STEVE BARBER AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN 19TH CENTURY LINE GRENZERS

Following up on the completion of the Austrian command stands last week, I have gone on to finish a unit of Austrian Grenzers for my Choc Box Wars Austrians.  This will complete my Austrians (the remaining balance of which will be coming from a painting service later this summer).  The figures (above) are from the excellent Steve Barber Revolutions in Europe Line.  Being a relatively new offering, I had a hard time finding samples of how others had painted these--outside of the wonderful illustration of the figures on the Steve Barber site. So, I offer this study for anyone who might be interested in painting these figures themselves.  As usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX. 

Like my earlier observation about my Thirty Year's War horse, this was another exercise in shades of brown and gray.  The base color for the coat is Italian Dark Brown (Testors Model Master); the base color for the pack is Testors Model Master Dark Tan, and the base color for the bag is Humbrol Brown Yellow (all flat enamels, of course).  Each also has at least one or more drybrush coats of lighter brown/tan over those.  For the bag, pack, and the rolled greatcoat, I also did a dark wash followed by highlighting.  The greatcoat base color is Testors Model Master Gunship Gray, drybrushed with Testors Model Master Light Gray.  The trousers are Testors Bright Blue (again with some drybrush of lighter blue and a touch of light gray).

The complete 2-stand unit. One trick I use when mounting figures with a uniform pose (that aren't marching in close order) is staggering them just a bit to break up the lines and impart a bit of variety.  As far as the main unit effect, probably the thing that jumps out at you the most on the table is the yellow hat piping, the process of painting which caused me to be very aware of the difference between painting for the camera and painting for the table. Given how temperamental yellow enamel is to work with, it took took multiple passes to get the hat piping to come out decently for the lens--and there's still a bit of jaggedness to the lines that shows up on camera, whereas to the naked eye these aren't noticeable.  Were I painting more figures, I probably would not have taken these extra pains.

Speaking of extras, I usually include a few spare figures among my projects that I mount individually.  These come in handy as pickets, game markers, or just for looking nice on a bookshelf.