Tools of the trade

A few posts back Clive left a comment asking if I could write about the paints that I use for my Hinton Hunts. So in the hope this may be of interest to others as well, here goes.

Preparation
I strip any old paint by soaking over night in bleach and then scrubbing gently with a toothbrush. I’ve tried using Dettol but really don’t like the smell and it doesn’t seem to be any more effective than bleach. Figures are then cleaned up with a hobby knife and various files (Hinton Hunts need a LOT of filing) before being stuck to a plastic bottle top with PVA glue. I prefer PVA to blue tack as it holds the figure firmly during painting and can easily be removed afterwards.

Undercoat
I undercoat my figures by brush using matt black enamel Revell No8, I’ve given up on Humbrol as it doesn’t dry consistently matt and any sheen makes it much harder to pick out detail on the figure.

Colours
I use the Foundry paint system acrylics. I’m still using some pots I bought ten years ago and I like the fact that they don’t seem to dry out. For those of you who don’t know, the Foundry system has three shades for each colour with ‘A’ being the darkest and ‘C’ the lightest. The idea is to make it easy to shade figures without having to mix colours. As I don’t shade my Hinton Hunts I tend to use only the ‘B’ shades. For French blue for example I use 20B, British red 15B etc. I do use Humbrol acrylics for black and white as I tend to get through quite a lot of those colours and Foundry paints are quite expensive.

Varnish
I initially used Humbrol Satin Cote for this project but as the quality of Humbrol paints declined I got fed up with the inconsistent results. I now use Humbrol Clear gloss varnish which is a very thin water based varnish which I apply in three coats to build up the gloss. If for any reason I need to turn a gloss finish back to matt then I use Testors Dullcote (top tip from Matt G).

Work in progress - French Voltigeurs

Bases
I hand cut these from 1.5mm plasticard. I did try getting some plywood ones cut but they came back slightly too small which bugged me so it’s back to hand cutting. I paint them using Humbrol enamel matt green 80. The quality of this paint has become awful and never dries properly matt but I’m stuck with it as I can’t find a similar shade in Revell. I stick the figures to their bases using Super glue, despite the name the figures can easily be removed from the plasticard if required without damage.

Brushes
I use the Foundy ones, expensive but seem to be worth it.