"Army Painter Under Coat On 15mm French & Spanish militia" Topic

I've been experimenting with AP Dark Blue undercoat and dip on 15/18mm French – and continuing to try and clear my painting desk. Conclusions and a few pictures here: link

I tried a similar strategy with my 10 mm WSS Bavarians. I primed with acrylic gesso and then used Coat D'Armes Bavarian Blue as base coat. It worked pretty well on these small figures, but I agree that coverage for flesh can be a bit tricky. Like you, not sure it actually saves much time as you have to be very careful with the "fiddly bits".

I love it, has greatly increased the amount of figures I can get finished both 15mm and 10mm.

I strangely find that anti shine varnish spray actually helps bring out the lighter colours including flesh.

@SteamingDave – I have some 10mm AWI figures on the painting desk. I haven't tried the AP on them yet (they pre-date me taking up the method – I'm embarassed to admit there are some half finished things there that have been sitting for years…).

Looks liek they came out ok. : )

I find that the spray paint primer has a couple of disadvantages. It is pricey, it doesn't get underneath at the private parts of the figures well (without putting a lot of spray in the air and often flowing over detail in the figure) and it is best used outdoors.

I use paint thinner thinned Rustolium (metal priming) matt finish paint, which you can buy for about $3 USD-4 US per half pint in various colours. Blend colours, thin down until it shows little paint, brush on with a semi-stiff brush and you are in business. You only need a microscopic thick coating to get metal adhesion. The organic base solvent penetrates and spreads on the metal (water based paints sometimes bead up a bit. Use enough pigment and polymer to cut the reflection of the metal and get the base coat. Make it one shade darker (add black paint) than the main colour of the figure and use your acrylic (or oil) paints. as a highlight. This works for me, but I'm cheap.

I've used this technique, mainly on French Napoleonics. and have an AP blue spray can to prove it. The colour is a bit light and bright for me, it's a bit scary when you first put it on (as your picture shows) – though looks perfectly acceptable on a finished figure. I'm not sure it saved a huge amount of time, especially on the Ligne, where you have to overpaint a lot of white.

I have since been experimenting with various greys for my current project (1815 Prussians). I have been spraying direct onto metal with artists acrylic sprays. This probably isn't very wise – though the figures don't get a rough handling and I haven't suffered issues with paint flaking off on earlier unprimed jobs.

Like 1968billsfan I have been struggling with sprays, though. I have to do it outdoors (when then is no wind and rain), and I always miss bits, and it can go on a bit thick in my attempts to prevent this. So interested in your method. We can get Rust Oleum in UK on Amazon I see!

Priming with a dove grey shade works well for troops in white uniforms. It allows for dark shading in shadowed areas and still only requires one top coat of white. Tamiya fine surface spray primers work well but keep the spray can moving.

My principal problem with the AP white primer spray was that it seemed to cover in a very heavy way, or, if I tried to spray lightly seemed to dry "powdery". To the point where those figures went straight into the Dettol while I went and bought some GW Skull White. I appreciate it is pricey – but it saves a lot of time over hand painting the primer.

As for the Dark Blue – as I say, I'm not convinced it saves time over undercoating white (or black) and painting the uniform on. I don't think I'd consider it for French Line but for Legere I'll give it a bash next time round.

As for white uniforms, I'm now firmly in the spray white, block in facings, shakos, cartridge boxes etc – and then brush on the AP. And highlight as you desire.

For British, I'd prime white and then put a wash of light brown on the figures before painting them.

Obviously, all these comments are for 15mm figures. I can appreciate that if you were doing 28's you might want to do things differently.

I've taken somewhat better pictures of the figures and updated the post…