Thursday, June 26, 2008

28mm Napoleonic French Skirmishers

I've finished the entire 30 figure bag of French skirmishers. They look great! Old Glory gets some pretty negative reviews of their Napoleonic range, but I think these figures show why I love them. They really suit my painting style.

All six skirmishing poses




Priming




Standing firing




Loading




Reaching for cartridge




Pulling hammer back




Kneeling firing




Painted as legere voltiguer




Painted as legere voltiguer




All 30 figures

The figures were a joy to paint. All told, I spent about 20 hours on these figures, including prep, priming, painting, basing, and flocking.

The priming was a real headache. We had a late winter and a very late spring this year, and the result has been a very windy June. I haven't been able to do any spray priming. Finally I took some advice from TMP and bought some black gesso.

It was awful. It dried with giant shiny holes where the metal peeked through, so that I had to do two coats of primer. It dried on very goopy in parts. Lastly, it didn't adhere well to the figures. I had to touch up the shakos on every single figure because the gesso had simply rubbed off during painting.


Fortunately, I had decent weather to do some spray priming today. I'll keep the gesso for an emergency, but I doubt I'll ever use it again.

4 comments:

  1. You've done a great job on these guys, I love the one with the bandaged head. Nice work!

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  2. Nice work. I use gesso and it sounds like you laid it on too thin and, maybe handled your figures too much. Those are the only two times that I have had issues using gesso. And in the winter it rocks!

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  3. These are great. I would've gotten OG Napoleoics, if Victrix & Perry didn't hit the scene. Although, even now I wonder if OG would've been a better choice for gaming, especially. Anyway, I was doing an internet search for basing 28mm Napoleonic skirmishers and yours popped up. Great work as always, Dean

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