This past weekend I started painting this 54mm figure from Pegaso, an officer of the Empress' Dragoons. I started with the face using my usual process. A few details have been painted on. I added the cleft in the chin just with paint (he's got a big chin, so it was nice to add a little something there). I also did a big of highlighting on the side of the jaw to make it look like his face was being pushed/scrunched up by the chin strap.


From there I started working on the coat. It's still very much a work in progress, I haven't started on the sleeves or front yet, but I've put in some time on the collar and back. The color should be a dark green. Dark colors like this (green, blue, etc) can be tricky to paint. As you highlight them, they can easily start to look like a medium or even a light green. To counteract this, I use grey to highlight rather than a lighter shade of green. This desaturates as it lightens, which helps keep the overall look a dark one while still giving me a decent amount of contrast. For the shadows I mixed in Reaper's Burgundy Wine. The dark purple is a nice contrast to the green and provides additional depth/interest to the shadows without actually looking like purple.


I've painted a French dragoon before, almost two years ago. Here's a comparison of the new figure with my other Dragoon. The new figure is a bit smaller (despite being the same scale). You can see some of the differences in their uniforms. The general approach to the green coat is the same, though on this new one I've tightened up the transitions from dark to light. It gives the newer version an even darker look and also makes it appear a bit shinier... which fits, a clean officer's dress uniform should look nicer than a trooper's worn campaign coat.



One thing I did want to do with this figure was try to work on the figure and the base simultaneously. I feel like often my bases are a bit rushed, probably because I only start on them when the figure is all done. This way I will hopefully give the base the time it deserves.

The first step was, of course, to actually build the base before finishing the figure. The figure is an officer in his dress uniform, so he wouldn't be in the field or part of a battle. Instead I decided to put him in front of a chateau. I'd seen a fancy gate over at ScaleLink and thought this would be the perfect fit for this figure. I built the pillar using Juweela bricks and then cut up the gate to make it fit. The plaque on the pillar is from a set of name plates from Pk-pro. I had a few other ideas, but in the end decided the didn't really add anything useful to the scene so I kept it simple. Here's a look at the base with the figure (prior to the start of painting).

Hi mate
I so wish I could still do this scale I do miss them love the face work those little touches make such a difference , I do agree with regard ground work and it's something I need to look at
Great art work. Mate looking forward to seeing the completed composition
Cheers Chris

Lovely stuff
Looking forward to seeing this progress.

Paul

Terrific work so far - funnily enough I'm painting a couple of very dark blue uniforms at the moment and discovered the using grey for highlighting trick by accident. Now if I can figure out how to paint a decent red . . . .and a face . . . and hands

Thanks, Chris, Paul, and DaddyO!

Yeah, I discovered the grey trick while working on a blue uniform as well. Turns out it works with green too! Red, faces, hands... all tricky stuff. I wish I had a simple trick like adding grey to help with those!

Very nice work.

Marc

Nice start. Using a grey for highlighting is an interesting idea. What grey do you use for the highlights or is it a mixture?

Thanks, Marc and Clrsgt.

In this case I used Reaper's Rainy Grey. It's a slightly cool grey and you can see that effect in the highlights, they've got a hint of blue-green in them. You can experiment with different grey's. This one is a bit on the light grey side. If you used a darker grey, the effect would be more desaturation without necessarily getting that much lighter. That might give the coat more of a worn/faded look. So choosing a dark grey, a medium grey, or a light grey should give you slightly different results. It's worth experimenting a bit to see what look you like.

Superb start Sir.
Bravo,
Keith

Terrific work.Great tip about the grey too.

Oda.

Great start and some good tips - expecially the comment about groundwork!

Cheers

Huw

A great start - will be superb when finished as always.
Cheers
Mat

great start. really love the finished trooper. it really shows the difference with the new technique on the coat. thanks for the tips.

tony

A superb start, both figures are lovely. Following with interest.

Triffic stuff, the fact that it can stand being blown up 10000% times on a screen and still look good is testament to some top painting.

Thanks for the tip on the grey.

The face! The dirtying-up! The standard of painting! That is just so good.

Jeff

Thank you for the comments, everyone! I'm really enjoying this figure and I hope to keep posting regular updates... though I'll be away from my painting table for at least the next 4 days. Hopefully I'll have more to show next week!

Excellent scene setting and a very nice start with the painting.
Thanks also for the advice on using greys.

Cheers,
Andrew

I haven't had much painting time during the past month, but I did manage to finally get some more work done on the Dragoon. I continued with the dark green coat and finished off the sleeves. I then moved to the whites on the front, trying to create some variation between the coat, the shirt, and the belt. I then took care of the pants and a few other details on the uniform. I haven't touched the epaulettes or braided cord because I'm still deciding how I want to go about painting them (either using metallic paints or purely matte colors but with high contrast).