Sunday 22 August 2010

Opinion Pole

I have allowed myself to become distracted from painting French Grenadiers into trying out a test figure for my unit of Polish infantry. This chap is WN13 Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Fusilier, charging.

I think it is the lancer style cap (czapska) that appeals to me but I have always thought that the Polish contingent of Napoleon’s Grand Armee was the most dashing. I have painted this one up as a member of the 8th Infantry Regiment (with help on the uniform from Rafa) and the final unit will comprise two companies of Fusiliers, one of Grenadiers and one of Voltigeurs.

I find it takes me a few sessions to come up with a final look when painting up Hinton Hunts and in this case I’m trying to work out if I like the blue of the uniform. I’ve used the Foundry French Blue for the first time but am a bit disappointed, as it looks too dark. This may be a problem of using their 3-shade system where I’m only selecting a single shade for block painting. The dark shade is too dark and the medium shade too light so I’ve had to try a bit of highlighting but I’m still not sure – any thoughts?

8 comments:

Paul said...

Hi Ian
I think he looks great !
On my French i highlight Deep blue 20B over a dark blue, that also seems to work

Paul

Stryker said...

Hi Paul - For my French units I've been using just 20a which gives a nice deep rich blue. I'm finding the proper French Blue (65a) is more of a teal blue but it seems to work ok with highlights of 65b. I may just stick with it to make the Poles look slightly different to the French.

Rafael Pardo said...

He looks magnificient!
The blue hues were very variable and fade in different ways, so any blue is good!
Rafa

Anonymous said...

Like the Foundry Prussian Blue this shade does seem to work better when you use all three shades. However, the young Pole does look rather good I must say...I would stick with it!

Matt

Stryker said...

Thanks for that chaps - I'll probably stick with what I've done then!

Ian

Lee said...

Hi Ian,

Bit late coming in here but I agree that he looks just great as he is! What a lovely little casting.

Lee.

lewisgunner said...

The dark too dark and the light too light?? Who is this ? Goldilocks??

That blue is not blue enough and that's the problem. Mix in a little royal blue .... Only a little and do a teensy bit of highlighting. The problem that you have there is that the blue has a lot of black in it and that you are using a black undercoat so there is no lift to the colour. Thus you need to enrich the colour with essence of blueness.

Roy

Stryker said...

Roy - you're probably right there about the black undercoat. I will seek our essence of blueness!

By the way, I find my bed is just a bit too soft, my chair too big and I hate porridge...