"How does the Foundry Paint System actually work?" Topic

Just got in my tester triad (Drab) from Foundry to see what it's like.

The shade seems very thin, though the highlight is an excellent khaki drill colour with really good coverage.

So… given that Wargames Foundry don't actually have anything on their website that actually tells you HOW the "Foundry Paint System" is meant to be applied and the Kevin Dallimore book is out of print, what's the deal?

I've looked at Mr Dallimore's website but his tutorials seem to be at a fairly high skill level.

Is it meant to be block in shade, paint over that in main colour and touch up in highlight? Or is the shade intended as a wash for the main colour?

I realise I can do whatever I want that works, but are all the shade colours thinner?

I've always started with the shade, then a heavy dry brush with main colour and finally a light dry brush with the highlight. This is not as heavily contrasted as Kev Dallimore's work but I like the result.

To be honest, I apply the first, shade, then the main colour, and finish with the highlight – no drybrushing involved.

I've only just started using them, but share your experience with the shade's thinness. The coverage (pigment content) has been disappointing. Some colours are probably better than others.

If I recall it's basically a 3 tone shading system. Nothing innovative really. The mid shade is supposed to go in first. The darkest shade is then "inked" in, with the fluid settling into the detail. The light shade is touched on or dry brushed to highlight.

I got my book off Amazon for about $20 USD about 8 years ago. I'd happily sell it to you at cost,…if I can ever find it. I just hunted for about 20 minutes with no joy. If it turns up I'll dredge the thread and contact you.

You know how it is. The book did not impress, so now it's at the bottom of the box, at the bottom of the pile, at the back of the closet. It might not churn to the surface any time soon. The postage US-AUS can't be cheap, but it's gotta be less than the nonsense amounts being asked on Amazon and eBay currently. If/when it turns up I'll contact.

Regards.

I found it and weighed it and checked the postage options, and to tell you the truth, I think you'd be better off going with this:

auction

FWIW

k

They get you to buy three paints, instead of just one.

Brilliant!!!!!

The first time I saw it, it featured "Tarzan" and "Jane".
It was god-awful. And it was in one of their own ads!
It looked like a meat cutting diagram. "Here's Jane, and here is where you get the chuck steaks and fillet." It was hideous.
I think it's improved since. But if I was gifted those figures, the first thing I would do would be to dump them in a vat of PineSol to strip the paint.

It looked like a meat cutting diagram. "Here's Jane, and here is where you get the chuck steaks and fillet." It was hideous.

Too right! You just can't pick out musculature on a female mini like that, especially not in such sharp contrast. Even if she's supposed to be a competition bodybuilder (maybe Jane was? I haven't read much Tarzan), less is more.

And my initial reaction was that she looked like a pink insect.

The Classic Dallimore method is:
1) Block paint with first dark color.
2) Second lighter color, paint high points or if the area is flat, cover the area leaving small amount of dark color around the outside edges.
3) Third lighter color, once again paint a thin line over high points or on flat areas paint the center area leaving dark and medium colors around the edges.

I sometimes do this or just do the two color method depending on how many figures I have to paint and if it is a small area. EG: Napoleonic Prussian officers sash is two color rather than three.

Jane Porter Clayton, Lady Greystoke, no body builder she, just a sturdy Baltimore lass.

Great way to sell paint. Personally I find that there are some shades I use and I like to buy just those. Certainly there was a time you could go to Nottingham and just buy the shades you wanted.

You can buy individual shades in the online shop. I use up the dark shade more than the others so that needs replacing more often.
Interesting that the OP found the Drab dark shade to be thin – I use it a good deal and find it covers well.

I also tend to use two colours more than three as I paint 15mm figures and the contrast with some colours is a bit subtle. With others it is fine – the raw linen triad for instance.
Even for those who don't like the style, I would really recommend them for horses. There are the colours actually sold as horse colours but some of the others are also handy. The Dallimore book has a range of suggestions for a wide range of horse coat.

As others have commented the method is:
- shade all over
- base on raised areas
- light, is used to highlight

I have a large number of their paints, and haven't noticed a great variation in the pigment density.
link

I've also just reorganised my paints as the posting on the blog shows, and you can buy single bottles of paint, you don't have to replace the entire triad.

It is a bit like painting by numbers, but if you're painting entire armies then you want to get a shift on.

WRT the blocky paint jobs some people have commented on, most of those pictures have been blown up several times the size of the miniature. So they don't look great and the change between shades is more noticeable. For normal wargaming purposes, the system works when you're looking at a figure at 1-3' distance on the table.

HTH

The "meat cutting" effect is not due to the colours, it is due to the style of painting. That's why I use a dry brushing method, it gives a much more subtle result. I've only ever used the flesh and canvas sets as I moved over to Vallejo colours and use close colours within that range to produce the same effect.

The system works perfect, but some of the triads are not the best composition. Drab IMO is one of the best and useful triads Foundry has produced. Maybe you have a bad shade colour.

With the Dallimore method it is important that you paint more of the middle colour than you would think (about 75% percent). Also the highlight is not used as a edge highlight, more like small blocks of light area (abot 20%).

Miniatures with the Dallimore method get a brilliance at about 3' you do not get so simple with other painting techniques.

Somehow, magically all your figures will be painted

Have to admit I've always been more of a basecoat-wash-highlight type anyway. I don't regret the purchase as the tones are all good.

It's also possible I have a Drab Shade that's settled a lot. I'll try some heavy duty stirring.

You undercoat in black then, as others have said, you paint the base colour over the whole area, leaving a thin line of black between details and in deep, sharp, folds, then paint the mid colour on all raised areas and most of any flat bits, and then apply the highlight colour sparingly as… a highlight.

The method produces excellent results when used with precision, but it's very time-consuming and labour intensive, and frankly I don't think the effect as visible at standard tabletop viewing distances is sufficiently superior to block painting and dipping to justify the effort involved if you're painting figures for mass battles. For figures that will be mainly used in skirmish games however, where the focus remains on the individual miniature, and you have far fewer to paint, it's well worth it.

As it happens, I used some of the drab today and it did need a good shake.

Too right, Piper909! Jane never went far from her Methodist upbringing. If you want some scantily-clad female wandering around the jungle--picking up scratches and bites, I shouldn't wonder--try Sheena. Or La of Opar.

But on paints. Maybe it's me, but I find generally base color and wash or base color and drybrush make a suitable wargame figure, especially when you'e got several hundred of them on the table. For base, wash AND dry-brush, he'd better be leading the parade. Or maybe wearing an overcoat.

I have a different/positive experience with the Dallimore/Foundry method. I don't find it time consuming or labor intensive and, to my eye and in my preference, the look is far better than my experiments with dipping. The brighter highlights stand out on my table better and I don't find it too hard to do.

My experience with the Foundry triads was similar at first, the paints seemed thin. I stuck with it and learned how they cover and I came to appreciate 2 coats of thin paint versus one of a thicker paint. After about 10 or so figures of using the triad, I am much better at it and getting pretty good results.

So for me, it's the classic method as outlined above. I'll do 2 color for grunts/troops and 3 color for leaders/stand-out figures.

I learned the same techniques as the Dallimore method from a graphic designer over 40 years ago. The difference was that all we had were Humbrol enamels so you blended your own shade and highlights. No washes so you had to paint the shade tone into the creases by hand and add the highlight by dry brushing. For the ambitious the slower drying time of enamels allowed some blending.

It's a great technique for getting a decent result for a large number of figures without spending forever on each figure. Nowadays I paint 6mmbut still use a similar approach but without the highlights and using a wash for shading, pin washes if I'm feeling ambitious, which isn't that often nowadays.

By a massive stroke of luck an old friend I was visiting on the weekend gave me a copy of the Dallimore book :)

So my original question has been answered in full…

I really like that the book gives 1, 2, and 3 colour versions of the technique, too.

It's important to note that with the Dallimore method you paint the shade colour all over THEN paint the main colour on the raised detail, which I believe is easier than your system Elendril, which reverses the process. Dallimore also applies the highlight with conventional brush-strokes rather than dry-brushing.

The strict "Dallimore" system is varied from even in the basic tutorials in his book. When using the 1 and 2 colour versions he puts a chestnut wash on flesh, he recommends drybrushing (and describes the process) for many situations, and also uses an oilpaint wipeoff technique for horses (though acrylic methods are described too).

Must be my week for fortune. Free copy of the Dallimore book and when I went into the local geek shop to check my comics there was a big box of old stock Vallejo paints they were giving away (they were left over from before they moved location a few years ago and need some serious mixing. Not worth their while to rack up and sell).

Picked up 44 pots, mostly military greens and browns. If you happen to be in Hobart, Tasmania, drop by Area52 and head down to the comic area in the back. But be polite and ask first!