"ECW Project Milestone - 5 months and still goin' strong!" Topic

I've completed a major (for me) milestone for my ECW project. Finished out 96 Heavy Cav, 24 Cuirassier, 24 Dragoons (mounts/dismounts), 8 Artillery pieces in field works, wounded and reload markers.
The goal is to complete the 10 regiments of foote in the next two weeks, play/learn the rules (Victory without Quarter) and put on two games in July, 09 at our annual Skirmish '09 Game Day.
Check out my blog link or click link for a quickie slideshow. This is a fun project!

Very nice work.

Are those Old Glory figures?

Yes, also a mix of Dixon and Foundry. I'm old school…don't mind mixing 'em up. Having a blast with this project! Can't wait for my banners next…all GMB.

Steve,

I was looking at your blog and read the post about "Oil Rub" painting horses.

I don't understand what applying oil paint and then rubbing it off does. Can you explain a bit more? Thanks.

THe figures look really good. I just picked up a copy of WECW a couple weeks ago and this is very inspiring. Thanks for posting the great pictures and good luck with continuing the project.

Oil Rubbing horses? it's a quick and easy way to get lots of horses painted in a minimum amount of time. Here goes…

ALL my figures/horses are primed white. It looks better and has worked for me for 25+ years. Primer and painting style is a personal thang. This is what I do for horses and paint them a minimum of 24 in a sitting. We don't play dinky games in Tejas! :)

I use vegetable oil based (cleans up with water) oil paints by Windsor and Newton (Max paints). I use Payne's Grey, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber and Ivory Black for the horse colors. I bought a twin sized "egg crate" mattress pad at Wal-Mart. I cut the pad into small squares (I bought it several years ago..it's still good and cost effective). I then use a medium or large flat brush to glop on the oil paint, let dry about 5 minutes and rub it off with the foam rubber pieces. Leaves a really cool finish on the horse, self shades, no crapping around with washes that muddy up your color, no crappy looking basecoats and then "highlighting" in the Foundry polka-dot fashion. I painted all 96 horses in 3 hours while watching Kingdom of Heaven. I recommend an old movie for background noise-your mileage may vary! :) It's a little tedious but the results are what we're after right? Let the horses dry overnight. They defintely will dry quickly if you leave them out in the Tejas sun. I then paint all the horse furniture black, the manes on brown horses get a dark brown (old Ral Partha Ogre Dark Brown…very oop…easily matched at Home Depot in a quart. It too lasts forever). Gray and Black horses get a black mane. Hooves and legs on browns get a dark brown stocking while black and greys get black. Horse's eyes are painted black with a small white dot instead of the unreal look of white eyes and black iris. I do recommend finding a copy of an old IM how to paint horses book. I've had it for years. I use the horse faces and stockings page for all my collections. Horse faces and stockings are last.

I got a copy of the Foundry Painting book by Dallimore. They've got a similar style but muck it up IMHO by spotch painting on the horse. It's not necessary. I've been doing this for over 25 years (way before Foundry published it)

This was a crash course. Bottom line, try it, it's an art form and you may not be pleased the first time. It took me several try's to get it right. Depends on your artist's eye. I started with "regular" horse painting, was taught oil rubbing and never never looked back.

Hope this helps a little

Steve Miller
DFW Irregulars
Skirmish 09 Games Day
July 11, 2009
Plano Centre
Plano, Texas

Ok, so if I understand correctly, the oil paint, applied and then rubbed off, provides the horses' body color and shading/highlighting in one step. Then you paint manes, hooves, and of course horse furniture as normal?

Got it in one! :) Here's another post from my blog with some pics that might help illustrate. I'm a terrible writer/poster.

link

Ok, I see.

Now it seems doing it this way makes all the horses a lighter color.

Have you tried it with a black or grey primer?

yes…it stinks….used it twice…pitched the figures and started over. Ditto on Grey. I just don't use anything else but white. I get consistent results over 20+ years of painting.