So, washes and dips are all the rage. I have been using glazes made with varnish or
PVA for a couple of years with pretty good effects.
As
GW have recently replaced their inks with a range of washes I thought I'd give one a go to see how well they worked. I purchased a pot of
GW Devlan Mud wash (a sort of dark brown). I have to say I am impressed. On 6mm horses I used it in place of ink using my normal method of medium brown or grey followed by a light brown or grey
dry brush, then a dark wash. The
GW wash settles nicely into the recesses and produces a very effective graduation from dark to light - better than the plain ink. It also
dries quite
matt.
My next experiment has been to paint 6mm
Napoleonic french infantry in a basic block-painting style followed by the
GW wash. The
Devlan Mud produced too dark an effect and the other colour in the range
didn;t seem quite right. To get a more subtle effect I decanted equal amounts of the
GW wash and
matt varnish into an empty pot. This has worked very well. My latest batch of 6mm french infantry had their white/blue/brown/black/grey painted in quickly, then the diluted wash was applied (2 coats) and then the remaining colours were painted in. I did need to go back over the white cross-belts but otherwise this saved quite a bit of time.
This evening I'm basing up 4 bases of french infantry, that I only started a few days ago.
These 4 bases will form the
entirety of the Army of Dalmatia (under
Marmont) as I start to build-up the remainder of Napoleon's army for
Wagram.
Pictures to follow
cheers
..and some spare officer stands
followed by four brigades of light cavalry (hussars and chasseurs)
I've had a chance to get the armies laid out and now need to complete the following (before the end of March!)
Then after 2 coats of a 50/50 mix of matt varnish and GW Devlan Mud wash
Then after highlighting
This has been much quicker than the previous method of blocking in dark shades and then highlighting with lighter colours. I think this is because the amount of highlighting is reduced.
Then a nice solid unit of regular infantry:
And a mixed unit of line infantry and bohemian landwehr. The landwehr are in an idealised uniform based on contemporary plates, but I doubt they ever looked this smart in reality, especially with the shako rings. They also have somewhat conjectural flags, with the crest of bohemia on one side, the Hapsburg eagle on the other and the "flames" around the edges limited to just black, white and red.
Here is an advance guard brigade; uhlans, jagers and artillery!
and we round of the austrians with a shed-load of artillery:
Lastly, for balance, here is the single base incorporating all of the Italian Royal Guard; dragoons, guard d'honeur, grenadiers, chasseurs and velites:
Hope you like them!
