Advice on 10mm Undercoating

[goat major]

I wish someone would produce tartan paint for ECW highlanders!

It only tends to come in large tins - for 10mm you need to decant it into a smaller container first and then it works fine.

[Grenadier]

 OK, I'll put in my two cents to muddy the topic.  I use white or light gray Tamiya spray as it is probably the best primer in spray bomb form.  It covers extremely well and doesn't fill in details.  After drying I apply my first black-gray wash.  This not only provides much needed pre-shading but pops out the details thus allowing my 40+ year old eyes to see what to paint! Color blocking follows in order of flesh, clothing, cuffs, lapels and turnbacks, equipment, hair.  This step is often back and forth as my clumsy fingers paint what they shouldn't.  After drying, a second wash of black-gray for clothing and equipment and a wash of russet for skin. Light highlights as usual and then a spray bomb job of matt acrylic art spray to seal and protect from greasy gamer fingers!

Brian

[Jubilation T Cornpone]

Always a black undercoat with a highlight of GW Khemri Brown. Works for me. Everyone has a different way of doing things. Experiment and then go with what works for you.

[sixsideddice]

Just to update,

My 10mm ECW  parcel arrived in the post today, so now I`m well and truly in business and can begin the long process of working to get them to the table in all their glory.

They really are exquisitely detailed and I`m utterly impressed. Makes working on them so much easier when they look so stunning  to begin with... and absolutely no flash or uneven bases to have to deal with - incredible.

I will stick, I think, with Foundry Publication’s 1644 rules (just need to convert inches to centimetres), as they have such a great skirmish feel to them, and will allow me to base the pieces individually (on 1 cent coins); which I always think brings a personal `hands on` appeal to the table... something which is sometimes missing in this scale, I feel.

Thanks guys for all your advice about undercoating, it’s all sunk in; now I just have to put it into practise...  wish me luck :-)

Steve

[Wkeyser]

I am also a whity   I prime white for a couple of reasons the first is that I use predominantly Windsor and Newton Acrylics. This allows me to thin them to varying degrees which affects the way the fig looks. This allows me in one coat of paint to shade and highlight at the same time. This does mean that I often have to go back and reprime. For example once the coats are done I have to go back and reprime white the belts, packs etc. The other benefit of the Windsor and Newton allows you have a matt look (by thinning a lot) to a semi gloss look (very little thinning of the paint).

Also what I see with most black primed figs is a darkening of the colors and lots of black lines, something you just don’t see in reality. I know that we are painting to accentuate details but I just don’t like the look of heavy black lines and worse are the black eyes you see often when figs have been primed with black.

William

The coat on these French are done in one coat no shading or highlighting, by using white primer and a thinned acrlyc paint.

[sixsideddice]

Really really nice Wkeyser , highly impressive.

Wow, you use Windsor and Newton; thats so cool, I really like their Inks.

Here are a few of my Ink efforts  

http://tabletoptitans.com/tutorials/0001.php

http://tabletoptitans.com/reviews/0001.php


Steve

[Last Hussar]

I go black - I find if I use white or grey if I mis a bit it really shows up. (and its always after I base and the spot is visible but inaccessible!).  I find GW Foundation paints are excellent for coverage, even over black - the Mechanite red only needs ONE coat, the only red I know that does this.

I tend to block paint, because I don't have the skill for the fiddly bits.  There is also what I call my '3 foot factor' (aka table distance)

I have some 6mm that I bought painted, and on some of the French foriegn regiments  they have all the lace and stuff- trouble is from 4 feet away they look like a Jackson Pollock - just a mess of colour.   I must admit I don't do buttons etc - often invisible from the other side of the table.

Remember in 10mm, 1mm on the figure is 6 inches (make your own joke about what you tell your missus!).  I sometimes do the barrels of muskets, but bear in mind what you have just given them is equivalent to the gun on a Sherman!

Confession time:
I often undercoat CSA grey, then only paint anthing that isn't CS uniform

[sixsideddice]

Here are my personal findings:

As a complete newcomer pretty much to this scale, I have been listening closely to the better advice of others, and experimenting with both black and white undercoating for my Pendraken Miniatures.

I have found that for the Fantasy range, the black undercoating makes for great line definition (Skeletons, Dungeon Monsters, etc) and separates the colours in such a way as to augment the natural detail of the minis and makes them stand out that much more, and with minimal work needed by me to create a nice effect.

However, with my Jacobites, Marlborough Brits, and most importantly, my English Civil War armies; a white undercoating allows me not only to see what I`m painting, but really helps makes the finished colours that much brighter, which (at this small scale) is a great bonus... and makes the extra detail that much more special, and very worthwhile my spending the extra time on each piece.

Steve :-)