Lee's Legion - basing and painting

I had a number of kind comments about the Legion dragoons. To answer a couple of questions/points:

1. The green on the jackets is Vallejo Black-green. This was painted on and then one batch had Army Painter strong tone and the other batch (and Harry Lee) had a thin wash of black-green + black. Highlights were more black-green followed by a mix of black-green and a little light brown.
2. Basing is deceptively simple. The figures are glued to the base with PVA. The base is then painted chocolate brown. I then glue on patches of Noch (Gaugemaster) grass matting. Once dry I paint over the whole base with watered down PVA and dump on a load of mixed flock and fine railway modelling grit. Once this had also dried a stick on patches of static grass with more watered-down PVA. The trick with the flock is to get the right mix. My rough recipe includes:

• fine brown flock
• fine sand-coloured flock
• fine green flock (just a little)
• railway model grit
• polyfilla powder

The addition of polyfilla powder to the mix does two things. Firstly it mixes with the thinned PVA to bind the whole thing together and secondly some of it remains around the edge of the base (being very light) and gives a similar impression to dry-brushing the base.

This basing method, which I have used for a number of years on 28mm figures is VERY quick and easy. It doesn't work well with smaller figures as even the finest flock tends to be too "grainy". As the basing material only goes where the watered PVA flows (rhyme unintended) it tends to be easier to get around horses' legs etc than using polyfilla and a spatula! It also doesn't give unsightly white patches if it chips.

Hope this helps someone out there!