"What's your method for painting 6mm 19th century?" Topic

I'm pretty much new to 6mm and wondered if there might be a smart way to get a lot of figures done to a reasonable level without having to use trial and error. I'm working on a FPW project, Baccus figures.
Thanks,
Bob

I've not gotten it down yet to be honest. Too much detail work and fussing carried over from larger scales. Don't do it that way! ;-)

Baccus has some great painting tutorials on their site.
At least they did when i was painting WSS figures. They showed fast and efficient techniques that proved invaluable.

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Avoidance

Stick the figures to sticks, undercoat black, then do main colours with a good brush (00 Windsor and Newton series 7), then pick up bits of detail like facings, weapons, faces and hands. Remember you will be looking at the figures from 2 to 3 feet so don't worry if things are not spot on. Varnish, then base.

Well, I don't know about y'all, but I live in the 21st century. I'm not really sure how things were painted in the 19th century.

Dan :)

Here's the guide I wrote for the Baccus site:

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For FPW I start with a black basecoat, do a heavy drybrush of the main uniform colours (jacket and trousers), then pick up the details, ending with the flesh and hat. Little things like cuffs (or white spats for the French) really help lift the figures. For Kepis I cheat and paint the whole thing black and just do the top red (or blue for chasseurs).

I agree with JA above, remember they are wargames figures not works of art! Don't get too hung up with detail, go with a mass effect, especially with 6mm:

Irregular, look awful bare metal but quite nice painted up, bit of an abstract job!

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Baccus:

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Tally Ho!

Bacchus crams a ton of detail in their sculpts, but painting it will eat you time. The answer is paint for effect not detail. Get the main colors that characterize the troops down. Use blacking liberally.

In some ways digital photography is our enemy. Images tend to be over bright and over sharp and are seldom kind to ordinary paint jobs.Certainly my older eyes are kinder than the camera lens.

So when a brilliant painter does a brilliant job on even the smallest of scales, the camera will show that – but when Joe Ordinary does a basic wargaming paint job, you can bet the camera will be dreadfully cruel, even though the figures will look really nice at table distance.

I would like to say that I come from the school of 'don't worry about too many small mistakes because you will not see them on the table' as I think that is the real and best way to do 6mm / 10mm, however, the sad truth is that I do go back in after I have painted and tidy up the errors that I can find, so I am not the liberated person that I would pretend to be. Though it remains the case that my paint jobs are not that good anyway, so I doubt it matters!

1. Apply undercoat (I usually use Humbrol Matt White or Matt Grey
2. Paint the figures. Do the larger areas (e.g. coat and trousers) first, then the detail. If you can't see it, don't paint it.
3. Base the figures to taste.

I started on Heroics and Ros and have since moved to Adler with a few Baccus.

I undercoated my Heroics and Ros in white, but undercoat the others in black.

Do large areas first, and only paint what you can see. For instance, there are no facial features on Heroics and Ros, so I do not bother with more than a blob of flesh (I do mark out hair on the back of the head, so I can get a bit of variety with hair colours). On the Adlers, you can see a face, so I have added beards.

I don't bother with shading/highlighting/drybrushing as I do not feel confident with the techniques.

I finish with a thin layer of gloss varnish, followed by a thin layer of matt varnish.

TMP link

Similar topic with some good advice and links.

One piece of advise. Keep your colors bright. At this scale, you need to keep the shades brighter to keep your units from becoming dark blobs on the gaming table.

…Oh, most importantly, your bases will be the MOST noticeable things on the table. I would make basing priority #1.