I started another 75mm Pegaso Napoleonic figure a few days ago. This time it's the Captain ADC to Marshal Suchet. As I work on each section of the figure I will try to include a detailed description of my approach along with step by step pictures. I expect this figure to take me at least a month to complete, so check in with this thread from time to time for future updates.

I will be painting this figure using acrylics and later some pigments for weathering. Unless notes otherwise all of the matte acrylics will be Reaper Master Series and all of the metallic acrylics with be Scale 75 Metal 'n Alchemy. Reaper paints are great, very similar to Vallejo but I have an easier time blending with them. This is more personal preference and you can do just as well with many brands. The metals, on the other hand, are Scale 75 and are by far the best water based metals I've seen. Vallejo Model Air are a close second, but the color options for their yellow metals are far more limited.

This first post will cover the prep and painting of the face.

This project required some decision making when it came to how much to assemble before painting. Normally I'll leave small accessories like the scabbard, spurs, and sabretache off as they are delicate and easy to knock off while painting. However here I also opted to leave the right hand, left arm, and pelisse (coat) off. The hand and arm could probably have been attached at this point, but there's a lot of detail around his waist and it will be easier to get to with those pieces unattached. In addition, the seam on the left arm will be hidden by the coat, so that won't be a problem.

I went with a white primer, though grey or black would be fine too. This figure is about half dark colors and half light so there's no wrong choice. The white primer will make painting the face and red pants easier.

Here's a look at the current state of the figure. You can see that there's still a lot of pieces to add as I go along, but this way I will have a much easier time accessing all of those fine details on his torso.

I like to start painting with the face. I begin by base coating the face with Rosy Shadow. I also base coat all of the sections adjacent to the face. So for the hat and collar I used Pure Black and for the hair I used Brown Liner, I use a bit of water to further thin the paint, so the base coat take about 2 to 3 layers for full coverage.

I then sketch on the shadows. I use two reddish browns mixed with the Rosy Shadow (about 3 to 1 brown to rosy shadow). First Chestnut Brown for the basic shadows and then Mahogany Brown for the darker shadows around the eyes, under the nose and chin, and in the mouth. From there I take care of a few of the facial details. For the eyes I start with a coat of dark pink (Violet Red + Rosy Skin). This is then covered up with an off white (Weathered Stone, and Weathered Stone + Leather White), but some of the pink remains at the corners of the eyes. I then paint in the iris followed by a dot of pure black for the pupil and then a dot of pure white for the catch light. With larger figures it's easier to put more detail into the eyes. Try to do as much as you can, but if it's too small feel free to simplify the approach. You can skip the iris and just use a black dot for both the iris and pupil.
This figure is baring his teeth, so I used some Bone Shadow and Aged Bone to paint them in. As with the eyes, avoid using pure white. These aren't getting direct light so they would not be that bright.

With the details finished I move to blending in the shadows. I start with the brown and Rosy Skin mixes and slowly add in more Rosy Shadow until I'm up to pure Rosy Shadow.

From there I start to add in Fair Skin to create the highlights. When I'm at pure Fair Skin I start to add in Fair Highlight for the top highlights. Use the highlights to further define the shape of the nose, tops of the cheeks, and chin.

I now switch to the remaining facial details. The hair starts with Brown Liner, then into Muddy Brown. To that I add Tanned Skin and at about 50/50 Muddy Brown and Tanned Skin, I start to instead mix in Fair Skin for the top highlights. Be a bit random in your highlight placement (within reason) to pick out certain parts so the hair doesn't look too uniform. I also take care of the lips, using Rosy Shadow mixed with Violet Red. To that I mix in Fair Skin to brighten it and create the highlights.

At this point the face looks pretty good, but it's still a bit flat. To create a more lifelike look I used several glazes. I take GW's Bloodletter Red glaze and Guilliman Blue (I also mix the two to form a purple glaze). In each case I add at least an equal amount of water to keep the effect subtle and allow me to slowly build up color. The red is applied in multiple layers to the cheeks, top of the nose, and bottom of the ears. The blue is used on the lower part of the face to create a subtle stubble effect. I used the purple to deepen the shadows under the eyes, in the deepest part of the cheeks, and under the chin. It's a simple enough technique but I think it really adds to the overall look. The nice thing is, no matter what approach you use for the rest of the face, the final glazing step should still work.

Still lots to do, but I think he's off to a good start. By the way, even though I'm treating this thread as a tutorial, I still welcome any feedback and suggestions you might have. I'm always looking to improve and learn new things with each project.

Always enjoy you're threads David & look forward to each one especially the detail with SBS photos.
Like your approach with lots of light bought to the figure you're working on.

How long have you been painting mate?

Mike

What's a lovely paint !

I am always amazed by how you acrylic painters build everything up! Very good until now.

Jhan

Thanks, guys!

Mike, I painted my first figure probably 20 years ago. For a long time I painted off and on, doing Ral Partha and GW figures, but nothing that great. Then, in 2010 I got back into painting and decided to try some larger scale historical figures. At the same time I got involved in the online community and saw what was possible. That gave me a lot of inspiration/instruction and helped to improve my work. I've come a loooooong way since my early PlanetFigure posts.

looking good so far , watching closely

Ron

Stunning mate. Jaw on the floor stuff. Thank you for this.

Hi again David

I suspect we've all grown heaps with practice & online learning/sharing possible today like never before.
Personally reckon the whole average standard has lifted enormously over last couple of decades.

Neat to reflect on where we've come from

An idea is hatching

Stay safe

Mike

Definitely, I think interaction through sites like this one has had a very positive influence on the overall quality of the work out there. On a site like Cool Mini or Not, where people vote on other people's work, you can see a definite trend over time. The stuff that was getting 9's and 10's eight or ten years ago wouldn't score nearly that high today. The level of the competition keeps increasing.

On to painting the shako...

The majority of the hat is black, not an easy color to work with. There are many variations on black so we're not stuck with just black and then neutral grey to highlight. In this case I'm going with more of a brown-black. I'm using Pure Black, Dusky Skin Shadow, and Dusky Skin (a grey-brown shade). There's not a lot to the shape of the hat, so to give it some more texture I doing the shading/highlighting by stippling the paint. Starting with a base of pure black, I start to mix in Dusky Skin Shadow and then continue to work up to pure Dusky Skin. Try to get some reasonably smooth variations but it doesn't have to be perfect. In the next step I'll use some glazes to further smooth the blends. Because the glazes will also knock back the highlights in this stage I go a bit brighter with the highlights than I really want the end result to be (middle image).

Now I create glazes using pure black and dusky skin shadow. I use some Vallejo Glaze medium and water to get a nice thin consistency to the glazes. I started with an overall coat of Dusky Skin Shadow glaze, pushing away from the highlights. After one or two layers I switch the black, to darken the shadow areas. I continue like this until I'm happy with the overall color and blends.

It's a little hard to show this with the images as the effect of the glazes is subtle and small difference in the camera's exposure trick the eye. But the glazes darken the grey and help with the blends.

Next are the cockade and the metallic details. I will be going into more depth on the metallic details when I cover his clothing, so for now here are just pictures of the end result and a short description. For the metals I'm using Necro Gold, Elven Gold, and Citrine Alchemy from the Scale75 yellow metal set. I'm also using Reaper's Imperial Purple in the shadows. I begin with a base coat of 50/50 Necro Gold and Imperial Purple. This is over a dark undercoat, the metallic paints do not work as well over bare white primer. Into that I begin to mix in Elven Gold and work up to the mid tones. For the highlights I start to add Cirtine Alchemy to the Elven Gold and work up to 100% Cirtine Alchemy.

I've put in some additional texture to the metallic parts. On the strip around the base of the hat I painted diagonal stripes, leaving a small gap between each. As I applied the highlights I treated these as if they were 3-D and painted the highlights along the upper edges. The strips holding on the cockade and the lines on either sides of the rings at the top were done by painting a series of dots. I use thin lines of pure black to fix any small mistakes with the texturing. While none of this is necessary, it's nice to add these extra touches if you feel up to it.

It don't get much better than this mate!
Detailed What & How!

Keep it coming

Mike

Hi David

Thank you for the sbs on this lovely figure.

Really like how it is turning out.

Ciao franco

This is a superb sbs. Thanks Bailey for taking the time to share your methods. Impressed with your progress over 6 years - good to see.
Cheers
Mat

Another great start on a beautiful figure.
Your SBS's are very helpful and I've put some of your advice to work and it made a huge difference in my final product... thanx for that! I've already noted some of the tips mentioned above and will be looking out for more useful points as the project progresses.

Carry on and hold nothing back... No secrets on the"Planet"

Colin

I especially like your black on his shako. Low key but effective.

Thanks

Colin

Thanks for this excellent SBS. I'm learning so much

Nice SBS.Congrats

Thanks! Colin, I'm happy that my step by steps have been helpful for you. If people take away just one idea, tip, or trick that they can work into their approach to figures then doing write ups like this is worth it.

On to the Dolman (part 1).

To paint his coat we need to work with dark blue, red, and gold details. Here I'll focus on the dark blue and, in a later post, the gold. There's only a small bit of red so I will go into more detail on that color when I get to the pants, as they are all red.

Dark colors can be difficult to paint. For shades like blues or greens, if you use brighter shades of those colors to highlight it tends to brighten up what the viewer perceives as the base color (so that dark blue can quickly turn into a medium blue). Instead I like to mix grey into the midtone. This desaturates the highlights, which helps create decent contrast while keeping the overall look dark. I feel like I've had success with this in previous projects (Romeo's Officer of the Navy Guard for dark blue and Pegaso's French Dragoon for dark green). I know others will use a color like English Uniform instead and get a nice looking end result, so that's another option. It's definitely worth experimenting with different colors to create your highlights. The same can go for shadows. When I do reds or medium blues I'll often use dark purple for shadows. I also used that in the dark green mix to give the shadows a bit more depth. I don't want to get too side tracked but, in short, there are lots of interesting color combinations. Don't just rely on dark and light versions of the same hue. Mix it up!

Back to this figure. I began with a base coat of Ritterlich Blue. For the shadows I mixed in Pure Black (2nd image). To create the highlights I gradually mixed in Dusky Skin (3rd image). Previously I've used a neutral grey or a blue grey. Dusky Skin is more of a brown-grey, but since I'd already used it on the shako I thought I'd try it in place of the standard grey to provide a little more consistency between colors. As with the shako I pushed the highlights a bit brighter than I wanted so that when I applied the glazes the end result would be where I wanted. Using Ritterlich Blue and Vallejo Glaze Medium (along with some water) I applied several layers of the glaze over the entire blue section of the coat to help smooth out the blends and tie it all together. I also applied several layers of black glaze to reinforce some of the shadows. If the glazes knock the highlights back too much, just go in and redo them.



Up next are all of those gold details. There's a lot of them so it will take me some time to paint.

Sharp work, and thanks for showing us how you go about it!

Joe