Here is something to officially kick-off 'The Napoleonic Spring-Thaw Painting Challenge.' I thought that since Perry Miniatures has kindly offered to sponsor some of the prizes for the Challenge (Thanks very much Alan!) I would show off something from their lovely range of models. This is a Perry Miniature 6pd French artillery piece with its crew. I put on a game up Saskatoon last month and Tim pointed out that I should put some mud and turf on the wheels as I clearly show the furrows in the groundwork. I totally agree and so I decided to begin incorporating elements of this into all of my artillery models.
I saw 'Secundus' post on his blog Iron Mitten how he did his mud effect and I decided to try a slight variation on his technique. To do the 'muck' I first brushed on some slightly watered-down white glue onto the wheel rims and then tweezered some static grass into it. Once that set up I then brushed on Liquitex gloss gel medium mixed with some brown paint. (I also brushed this into the furrows on the base to better tie it all together.) This gives a nice, wet, gloppy look and dries hard. For a bit of added depth I brushed on a bit of thinned down Citadel Devlan Mud Wash.
I might go in and trim down some of the mucked flock, but otherwise I'm happy with the overall look of it and will do the same to the rest of the battery.
In terms of the Painting Challenge this is worth 6 points (1pt for each crew and 2 for the gun model). Book 'em, Danno!
I'll have more stuff to post on the blog very soon PLUS I know both Stacy and Sylvain have some Prussians and Russians (respectively) about to make their debut as well so we should see the scoreboard begin to tick along. Huzzah!!
