C'est la Guerre - Colophon

[Nails in styrofoam used to mount figures for painting] The figures in my army are almost exclusively from Essex Miniature's 15mm line. I believe the only exceptions are the galleys which are from Grumpy's Miniatures.

After filing off any flash and smoothing the bottom of the figures, I used fabric glue to attach the figures to nails which were placed in styrofoam as seen in the photograph at left. I would then use white primer (Krylon #1315 All Purpose Primer White)

Pictured below are the major tools used to paint the French army. The top two are Winsor & Newton Sceptre Gold Series 101 0000 brushes, a sable/synthetic blend. The very top was responsible for most of the painting and was retired after it wore out. The bottom brush is a larger 00 brush and was my "paint-roller." Relatively speaking. I also used a Koh-I-Noor 4x0 technical pen filled with India ink for detail work. For example, the left-most knight purportedly has 16 eagles on his shield. They were inked in as best I could using the technical pen, there being limits even to my ability to produce detail! [Brushes used for
painting]

For paint, I used the following Golden airbrush liquid acrylics:

white: Titanium White
black: Carbon Black
red: Napthol Red Light
yellow: Hansa Yellow Medium
blue: Phthalo Blue (Red Shade)
brown: Burnt Sienna Hue
green: Permanent Green Dark

For armor I used Golden's Iridescent Silver (Fine), also an acrylic paint but which comes in a tube. For the knight's spurs, I used Winsor & Newton gold ink applied with a brush. Finally, I applied Krylon #1312 Kamar Varnish as an overcoat.

I have been asked several times if I used a magnifier to paint my figures, but I do not. I do have a light with a built-in magnifier, but found that the reduction in the depth of vision makes it difficult to paint. In the end I concentrated more on achieving a reasonable resemblance of what a particular figure or heraldic device looked like rather than concentrating on excruciatingly re-creating an exact figure. In the end, it was only important that a lion rampant give the observer the feel of a rearing lion rather than, for example, a squatting monkey. As for the chap with the 16 eagles on his shield, to some exent I rely on the suspended disbelief that those are indeed 16 eagles and not 16 Japanese characters, are even 16 random collections of chicken scratches!