-camps. For this reason, Murat accompanies him in Italy in 1796 when he is announced by his bravery. Charged with carrying the enemy flags to the Directory, in Paris, he is also requested to intercede at Joséphine so that she joins her husband. He returns from Paris with the rank of brigadier general. He takes part in the head office of Mantoue. After Campoformio, Bonaparte sends him to the congress of Rastatt.
In Egypt, Murat is illustrated with the head of a brigade of cavalry. After the catch of Alexandria (July 2, 1798) and the battle of the Pyramids (July 21, 1798), he is the first to be gone up to the attack of Saint-Jean-in Acre (March 28, 1799), during the forwarding of Syria. With the battle of Aboukir, July 25, 1799, he seizes personally the pasha Mustapha, with whom he slices two fingers in the fire of the action. That is worth a not very ordinary wound to him a ball crosses to him the jaw right through and the rank of major general. Murat became a popular figure.However, throughout the years spent together, Bonaparte will be abrupt with that which gave him pledges of his honesty the 18-Brumaire while launching to his grenadiers in front of the flabbergasted members of Parliament: «Get me all that people outside!». Bonaparte grants the hand of his sister Caroline to him, in February 1800, but after the intervention of Joséphine. He does him marshal in 1804, Lord High Admiral and prince the following year, but seems to be repugnant to entrust significant commands to him. Governor of Paris in 1804, Murat signs with reserve the appointment of the committee which governs the execution of the duke of Enghien. He leaves the following year for the campaign Austria, with the head of all the cavalry. After the catch of Ulm (October 15-20, 1805), he continues the Russian and Austrian armies along the Danube. Whereas Napoleon orders to him to cover the sides of the Grande Armée, he enters Vienna to the head of his men, November 11, 1805. Napoleon makes him severe remonstrances for this act of insubordination. Murat is caught up by his control at the time of the battle of Austerlitz, December 2. Napoleon grants to him the Grand Duchy of Berg and Clèves in 1806; he needs a right-hand man to ensure the continental blockade. Murat tastes with the capacity, proves to be concerned wellbeing of his subjects. It is the occasion of new tensions with the Emperor, who recalls him soon in the rows. In 1806, indeed, Prussia, England, Sweden and Russia declared the war in France. Murat drives out the Prussians to Leipzig, takes part brilliantly in the battle of Iéna on October 14, 1806, makes capitulate Blücher with Lübeck. He enters the first to Warsaw on November 28, 1806. From Eylau (February 8, 1807), he orders all the French cavalry. On the command of Napoleon, he launches his troops to push back the Russian center. This load remains in the legend under the name of «load of the 80 squadrons».
Napoleon offers to Murat the crown of Naples in 1808, but provided that he remains a pawn of imperial politics. Murat undoubtedly dreamed of the Spanish throne for which he paid his person. Sent in Spain without precise instructions, it is him which represses hard the insurrection of May 2, 1808, organizes the exodus of Ferdinand VII and Charles IV towards Bayonne. And this finally acquired Neapolitan crown, he shiveres to be seen some unbrushed, following the example king of Holland, whose kingdom is purely and simply annexed to the Empire in 1810.This commoner proves to be a conscientious king. He introduces reforms, organizes an army... The frictions with the Emperor begin again, exacerbated by the dissension between Caroline and Murat, who dispute the capacity. In 1812, Napoleon calls his brother-in-law at his sides for the campaign of Russia, again with the head of the cavalry. During the six months of the campaign, Murat will be constantly in contact with the Russian armies. At the time of the battle of Borodino on September 7, he charges with the head with 15 000 riders to the front with the Russian guns. Whereas Napoleon is in Moscow, in October 1812, he misses being made encircled in Taroutino (October 18, 1812) but manages to get clear. In December, Napoleon leaves him the command of the Grande Armée to return precipitately to Paris. Murat does not want this command: he wants to save his kingdom. In Wilna, he loses his coolness and gives up the Grande Armée. Of return in Naples, he writes to Napoleon to explain his control. He asks to return to the service of the Emperor. He returns to take part in the summer campaign of 1813; Napoleon entrusts to him the command of the Army of the south, charged to contain Coalisés of Schwarzenberg. After the defeat of Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813), he comes back to his kingdom. In January 1814, Murat signs a treaty with Austria.For the congress of Vienna of 1815, generous subsidies which he paid with the diplomats, Talleyrand in particular, are not used of nothing. It is a question of restoring the Bourbons about the Neapolitan throne. Murat, despaired, tries openings on all sides; he writes a cordial letter to Louis XVIII, joins again with Napoleon exiled in the island of Elba. This last announces his project of returnt o him. Murat declares the war in Austria as soon as he learns the unloading from the Emperor. He occupies soon Rome, Ancône, Bologna. From Rimini, he launches a proclamation where he calls the unification of Italy. But soon the Austrian troops, carried out by Neipperg, encircle him. It is the defeat of Tolentino, April 21, 1815. Murat must escape while Ferdinand finds his throne. He arrives to France where Napoleon refuses to receive him. In Corsica, he brings together 600 men. That is enough for him to dream to reconquer Naples; he embarks for the Italian coast. Unloaded in Pizzo, he is made prisoner, imprisoned. A decree of the King orders at the commission which judges him to leave him «half an hour to receive the helps of the religion» before shooting him. Murat gives himself the command to shoot, October 13, 1815.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Joachim Murat, King of Naples, husband of Napoleon's sister Caroline, surely the most eccentric and elegant dandy of the French Army(he drawn himself personal uniforms, out of any rule). Probably the best cavalry Commander in the French Army, he lead the famous charge at Eylau named "the charge of the 90 squadrons", that means many thousands of cavaliers. So vain for his image, he died in Calabria Italy, killed by a firing squad, asking them to not shot at his face. Here he wears his personal uniform of King of Naples, as reproduced in a painting by Antoine Gros. Crimson sash of Commander of Legion d'Honneur and blue sash of the Order of two Sicilies.

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Murat.html

http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/M/murat.html

http://www.napoleon.org/en/reading_room/biographies/files/murat.asp

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/Book_16/V2C11.htm

Marshal Auguste-Frédéric-Louis Viesse de Marmont

2007-06-27T19:28:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Marshal Auguste Frederic Louis Viesse de Marmont

Duke of Raguse (1809). (

The Châtillon-on-Seine (Coast-In Or), 1774 - Venice, 1852)

Born: July 20 1774

Died: March 3 1852

Place of Birth: Châtillon-sur-Seine

Cause of Death: Natural causes

Marmont, of minor nobility, comes out officer of artillery of the school of Châlons in 1792. Bonaparte notices it with the head office of Toulon. The two men, who received a similar education, sympathize. Bonaparte does of Marmont one of his aide-de-camps in 1796, for the campaign of Italy. In 1798, Marmont accompanies it in Egypt, where it becomes brigadier general after the catch of Malta. It follows its head to Paris to take part in the 18-Brumaire.To Marengo, June 14, 1800, it leads artillery. In reward, it is named major general, at 26 years. However, it misses list of the marshals in May 1804. That does not prevent it from fighting with heat with Ulm (October 20, 1805). In July 1806, he becomes general governor of Dalmatie. Marmont increases this duchy by associating there Raguse, which it takes to the Russians in 1807. In 1809, it controls the Army of Dalmatie which joint with the Army of Italy under the command of prince Eugene. He takes part in the battles in Italy and Croatia, of which that of Znaïm July 10, and 11 1809. Bonaparte grants the stick of marshal then to him on July 12 and creates it duke of Raguse.
The two following years, Marmont moves away from the battle fields to become governor of the Illyriennes provinces. But, in 1811, it succeeds Masséna with the command of the Army of Portugal. After some successes, its dissensions with Soult and the address of Wellington lead to the failure of the battle of Arapiles of July 22, 1812. Marmont is seriously wounded with the arm. In 1813, given of its wound, it takes part in the campaign of Germany. It controls VIème body and takes part in the battle of Lützen (May 2, 1813) and of Bautzen (May 20, and 21 1813). During the second phase of the campaign, it fights in Dresden (August 26-27, 1813). It is also present at the battle of Leipzig.
During the campaign of France, it fights in Brienne and Champaubert (February 10), in Montmirail (February 17, 1814) but it is beaten in Laon (March 9-10, 1814), which is worth reproaches of the Emperor to him. It is folded up towards Paris with its divisions. It takes part in the defense of Paris but capitulates on March 30. Marmont receives in the night from the 3 to April 4 an envoy of Alliés and signs the rendering of its troops, which defend the road of Fontainebleau where is the Emperor. Caulaincourt comes to find it. Together, they return visit to the tsar with the first abdication of the Emperor. Souham receives in its absence a fold of the Emperor who convenes them in Fontainebleau. Thrown into a panic, it chooses to make pass all the body, which defended the road of the palate, with the enemy rather than to face the anger of Napoleon, than it supposes with the fact of rendering. That decides the tsar to require abdication without conditions of the Emperor. Napoleon will not forgive this defection with his marshal. When it learns it, it murmurs: «Marmont carries me the last blow». Louis XVIII the even fact of France. Exiled in 1830 with Charles X, Marmont traverses Europe, with a passage in Vienna where he becomes tutor of the duke of Reichstadt, wire of Napoleon. Marmont, whose name is from now on honni Bonapartists, occupies the end of its life to write Memories where it tries to be justified.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

August Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont Duke of Ragusa, dressed with the uniform of Colonel General Commandant of the "Chasseurs", charge kept from 1805 to 1809. Considered from almost all a betrayer, because during the 1814 campaign of France he surrendered first one to the Allied, opening the way to Paris.

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Marmont.html

http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/M/marmont.html

http://www.napoleon.org/en/reading_room/biographies/files/marmont.asp

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/Book_16/V2C14.htm

Marshal Emmanuel Grouchy

2007-06-27T19:17:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

In uniform of Colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Dragons in 1792

By Mullet

National museum of Versailles and Trianons

Marshal Emmanuel, marquis de Grouchy

(1815)(Paris, 1766 - Saint-Etienne, 1847)

Born: October 23 1766

Died: May 29, 1847

Place of Birth: Paris

Cause of Death: Natural causes

Grouchy, of an old noble family of Normandy, is an officer with the Bodyguards, when occurs the Revolution. It adopts the new ideas, côtoie brilliant spirits, such Beaumarchais, of Alembert, Turgot, Condorcet and Cabanis these two last will become his/her brothers-in-law besides and remains in the rows of the army. In 1792, it is named brigadier and command the cavalry of the Army of the Alps. It is sent in the Vendée. It must leave the army in 1793, following the decree excluding the noble ones from the Army. It re-enlists like private in the national guards. It is confirmed on June 11, 1795 like major general, rank which had conferred to him the police chiefs on the armies the previous year. He is a head of state major in the Army of the West. He becomes the second of Notch in the Vendée.
In 1796, the Directory names it second in command of the Army in charge of an unloading in Ireland. But it does not manage to take foot there. In 1798, it passes to the Army of Italy under the commands of Joubert. It is distinguished at the time of the battle of Novi (August 15, 1799) where, reached of fourteen wounds, it is finally made prisoner.On its return in France, it passed in the Reserve army. Moreau asks that Grouchy be affected for him. With head of a division of the Army of Moreau, it plays a decisive role with Hohenlinden (December 3, 1800). General controlling a division of cavalry, it takes part in the campaign of Prussia of 1806: it is the first to enter Lübeck. In Eylau on February 8, 1807, its load of cavalry is heroic. Four months later with Friedland (June 14, 1807), it is still distinguished. It is sent in Spain, is appointed governor of Madrid and takes part in the repression of May 2, 1808. Responsible for the command of the cavalry of the Army of Italy, it takes part in the battle of Raab (June 14, 1809) under the command of prince Eugene de Beauharnais. In Wagram in 1809, its division of dragons plays a decisive role.
In Borodino in 1812, its command of IIIème body of cavalry is irreproachable. It is charged to cover the retirement of the Grande Armée. When at the end of the campaign, it asks to pass in the infantry, Napoleon refuses, wishing to preserve riding brilliant Si. But Grouchy, wounded in its love-clean, is withdrawn. There remains nevertheless faithful and proposes its services for the campaign of France, in 1814. It is named with the head of forces of cavalry and is distinguished in Vauchamps. Napoléon appoints it marshal, but it will obtain its patent only at the time of the Hundred Days. Present with Ligny (June 16, 1815), Grouchy controls the French cavalry. June 17, Napoleon gives him the command to continue Blücher with the head of two bodies of infantry and two bodies of cavalry to prevent the junction with Wellington. The Prussian masks the movement of his troops by leaving a rear-guard in curtain. June 18, Grouchy, on the road of Wavres, hears the noise of the guns of the battle of Mount-Saint-Jean. It is not diverted. It did not receive any command in this direction.With the second Restoration, Grouchy takes refuge in America. It re-enters to France in 1821, when Louis XVIII restores it in his titles, except for the title of marshal. Under the Monarchy of July, Louis-Philippe returns this title to him and names it Pair France. It dies in 1847.

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Duke Emmanuel Grouchy, the "latecomer" of Waterloo.Here he dresses the green uniform of Colonel General Commandant of the "Chasseurs", charge received on 1809 after Marmont

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Grouchy.html

http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/G/grouchy.html

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/Book_16/V2C23.htm

Marshal Charles-Pierre-François Augereau

2007-06-27T18:52:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

by Thévenin.National museum of the castle of Versailles and Trianons

Pierre François Charles Augereau

Duke of Castiglione (Paris, 1757 - Houssaye, 1816)

Born: October 21, 1757
Died: June 12, 1816

Place of Birth: Paris

Cause of Death: Illness

Augereau, from very modest condition, engages at 17 years in the Prussian armies then Neapolitan. He is established fencing master in Naples. To the Revolution, he re-enters to France. Initially private in the national Guard, he is, five years later, major general in the army of Italy.In April 1796, he takes the castle of Ceva, his first exploit under the command of the Bonaparte General. His bravery is illustrated in Lodi on May 10, 1796, when he springs in spite of the rain of Austrian grapeshot. August 3, 1796, his intervention at the time of the battle of Castiglione reverses the fate of the battle. In Arcole, November 15, he springs on the bridge with the head of his troops. Bonaparte grants his regard and his confidence to him, in spite of the rumours on his rapacity. He delegates him in Paris to subdue the royalist push, in September. It is the strike of state of the 18-Fructidor. Augereau appears terribly effective, carrying out with the letter all the commands of the Directory; he is then named commander of an army corps of the Rhine.
Augereau, deputy of Haute-Garonne to the consulting of Cinq-Cents, is first of all opposed to the strike of state of the 18-Brumaire. He is closed to the Jacobins. He refuses the invitation of the banquet given in the honor of Bonaparte. He adopts nevertheless the Consulate the morning even 18-Brumaire, kissing Bonaparte and exclaiming: «How! You wanted to do something for the fatherland and you did not call Augereau!». In spite of his critics of the Legal settlement, he is reproduced on the list of the marshals of 1804 and attends the sacring of the Emperor. From September 1805 to February 1807, he receives the command of VIIème body of the Grande Armée. With the battle of Iéna, October 14, 1806, he beats the Saxon ones and crushes the body of Rüchel assisted from the Prussian army. In Eylau (February 8, 1807), ill, he is made attached on his horse on the beginning of the battle. Whereas he must tackle the Russian center, his army corps is lost in a snowstorm. The French soldiers are decimated by the enemy guns. Wounded at the arm, Augereau re-enters to France. March 19, 1808, he receives the title of duke of Castiglione. He is useful then in Spain. His first victories at the head of the Army of Catalonia are soon followed by defeats. The Emperor returns Augereau in his grounds but recalls him for the campaign of Russia of 1812 when he entrusts a body of reserve to him. The marshal is present at the time of the French defeat in Leipzig, from the 16 to October 19, 1813. His keen defense regains the favour of Napoleon to him. In 1814, the Emperor entrusts to him the army corps posted in Lyon. Augereau, which has commanded to cut the lines of communications of the army of Bohemian, compromises and refuses the combat. He is now notable. April 16, 1814, he launches a proclamation where he enjoints his soldiers to adopt the white rosette of the Bourbons and denounces Napoleon like a tyrant. The Emperor crosses out his name of the list of the marshals at the time of the Hundred Days and describes him as «traitor in France», when Augereau comes to propose his services to him.
Louis XVIII income on the throne also draws aside him. Augereau is withdrawn in his properties, where he dies little after a chest complaint, without leaving children.Napoleon will say of him at Sainte-Hélène: «He was unable to act; he did not have an instruction, little of extended in the spirit, little education; but he maintained the command and the discipline among his soldiers, and was liked by them. He divided his columns well, placed his reserves well, fought with intrepidity; but all that lasted only one day: winner or overcome, he was generally discouraged the evening, that is to say that it was due to the nature of his character, or with little calculation and penetration of his spirit».

Plate by Marcello Grimaldi

Pierre François Charles Augereau, Duke of Castiglione, well distinguished in the Italian campaigns of Consulate. He's dressed with the ceremonial dress used by Marshals. Dark blue velvet cloth, gold embroideries of oak leaves, crimson sash of Commander of "Legion d'Honneur".

http://ameliefr.club.fr/E-Augereau.html
http://www.napoleonic-officers.net/web/officers/A/augereau.html
http://napoleonic-literature.com/Book_15/V1C3.htm
http://www.napoleon.org/fr/salle_lecture/biographies/files/augereau.asp

2007-06-27T18:23:00.000+03:00

A collection of various tips from some well known modellers and artists

Acrylics vs Oils by John Cheeseman "I have, for a long time, considered myself a 'diehard' oil painter but I bought some of the Vallejo paints a year or two ago and had a go at using them. I must say that I struggled BIG TIME!! At first."
Acrylics vs. Oils II by Mario Fuentes "About how many you should have, it really boils down to your color knowledge and how much time you want to spend mixing a specific shade of color."
Acrylics vs. Oils III by Phil Kessling "Medium is not as important as technique and practice. I think it is important to start in one medium and learn to paint well with that medium before moving on to another."
Assembling a Figure by John Alberts: "First off, I do not like figure kits to have many parts. My preference is to have a single casting with maybe just the arms to attach. Assorted bits and pieces turn me off. If having plenty of parts to a kit is what interested me, I would build a plane or tank model before a figure kit."
Black Skin Tones by Phil Kessling: "It's important to consider the region the subject is from and then attempt to locate photos as references. Nubian skin tones are a very dark, bluish black whereas Zulu skin tones are a much warmer yellow brown."
Brush Types by Jane Sutherland "When buying brushes, keep in mind that a brush is probably an artist's most important tool, and it is worthwhile to invest in the highest-quality brushes and take good care of them"
Cleaning Airbrushes by Chuck Theidel: "I have found that the best way to keep your airbrush in top operating condition is to make sure you clean it during and after you have finished using it."
Cleaning Brushes by American Artist: "A well-made brush, if properly cared for, will last an extremely long time. However, if it is not cared for properly, even the most expensive, high-quality brush will quickly become completely useless."
Crock Pot Drying by Phil Kessling "One of the ways to get a figure painted in oil colors to dry faster is to use a crock pot."
Face Painting by Phil Kessling: "The face is the first thing that I paint on a figure. I begin by priming it with a very thin coat of Floquil Reefer White."
Flesh Tones I by Pete Herrera "I use a permutation of the "traditional" mix as introduced in Shep Paine's book: burnt sienna + gold ochre + white. To this I add a bit of raw umber, and an extremely small amount of prussian blue. By "extremely small" I mean just a toothpick-tip's worth."
Flesh Tones II by Paul Kelly "My flesh tone technique is a little on the odd side. I undercoat all my flesh tones in Liquitex Deep Portrait Pink for starters. Next, and this is where is gets a little strange, I mix up a shadow color of Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, and a touch of Alizarin Brown Madder."
Flesh Tones III by David Hoffman "In mixing a basic flesh tone, I'm often guilty of violating the rule of "keeping it simple". I really enjoy adding various pigments until I feel I've achieved a good basic mix, and I may use such colors as Rembrandt's Naples Yellow Reddish Ext., Naples Yellow, Titanium White, Flesh Tint, Cadmium Red, Mars Brown, a tad of Burnt Sienna, Jaune Brilliant, and the like until I achieve the color I want."
Give Your Figure a Bath by Jeff Junker: "You know about using a wash to bring out details in recessed areas. This is similar but instead of wiping away excess paint you leave it on. This is not for the faint at heart, so if you want to experiment, try it on something you haven't spent months working on."
How to Take Care of Your Paint by Alliance Game: "The amount of paint you throw away from washing off a palette or scrubbing out a cap is insignificant compared to losing from half to two thirds of a jar because it dried out due to faulty seals."
Is White Just White by Carmi Weingrod: "No one knows better than oil painters about the peculiarities of different white pigments. Throughout history, they have used a variety of white pigments, reflecting both cultural changes and advances in color technology."
Japanese Skin Tones by Phil Kessling "To get a Japanese skin tone, I mix a little more Mars Yellow into my normal skin colors. To get some ideas a good reference to pull out is National Geographic magazines with photos of Japanese. This is always a good idea when painting ethnic faces."
Lightening and Darkening Colors by Chuck Theidel: "Over the years I have had numerous conversations with other figure painters concerning shading and highlighting on the uniforms. The majority of us feel that the three hardest colors to shade and highlight are Red, Blue and Black."
Native American Skin Tones by Phil Kessling "There is no right or wrong color. Part of the fun of painting with oils is mixing colors. You never know what you are going to end up with!"
Nausicaa: Painting Japanese Anime by Robert Caruso "My cleaning up process entails picking around all the details such as belts and pouches with homemade tools. I made these tools specifically for the purpose of raising the level of detail to greater sharpness."
Painting Ears and Hair by Phil Kessling "I believe the secret to painting hair is to paint it just like the rest of the figure, i.e. shade and highlight planes and shapes without worrying about trying to depict individual hairs. I think it is actually easier to paint hair where the sculptor has only given you basic shapes rather than "spaghetti"."
Painting Eyes by Chuck Theidel: "The most difficult areas of the face to paint are the eyes. I suggest using the "cross-method" technique, it is the best way to ensure proper positioning of the eyes onto the face."
Painting Glossary: Definitions of Terms Used by Artists: "Clear Liquid Separation (CLR): often referred to as syneresis, is the spontaneous appearance of a transparent liquid over an opaque liquid paint during storage."
Painting Goggles by Chuck Theidel: "Never use gloss paint: it is too thick, and often the color will be wrong."
Painting Skin by John Alberts: " In reality, skin is made up of so many different colors and hues. Just look at the back of your hand - - there is pink, blue (veins), white (knuckles) and many shades in between."
Painting Soft Plastic Figures by Chuck Theidel: "The main reason for using a water-based paint is (and this is the trick) because you can mix Woodland Scenic cement into it."
Painting a Spiral Spinner by Scott Sclafani "During the later stages of WWII German ground crews usually hand painted spirals in the field with varying degrees of artistic success, I believe my method is cleaner than the real thing."
Painting Real Small Parts by Bill Wolfe " I came up with an idea for those kits that have no after-market details available. I say I came up with it, but it's really an idea stolen from the aircraft guys and their cockpit woes. "
Painting with Testor's Acryl by the Testor Corporation: " Acryl flats also are technically advanced thanks to superior emulsion resins, pigments and formulations. Acryl's high degree of self-leveling means it flows more smoothly and dries more evenly for a "flatter" flat finish. No rough spots - - - no shiny edges."
Quantum Leap by John Clark: "In the last 100 years, more technology has been applied to making better paints than during any similar span since a caveman first painted - because there's simply more technology, industrial resources, and consumer demand."
Removing Paint by Phil Kessling "Learn from your mistakes and improve on the next figure. If you continually strip and repaint you will never finish anything"
Selecting Sable Brushes by Claudia Myers: "For centuries, the primary options for artists' brushes were natural hair or bristle. But as natural hair becomes more scarce and expensive, manufacturers continue to develop synthetic substitutes to fill the need. The cost of finer quality synthetic filament may actually be more than its natural counterpart. Today, it is not an issue of one versus the other. It is an issue of availability, results and often the artist's budget."
Stop your Airbrush from "Spitting" by Wayne Morris: Airbrushes "spitting" while you're painting can be very frustrating, particularly if it defaces the paint already on the model".
Taking the Temperature by David Hardy "In nature, color temperature is all around; artists just need to look for it. By identifying color temperature, they can describe their world more effectively. The Venetians recognized this during the Renaissance, an awareness their art demonstrates."
Testor Product Information and Suggestions by Testors Corp: "A word to the wise: remain positive, patient and persistent so that you achieve and enjoy the satisfaction of assembling and completing models to be proud to display."
Using Mig Pigments by Phil Novak: "Over the past couple of years, a weathering style has developed that gives the appearance of "ultra realism".
Using Printers Ink for a Metallic Look by Phil Kessling: "If you apply a wash afterwards, be careful. Using solvent-based washes over the Printer's Ink may cause the ink to lift. If the inks are not properly dry you will reactivate the ink with the next coat."
Using Testors Model Master Paint: "Model Master enamels are identical to FS colors - as seen on new equipment. We duplicate them precisely. Only arbitrarily, however, can one duplicate colors that have been exposed to the sun."

Waffen SS Camouflage

2007-06-27T16:44:00.000+03:00

How to Paint Realistic Waffen SS Camouflage Uniforms
by Matt Black

Due to the number of vehicle models on the market that were used by the German Waffen-SS in World War Two, the ability to paint realistic Waffen-SS uniforms for figures to accompany these vehicles is needed. The SS were feared during World War Two and now it seems that many modelers fear the camoflauge that was used by the SS. Waffen-SS uniforms are hard to paint. They require a steady hand, good brushes, and a general knowledge of the subject, as well as a step by step planof action for painting. I would like to give several tips and techniques for painting these hard uniforms.Before good painting comes good equipment. Good paint, brushes, figures, and accessories all come into play. For SS camoflauge you will need several colors of paint. These should all be acrylic as this dries faster. The colors you'll need are a medium brown or redish brown, a dark brown, a light brown, black, white, light green, dark green, medium green, a pink (yes, pink), and tan. Don't worry about shades of colors becuase uniforms are subject to fading and sometimes didn't even have a standard color dye to begin with. In fact, some photographs show varying colors between members of the same unit.Brushes are very important to successful painting. I have nearly 20 brushes in my figure painting collection alone. Although you might not pay top dollar for each brush, you're looking for quality. I buy my brushes from a cheap art store for less than one dollar a piece, and they've lasted me longer than expensive ones. What you are looking for is three major things. First of all, the brush should be round, not flat. Secondly, the brush should have a fine tip. Thirdly, the brush hairs should be no longer than 3/4-1 inch. If longer than 3/4 or 1 inch, they will tend do bend rather than put on a firm coat of paint. You will want 10 or so fine tipped brushes, with assorted other brushes. Take care of your brushes, too. Never let them sit in thinner or water. Always clean them in clean thinner immediately after use and store them upright with their protective shields in place. This willhelp to make a longer life for your brush.
The choice of figure also adds alot to the finished subject. I prefer DML (Dragon Models Limited) or resin figures over Italeri or Tamiya. This is due not only to historical accuracy but ease of assembly and conversion. Make sure that all parts are trimmed of excess flash and all parts fit correctly. Use glue or putty to fill seams. Figures should be throughly dry before any painting attempt is tried. Mount your figure onto a small temporary wooden base with super-glue for painting. When the paint on your figure is dried, the figure is easily snapped off and ready to mount on the subject. Some modelers suggest using a pin in the figure's foot to help maintain balance, but modelers glue is enough for me.Accesories that are needed can be many. First of all, good reference photographs. The internet is a good place to look. German reenactors buy their equipment and uniforms from web-sites, and many times these web-sites have good, high quality photos of realistic SS uniforms and, more importantly, camoflauge. While there are many black and white photographs of camoflauge, a modeler needs high quality COLOR pictures. Many books are also available for accurate reference of SS uniforms. Other accesories are good lighting and a clear table-top. These two alone will make working on detailed SS uniforms alot more enjoyable.
There were many patterns of camoflauge in use by the SS during the war. Many of these patterns don't have official names. Instead, they've been named by modelers and historians. It is important to know these different patterns, however, the names are not official. Several different names are 'pea pattern', 'oak-leaf pattern', and 'palm-tree pattern'. I will go into the modeling process of these in more detail later. For now, 'pea pattern' is the pattern commonly known with lots of dots. 'Oak-leaf pattern' is a weird pattern of light green or light brown being surrounded by a small ribbon of dark green or dark brown. 'Palm-tree pattern' is similar to the 'oak-leaf pattern' but it has a series of lines and dashes through it. 'Palm-tree pattern' is one of the more rare of all patterns. It is important to know that the 'palm-tree' and 'oak-leaf' patterns were commonly reversible with a winter brown on one side, and a summer green on the other.
Occasionally, and on some more rare uniforms, they were reversible from summer green to white. Everything but 'pea pattern' was on smocks and heavy parkas only. These were normally worn over the field-grey uniforms and had draw strings at the neck and wrists. Only the 'pea pattern' should be used in place of field grey on a normal uniform. Some uniforms look like those of a Panzer crew. These can be painted with any pattern.
'Pea pattern' is probably the most evident of all patterns. As already stated, it was only used on uniforms themselves, not on the smocks. To duplicate 'pea pattern', start with a base coat of medium brown. Remember, no particular color as uniforms fade etc etc. Let this dry. Then go back with dark green and tan (or pink, believe it or not) to add irregular sized and shaped blotches around the uniform. These should be really akward looking and have no pattern what-so-ever. Then, with light green, dark green, and tan (or pink), dot dot dot!! Dot's should be everywhere. While it's not vitally important how small the dots are, they should all be the same size and should be fairily small. The smaller the better is a good rule, too. Once I sat down and counted dots on one of my figures' uniforms, and I counted nearly 400 on a jacket alone.'Oak-leaf pattern' is slightly different. First you must decide what time of year your subject is in. If it is winter, than you will usepattern *1*, if summer then use pattern *2*. For pattern 1, start out with a dark brown coat. Then do medium to rather large blotches of medium brown. Inside these blotches, do a series of smaller blotches with a tan color that comes almost to theedge of the large blotches. There should be a small ribbon of dark around the edge of the smaller blotches. Then go back with all three colors and dot dot dot. These dots should not be as many as on the 'pea pattern' and they can be slightly larger. For pattern 2, do the same as pattern 1 but use a medium brown in place of dark brown, use a dark green in place medium brown, and use a light green in place the tan. Then go back and dot away.Last but not least is the 'palm-tree pattern'. As I said, this has a weird array of lines and dashes. These are not to be too big, but also not too small. In real life, they should have a maximum length of 1 1/2 feet. To duplicate this you will also have to determine the time of year. Again, for winter use pattern *1*, summer use pattern *2*. For pattern one, lay a base coat of dark brown. Go back in some areas with a dotting of tan and medium brown, or even a small 'oak-leaf pattern' like pattern, while leaving other areas totally clear. Then use a both these colors and, in the areas left clear, do dashes in one direction, with possibly a few at a 1-90 degree angle to these.
For pattern two, lay a base coat of medium brown. Go back in some areas with a dotting of light and dark green, or even a small 'oak-leaf pattern' like pattern, while leaving other areas totally clear. Then use both these colors and, in the areas left clear, do dashes in one direction, with possibly a few at a 1-90 degree angle to these. Weathering is very important to finish camoflauge. When finished painting and your paint has throughly dried, give the camoflauge a black or brown wash or two. This helps to dull the colors. Dry-brushing is a technique used to add wear to something as well as bring out highlights. It is done with a brush that is just barely wet with paint. You may wish to dry-brush lightly with a tanish color to show some fading and wear. You may also want to go back with oil paints and blend these in to make a few dirty areas. Good colors for this would include tan, red-brown, black, and dark brown. Remember, if your figure is to be displayed on groundwork of any kind, work the color of the ground up into the clothing to help establish a bond between your figure and the groundwork.

Roman Prints

2007-06-27T16:08:00.000+03:00

Here is a number of Roman prints I collected from a very interesting site, worth visiting. http://www.aeroartinc.com/

#1 - Army of Lars Porcenna 5th C BC

In 514 B.C., Rome overthrew her Etruscan King, Tarquin the Proud. As the revolt spread through Latium, Lars Porsena, Etruscan King of Clusium, marched on Rome at the head of a large army of Etruscans and allies. Although they knew of the threat, the Romans were caught unaware; and Rome fell to the Etruscans. As Porsena's army continued through the Latin territory, he was finally caught between the armies of Latium and the Greeks of Cumae. The two forces crushed the Etruscan army, which was forced to retreat.

#2 - Roman Army Of The Punic Wars

As Rome continued to expand her influence, it was inevitable that she would come to blows with the other great power of the time, Carthage. Over a period of 120 years, Rome fought three wars against Carthage and her great general, Hannibal. Although Rome lost over 250,000 men during the Punic Wars, she eventually prevailed and Carthage was destroyed in 146 B.C

#3 - Caesar's Army

In 58 B.C., Julius Caesar began the first of three campaigns which resulted in the conquest of Gaul. The army had undergone major reforms under Marius and was now the greatest military force the world had ever seen.

#4 - Nearing The Empire's End

During the 2nd and 3rd Centuries A.D., mass migrations from Eurasia put constant pressure on the European frontier. In Mesopotamia, the Parthians and Sassinids attacked the frontiers; and in 260 A.D., the Sassinids defeated a Roman army at Edessa. The Roman Emperor Valerian was killed and up to 25,000 Romans were captured and sold as slaves. By 350 A.D., the Roman army was closer in appearance to their enemies and former enemies than to the Imperial Roman troops of Trajan. Much of this change was due to the fact that the legions were made up of men recruited in the provinces rather than Rome and Italy.

#5 - An Army of Engineers

The Romans were excellent engineers in all areas of military endeavor. They were practical and methodical in their planning and project execution. The legions were constantly employed in building projects such as roads, aqueducts, fortifications, and all types of buildings. They were also masters of siege warfare. The siege of Alesia by Julius Caesar and the siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. are two well-known examples. During the 1st Century A.D., each legion was assigned about 55 pieces of artillery. These were both bolt-shooting machines and stone throwers. These engines were able to hurl their missiles or rocks up to half a mile.

#6 - Armies of the Early Republic

Between 514 B.C. and 284 B.C., Rome fought numerous wars with her neighbors. As the chief partner of the Latin League, Rome led the armies that eventually conquered the Etruscans, the Samnites and even Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Pyrrhus had invaded Italy with an army of 25,000 Macedonians and 20 elephants. His ‘‘Pyrric Victories" eventually led to his retreat back to Epirus. Interestingly, the Carthaginians had fought Pyrrhus during this same period which made Rome and Carthage distant allies. The end of the Pyrrhic war found Rome in command of southern Italy and a top military power in the Mediterranean.

#7 - Outpost on the Danube

Under Trajan, the Romans invaded and eventually annexed Dacia to the east of the Danube River. After the virtual annihilation of two legions, it was not possible to hold this area; and the Romans soon retreated behind the natural defensive barrier of the Danube. A series of fortifications were built which were mutually supportable and manned by auxiliary troops with legions stationed strategically behind the frontier to react to any incursions by enemy tribesmen. In some areas, a ditch and vallum was constructed, but this was not a continuous defensive line.

#8 - The March of the Empire

At the height of its power in about 115 A.D., the empire of Rome stretched from northern England to southern Iraq. Rome controlled all the land around the Mediterranean. The empire included modern day Egypt, Greece, Spain, France, Turkey, Syria, and much more.

#9 - Defending the Eagles on the German Frontier

In 9 A.D., three Roman legions were wiped out in the Teutoburg Forest. Operations to the east of the Rhine were limited following this disastrous defeat. A series of fortifications were built establishing a defensive line called the "Limes". The small group depicted here has been caught outside their fort and awaits their fate.

#10 - Roman Cavalry - Ala Noricum 90 AD

Up to 60,000 cavalry were used at any given time between the 1st and 4th Centuries A.D. Cavalry forts were an integral part of Roman defenses such as Hadrian's wall. The ability to scout and raid into enemy territory, as well as quick response to enemy raids, made cavalry more and more important. After the second half of the 2nd Century B.C., Roman cavalry was all recruited from the conquered territories. Roman officers commanded the "alae" cavalry regiments, which were about 500 strong. The force was further divided into 16 "turmae", each commanded by a Decurion.

#11 - The Pax Romana

The Roman Empire frontiers were guarded by a maximum of 33 Imperial Legions numbering no more than 150,000 men. There were up to 175,000 auxiliary troops serving Rome at the same time. After about 115 A.D., there was fighting to hold the defensive lines; but within the empire’s borders, the "Pax Romana" ensured relative peace and tranquility.

#12 - Roman Tribune

The Roman Imperial Army was the most ruthless and efficient killing machine produced in the ancient world. Rome came to conquer most of the world known to her, through the combination of ferocity, skill and logistics. The training of a legionary was intense and practical. By the time a recruit’s training was completed, he had learned how to deliver a blow without opening for a counter, with an emphasis on the lethal thrusting strokes. Armed with his "gladius" (originally a Spanish, short stabbing sword), the legionary was virtually a professional swordsman. The Romans normally marched 20 miles in a day, with each man carrying up to 60 pounds of gear. An elaborate and fortified camp was constructed at the end of each day’s march.

Das Bohnefeast

2007-06-27T13:24:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Here is another Mohr set called "Das Bohnefeast", or The Bean dance". It is based on ancient North European traditions about the lucky person that will get the bean from inside the New Years Eve pie and how he becomes the king of the night. It consists of 16 single or set of flats, 30mm, all painted in oils.

Napoleon at the Pyramids

2007-06-27T13:06:00.000+03:00

By Panos Charalampakis

Below is my interpetation of this wonderful Mohr set showing Napoleon with various personailites that accompanied him at Egypt, along with different troops and some natives. This set consists of pices of single or grou flats of 30mm. Its painted with artist oils