Hi guys,
(see further down the thread for more photos)
Here's my latest WIP...need lots of practice so chose this one from Pegaso (54-508). Lots of touching up to do, especially on the freehand crosses. (I wish my highlights would quit fading as the paint dries!!) but I'm happy with how it's coming along. It's hard because I can only find one view of this model, the box art.
Oils over acrylic. Comments always welcomed and appreciated.
Mary
PS can you tell I really like this hobby?

Hi Mary,
Your work is nice so far.
The cloak needs more highlights and shadows and then it will be more depth. And I think your red cross are little too big. they was more concav, that is the reason why they look some finer. You are on the right way, You are on the right way, you´ll manage it.
I hope you are not angry due to my comment.
Cheers ChaRon

Looking good Mary, it's great to see the passion for the hobby!

Never angry, ChaRon
I agree, was following the box art and painting freehand. I think they're too wide.
Mary

Hi Mary

You keep on an amazing painting rate!

White is a difficult colour to achieve in a convincing way. You might want to try to start with a much darker off-white and then gradually and progressively add the various highlights. Try to work wet on dry too as sometimes you will not be able to add extreme highlights wet on wet.

I look forward to your next steps. Keep them coming...

Jhan

Looking Great Mary,just take your time cause this one needs a lot of patience.
I follow this thread

Good going Mary. Next time you tackle white, try Johan's suggestion of starting off with a light grey (for cool whites) or a light beige (for warm whites) and gradually build up your highlights till you achieve pure white at its brightest point.
A cool trick is to take your digital camera and photograph your primed figure under an overhead light. Convert the image to black and white and print it out and put it on your work bench. This will show you how the light plays on the surface of your figure and will give you an excellent guide for painting highlights and shadows.
Did you paint the chamfron or leave it bare metal? With metal figures like Pegaso, I like to use the metal of the figure for the metal of the armor. Give it a once over with the metal brush from a dremel. Not too much since you just want to buff the surface not soften detail. If you don't have a dremel, some fine steel wool works great. Once buffed, take a tooth pick and burnish the surface of the metal. A light coat of tamiya smoke will give add some nice depth to the metal. Use this as a wash more than directly from the bottle. You are tinting the surface rather than applying a "laquer" coating. Once dry, a wash of dark brown or black will pick out details like rolled edges, rivets or articulation of over lapping plates. A very light dry brushing along the edges with model master chrome silver will make the edges pop. I will use blue tack or masking solution over the metal armor bits prior to priming. Once the primer is dry I just remove the mask or blue tack and I have some nice armor that looks like steel. If there is some overlap of the mask onto an area that needs to be painted. A little touch up with primer on a brush neatens up the edges. One of the nice things about using the bare metal, is that by using tamiya clear yellow over it, you get an interesting bright brass effect. And its still metal. I use this along with some gold printers ink or liquid gold leafing to get varying shades of brass and polished bronze on the same figure.
Good luck.

Some good tips from Mike there Mary, keep up the good work.

Re the vanishing highs when using oils ,I tend to go a bit deeper on the shading to compensate for this effect but it is a fine balance ,my tastes are for more rather than less ,but that bucks the modern trend a bit .

Ron

Thank you guys, your advice is like having 'tutors' a few steps away. Here's the knight mounted; still some touching up to do. I painted the horse in oils and the knight in acrylics to see the difference, as this model is a 'test run' as I practice. I wanted to paint the horse in acrylic, too, but my big problem is having the right consistency in my paints. I seem to have paint either too thick or to thin!

You just gotta paint horses and faces in oils , " Man! or Wooman"

Expensive stuff for experimenting on , You robbed a bank

Nope, got a good deal from a fellow reducing his grey army

Great work Mary, you're coming along in leaps and bounds. Some great tips from Mike for you to follow and learn from.

I suggest you dirty up the lower and leading edges of the (what's it called?) the blanket over the horse with some dirt and dust to show the terrain the horse and rider have been travelling through. Don't firget to do inside and as well as outside. This will help reduce the starkness of the white colour and help to place the figure geographically.

Hi Mary,
Great work. Whites are very demanding, but you did a good job.
Cheers,
Zeno

very nice work Mary.
My advice is to touch up the cross again. For the shading you should use a mix with the red and green. You where going to dark in my humble opinion (are you using black??). The light on the redcross is to white. You should try a mix with red and yellow (orange) but don't overdo it.
When it is dry, i use a very small wash with cadmium red.

I paint white with a mix of raw umber and white. This give's a very nice grey. Highligthing with more white and wet in wet. You can't get more highligt then pure white. So that's only on top of the folds.
Shading is with more raw umber but only into the deep folds, and again wet in wet. Use no black because it's becoming really hard.

Marc

Thanks Marc, you're right. I was trying to get a brilliant red cross as I've used that mix before, but it didn't quite work the way I hoped. I'm also waiting on Tommi's stencils so I don't have to struggle with freehand anymore!

My God Mary... you must lock yourself in your work room day and night!!! I wish I could turn out finished products as fast as you do.
This one turned out quite well, have you tried doing the black outline on the cross like the box art? May find that cleans up your edges and the cross will look a little crisper. That being said, all the advice you've got here is very helpful on this and any fig you do in the future.... which is what, two more this week?
Man, you are one fast painter!!!

Cheers

Colin

They are worth waiting, believe me. Just painted four lion's on a gambeson this evening. Thanks to Tommi's stencils I can manage it.

Marc

Actually Colin, perhaps I'm too fast! I suppose it's years of painting in general so I have an idea of what look I'm after, and the subject matter is pretty straightforward, especially cloaks and the horses.
But where I get lost, especially in acrylics, is the correct dilutions of layers and the number of layers I need to build that depth. I welcome any tips on that.
My kids have grown up and I'm not much into TV so painting is 'me' time. I make sure I have lots of it after working all day
If I was painting Napoleonics I'd only be turning out one a year!

Hi Mary , there's a lot of white going on here which is very hard to paint !!!! But i think your doing a great job on it , keep up the good work

I was at a seminar with Alex M a couple of weeks ago about working with acrylics. For dillution, we got the consistancy down to the same as 'skim milk'. You load the brush with that, but dab lightly on a paper towel before applying to the figure.
After applying a strong base coat, the successive layers aren't solid colours but not applied watery like a wash. This allows the base to show through and leaves a subtle transition between colours. The more layers done of the same colour, the stronger that colour becomes. It's all trial and error, AlexM made it look so easy but of coarse you gotta do it over and over to get consistant at the technique.
I hope I was able to explain this in such a way that it makes sense.

Trial and error

Colin