ECW Musketeers - WIP

Musketeers are coming along nicely. I've done a few in different coat colours and will do the same for both Royalist and Parliament. Then the variations will be added (loading, preparing to fire ...) It will be some time before these are based and ready to go! 

My Painting Method

A little bit about my painting method now using the musketeers as an example. This is how I tackled the box of musketeers I had undercoated/ prepared some time ago (or part of it so far.)
I nearly always undercoat large batches in one go. They are then ready whenever I need them. It always makes me want to paint them when they look like this!

Could seem a daunting prospect to paint all these!

Firstly, I work in groups of 4 figs when painting units. I paint the first stage on the first 4 figs - in my case this is the matt black on metal work etc. I follow this with a dry brush of Vallejo Oily Steel on the metal work.

I rarely complete the 4 figs straight through (unless needed to complete a unit or something like that)but start on the next batch of 4 and so on. This means I eventually have lots of groups of 4 figs at different stages. The stages being,
 base colours (socks, trousers,belts, flesh, hats, bags ...)
 highlights on base colours
 coats (then coat highlights)
 fine detailing and final highlights where necessary.

Musketeers at various stages

This means I'm never doing the same thing on lots of figures but am varying the painting and for me this keeps me at it for longer. Some stages require more concentration than others (i.e. fine highlighting) so this method allows for various degrees of intensity and concentration. Doing fine detail on 20-24 figs one after another in one go would probably blow my mind.

I find doing figs in groups of 4 prevents me from getting 'bogged down' and also I can choose the stage and level of detail depending on how I feel. Personally I lke doing all the detailed stuff first  thing in the day. As the day goes on and I start to tire I can do easy stuff like the block colours on belts etc or the large areas like coats ... (I do batches of undercoating during my breaks in the day!)

Some pics of the musketeers as they progress to the fininishing stage:

Matt black painted first then drybrushed Vallejo Oily Steel (those in foreground.)

Detail and highlights added at different stages

Close-up of detail

Various stages shown here including a couple of coats done before a had a cuppa!

  Coats added on these last 2 pics (after my cuppa!)

Nearing completion:

Coats added and 'grey coats' highlighted

All coats highlighted - these just need some final touches to complete them.

Last photos show 4 greencoats that I base coated yesterday and finished this morning - so please don't touch as they are still wet!!

With the next 4 ready for their green coats

Hope this all makes sense!

This last photo leads me to the next posting. I've been preparing and painting quite alot of Sedgemoor cavalry.  The ones on the left in pic below were prepared yesterday so I'll get them going today.





Next time - some Sedgemoor cavalry.