Sir George Prettie's Regt. of Foote

[Captain Blood]

More... 

Another 20 down.

Only 20 New Model Army to go now...

Phew...

[theoldschool]

I am trying very hard to finish painting for a game of Sharp Practice after Christmas and you do this to me, shame on you. Absolutely stunning as always.
What rules do you plan on using. I have been toying with the idea of using Sharp Practice, suitably tweaked of course.
Pat

[meninobesta]

 

you make ECW look interesting! very interesting!  

[dodge]

more excellent stuff the cap'n

 

[Malamute]

Superb stuff as always Richard and excellent photography. Do you ever sleep?

[Captain Blood]

What rules do you plan on using. I have been toying with the idea of using Sharp Practice, suitably tweaked of course.

Don't know yet, Pat. Probably a variant of my bastardised 'Kill Zone' rules, which I use as the basis for pretty much everything. I like really simple rules - can't be doing with all these big fat rulebooks any more... 

Superb stuff as always Richard and excellent photography. Do you ever sleep?

Thanks Nick. You have to remember that in the case of this particular batch of 120 ECW foot I paid someone else to paint them for me!

I cleaned them up and based them, then sent them over to him for the paintjob.
All I've been doing to each unit is retouching details like belts, ribbons, sashes, pouches and so on, adding a few extra highlights and flags where needed, then doing the scenic basing and varnishing...

Still quite a big job with 120 figures, but not like doing the donkey work of painting them from scratch!
Once I get back to doing all the hard work myself, I shall return to my normal slow rate of work! 

[Grimm]

amazing Figures amazing terrain !!!! it will be hard to win next Painting leage 

Grimm

[JollyBob]

Brilliant stuff, this project never ceases to amaze me with its quality. 

But, if you've only got 20 figs left to do, what will you do next....? 

[Hammers]

Bloody good! I do so hope I get to paint some myself next year.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Excellent, as usual!

I like the way the officers have been painted in buff coats. Very authentic!

Please post pics of all your ECW stuff together, once they are all finished, if possible 

[crisis_core]

Those are bloody nice! Sort of makes me wonder what they looked like before you applied the highlighting to them

[Ramshackle_Curtis]

Wow, great painting.

Im especially inspired by the overall quality, not just the models. Your photography and display skills are shown to an excellent degree.

I am going to try to photograph some of my models and scenery arranged in your style. Do you have any tips on lighting?

[Helen]

Bloody good! I do so hope I get to paint some myself next year.

Will you be painting Swedes Hammers?

Helen

[Captain Blood]

I am going to try to photograph some of my models and scenery arranged in your style. Do you have any tips on lighting?

Only that I always try to use natural light.
Artificial light always casts a strange colour on the figures, even with a daylight lamp.
Yes, you can balance it out, but it takes a lot of fiddling around with lamps, white balance, bits of graduated tint paper and cardboard boxes. Truthfully, I can't be bothered. I'm not personally all that keen on the 'clinical' style of miniatures photography - probably because my painting isn't good enough to withstand the degree of scrutiny it provides 
But I prefer to see figures in some kind of setting - but that's just personal taste.

I always try to wait until the middle part of the day when the light is brightest, and then take my pictures (without a flash) on a table under a velux roof window in my loft games room...
You don't want bright sunlight - that washes out the image. Just good daylight.
Even if it's quite a dull day, it's usually good enough in the middle of the day.
You can always tweak the image for exposure / contrast afterwards in any photo editing programme. I generally do this, although I rarely do any further enhancement.

The digital camera normally lies in this respect anyway, as digital pics tend to show colours as  brighter on screen than in real life - rather like the difference between colour photo prints and 35mm slides of old... 

[Aaron]

While I think you are all too modest about the quality of your painting, you make an excellent point about the difference a nice "setting" makes. I had a set of figures savaged online when someone else posted "clinical" shots of them in front of a white background. I later posted pictures of the same figures with some nice terrain behind them and the reviews were much more favorable. I always try to distract the viewers with pretty terrain now!