Waterloo in 28mm - My journey log

[Helge]

Thanks for the encouragement. I am still uploading older armies to the blog whenever I can summon the enthusiasm for photography. I fairly recently crossed 10,000 painted models so this project - while certainly ambitious - isn't hopelessly out of scope for me. Famous last words

[syrinx0]

Keep taking pictures of the older stuff.  You have a very nice collection from what I have looked at!

[Helge]

Thanks. I will keep plugging away on the photography. For now, here is the II/73rd Foot Perthshire Highlanders as the final battalion of the 5th British Brigade. While dressed in standard uniforms, I added a bagpiper from Victrix as a nod to the highland origin of the battalion.



The brigade is led by Major General Sir C. Halkett. I am using 50mm round bases for Brigade commanders with just one model. Division commanders will have 2 models on a 75mm round base and Corps commanders 3 models on a 100mm round base.



Onward to the 2nd KGL Brigade...

[Jabba]

One thing I learnt fairly early was to put the firing figures in the rear rank and have the front rank loading or making ready, less musket and bayonet overhanging the front of the base that way.

[Freddy]

Great looking figures!

[Helge]

Jabba - I found that I can push firing lines back far enough on the bases that the bayonets only stick out a little bit. Should be fine (fingers crossed ).

The 2nd KGL Brigade gave me some visual variety from the ocean of red. Here are the I KGL Light and II KGL Light battalion. The I KGL Light is based on Cazadores metal models from Perry with some minor conversion. Only way I could get to the unique uniform of the I KGL Light which isn't quite the same as the Rifles. The II KGL Light models are specific metal options so no problem there. I used a mix of muskets and rifles on the formed units, plus rifles for the skirmish screen.

I KGL Light


II KGL Light




While far from the finish line for the Allied Army, the bulk assembly is already starting for the French. Below you see the rim-painted and labelled bases for four divisions of d'Erlon's I Corps. All in, there are well over 1,000 labelled but empty bases staring reproachfully at me

[vodkafan]

You have opted for a very unusual way of doing things, which is very interesting to me; I certainly cannot criticise, as I haven't properly finished a wargaming project yet! My Napoleonics are a shambles 

[Helge]

vodkafan - For bulk projects like this, I tend to invest time into preparation and then just power through. It's the only way that these bigger tasks will ever get done (for me at least). I sprinkle in smaller "snack" projects for variety but mostly my mental focus has to stay on the big plan. Otherwise I drift off (and my storage room gains one more filing box full of unpainted models...).

For this project, I cleaned up all the models and sorted them into units. Then everything gets glued onto popsicle sticks, spray painted (GW Wraithbone in prep for Contrast paints), and placed by brigade into my "in progress" shelving unit. Pick below shows the opened drawer for the first brigade of the 2nd Netherland Division but each drawer content looks the same - stacked with popsicle sticks and Napoleonic models.



In parallel, I batch all the bases with rim paint and prepare all the flags (metal rod, glue on finial, add GMB flag with touchup as needed). The upcoming formations then get laid out to motivate me to slowly fill in empty bases with painted units. Preparing flags and bases also means that the gap from painting the models and having a full unit is very short. As soon as the models are dry, they get glued onto a base, get some tuffs and Luke's Scenics base ready piled on, and done. Very satisfying the get each unit truly finished in rapid succession.



I have been using the same approach for other big projects such as this Early Imperial Roman Army (which was before I discovered Base Ready so I had to sand, paint, drybrush x2, tuffs, rim the bases which took a lot of the efficiency out of the process...).



Obviously not as big as the Napoleonic project, but I have done Warhammer armies with 400+ models which is probably more comparable in workload to 1,000+ Napoleonic due to much higher detail level of GW figures. Example would be this Orc Army with ~450 models.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Your efficiency and organizational skill is impressive! 🫡

[vodkafan]

Thanks Helge for explaining your system. I think I could adopt at least a few of those procedures for myself.

[Bloggard]

knock-out in all respects 

[IronDuke596]

I really admire your production methodology, and particularly the base identification, which I do as well.
When you have time, I and I think many others would appreciate your painting process. You started with figures on sticks, priming, and contrast paints. The complete process would be most useful.

A outstanding project with superbly painted figures. I look forward to seeing your progress.

[Helge]

IronDuke - "Paint with Contrast" is pretty much the entirety of the painting process . The only "trick" is the order of steps:

1. GW Wraithbone spray base (for other armies I would do some kind of zenithal spray highlight first but 28mm Napoleonics have such "closed" poses that placing light sources doesn't really add anything)
2. Sloppily applied Apothecary White all over or at least to catch all the straps. All Contrast paint works over white, so I use a giant brush for this and just goop it on.
3. Blood Angels red for the jacket, not worrying overly much it it gets on some of the white straps.
4. Skin with Guilliman Flesh, Hair with assorted browns, facings and other details in colour of choice.
In all of the above steps I don't worry that much about precision. Most contrast paints are dark enough to overpower the earlier paints so I don't do any intermediate clean-up. The next steps clean up all the remaining sins.
5. All black and metal parts with Black Templar. This overpowers everything and is the only step where I try to be neat *but* most of the black/metal items are physically close to the trousers which are not yet painted so I can be sloppy there.
6. Metal with Vallejo Metal Color Silver or Vallejo Brass (both of which cover very strongly)
7. Trousers with Vallejo Heavy Charcoal which covers in one shot and will clean up any mistakes from the black/metal steps. In a few cases I used Contrast Basilicanum Grey for the trousers but then I have to clean up beforehand so I am shifting away from this.
8. Nuln Oiln over silver, Reikland Fleshshade over gold/brass. This tends to hide any imprecision of the metal step. If something spills onto other sections - which it frequently does - it just adds a bit of shadow depth.
9. Final clean-up of any spillage on the straps with any high pigment white paint (usually with retarder medium for easy of application). I then typically use up any remaining white on my palette to mix with the remaining Charcoal and do a sloppy highlight on the knees and other parts of the trousers.
10. Spray coat with AK Interactive Matte to seal everything.
11. Base, glue on flowers/tuffs, add Base Ready mix, and done.

The key to efficiency is that only the very last paint step involves any clean-up. This takes some mental discipline because the urge will be to fix, prod and adjust every step of the paintjob which will massive expand the timeline.

On that note, here are the V KGL Line. I decided to use Warlord plastics for these to visually distinguish the KGL from the British Perry plastics. I figured that the rigid monopose Warlord models would be symbolic of the stoic German. They also don't have a skirmish base for the same reason.

[Redshank]

Really impressive and inspirational. Doesn't sound like you need much encouragement, but keep plugging away!

[fred]

Thanks for sharing your method - for figures that make such use of contrast paints, they don’t look contrast painted - which is a good thing - they look much more realistic and natural. Contrast paints can sometimes give a bit of a ‘glow’ to a figure which can look a bit unnatural.