Painting 6mm naps (3)

Third and final instalment!

Here are a front and top view of the base with the chinchilla sand glued down. The sand I use is branded as "Charlie Chinchilla Bathing Sand" and marketed by Supreme Petfoods. I bought a 2 litre container for £2.75 ages ago and have used less than half a litre so far.





The dry sand is then painted with slightly watered-down GW brown ink. Capilliary pressure pulls the ink through the sand.
When dry, I then drybrushed the base with AA Earth Brown and then GW snakebite leather:

followed by AA coffee
and then AA sand:

Finally I glued on some static grass. This variety is made by Javis and I think is the "Summer Meadow" pack, or something like that. It is a mix of static grass and fine flock. It seems about right for April-June 1809. As I mentioned before, with 6mm you need to use quite bright colours and this goes for you foliage too!


Here is a front shot of the finished base:

The grass matting, as I'm sure you have noticed also got drybrushed along with the base to blend it in.
A couple of point I may have forgotten to mention:
1. The flags are from Pete at Baccus (like the figures) and come in sheets of 24.
2. The rank and file musket barrels are painted in AA dove grey. I have come to prefer this matt effect to that of metallics at this scale for gunmetal.
I hope that this guide has been of some interest or help, please leave comments, they really are very welcome.
on to the next unit then...any preference?
cheers
Steve

Comments

  1. Thank you very much for this tutorials. I hope to see another Tutorial as soon as possible.

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  2. Glad it helped. I'm working out how to paint Bavarians now, so they may be a tutorial in the future

    Steve

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  3. One of the things that I am starting to find is that if you do diorama bases, such as this, when you are finished painting the figures you are really only halfway complete - in terms of time and effort - in getting the figures wargame-ready. Do you find that basing this way takes as much (or more) time than the painting?

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  4. Not really a problem now I have a system for the basing and plenty of materials to hand. I paint up the figures for a division or so (4-6 bases) then do all of the dioramas ona production line while I'm undercoating the next batch of figures.
    The onlt 2 delays are waiting for the glue to dry proprly on the sand, then waiting for ink to dry. Both are best left for 24 hrs each, so by the time the basing is finished I'm normally cracking on nicely with the next figures.

    Total time for one base (excluding waiting) is only 10 mins at most (with practice), as with all figure painting it is largely about knowing what you can get away with!

    cheers!

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  5. Steve:Stunning!!!
    Going to try your technique when my 1805 Austrians arrive from Peter.

    Don

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