[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

I decided to change the base color. I replaced the Liquitex Burned Sienna for Schminke College Medium Brown (2 parts) mixed with Liquitex Raw Sienna (1 part) as the base coat; main and highlight color remain the same.

Here is the light infantry with the new base color (and skin, hair and weapons painted).

Here is a comparison of the old and the new bases. I like the new scheme better, it looks more subdued, the burned sienna is much more vibrant. Also, the overall contrast is less.

Now I need to repaint the line infantry's bases.


[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

The line infantry is done. When looking at the models, I am not sure I will stick with the colors I used for the bases. Now looking at the finished models, it seems a bit dark and reddish-brown... Let's see...

Next up is the light infantry.


[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

I painted the piping in blue.

After some more reading, I recognized that the piping color is wrong, though. The Brunswickers in the peninsular campaign had the blue piping, but as described in the previous post the miniatures I have are the wrong ones for the setting. The ones I have a are rather for Quatre-Bas or Waterloo. So I repainted the piping to green, making the minis part of the 2nd line batallion.

The line infantry had the pompon in yellow on the bottom and blue on the top (light infantry in reversed order). Colors used:

Pompon, Yellow

  • 70.883 Silver grey basecoat
  • 72.707 Gold Yellow
  • 70.952 Lemon Yellow

Pompon, Blue

  • 70.963 Medium Blue
  • 70.963 Medium Blue

    &

    70.844 Deep Sky Blue

  • 70.963 Medium Blue

    &

    70.844 Deep Sky Blue

    &

    70.918 Ivory

Greatcoat on top of Backpack

  • 70.886 Green Grey
  • 70.883 Silver Grey

Green Piping

  • 70.980 Black Green
  • 70.980 Black Green

    &

    70.968 Flat Green

  • 70.980 Black Green

    &

    70.968 Flat Green

    &

    70.918 Ivory

With that, the first three models are done:


[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

I started to paint all the blacks.

For the uniform I decided to mix grey into the black:

  • 70.950 Black
  • 2/3 70.950 Black

    &

    1/3 72.748 Sombre Grey

  • above mix plus a touch of 70.918 Ivory

For the lacing I added more of the ivory to get a lighter tone.

The pouches and straps and stuff, I added a touch of yellow to get a warmer tone.

  • 2/3 70.950 Black

    &

    1/3 72.707 Gold Yellow

  • Above mix

    &

    72.704 Elf Skintone

  • Above mix

    &

    70.918 Ivory

The leather parts (shoes, shako top, shako bottom, shako shield) I added brown for yet another shade of black.

  • 3/4 70.950 Black

    &

    1/4 70.872 Chocolate Brown

  • Several steps with more and more 70.918 Ivory added

The emblem on the shako just got a light overbrush of 70.883 silver grey.

The blue parts of the uniform were painted as follows:

  • 70.963 Medium Blue
  • 70.963 Medium Blue

    &

    70.844 Deep Sky Blue added in 2—3 steps

The blue of the water-canteen was also painted in 70.963 Medium Blue. Then I painted the BLJ (Braunschweig Lauenburg'sche Jäger) in 70.883 silver grey. I then mixed the blue and grey for a light drybrush. Finally I applied a very watered down wash of 72.094 Black Ink the bring out the wood texture.

Bummer! While reading up on how to actually paint the minis, I noticed that I ordered the wrong miniatures, if I want to have the peninsular Brunswickers. The one's I ordered are more fitting for when they returned from the peninsular to the north. The Leib Batallion miniatures would have been correct; with the tussel thing and the skull on the shako... Well... next time...


[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

I started painting the miniatures with the eyes.

Next I painted the skin. I used Vallejo 70.804 Beige Red as a base color, and mixed random browns into it to make each miniature a bit different.

The first highlight was applied with Beige Red.

A second highlight followed by mixing white or lighter skin colors to the Beige Red; again trying to create some variety.

The hair came next, using random browns I still had on the wet palette.

The rifles were basecoated in a mix of 70.872 Chocolate Brown and 70.875 Beige Brown.

To imitate woodgrain I painted stripes of 70.875 Beige Brown along the lenght of the musket.

Smaller stripes of 70.875 Beige Brown mixed with 70.981 Orange Brown were applied next. (Not really visible in the photo.)

With 71.065 Steel and 70.801 Brass I picket out the metal areas on the muskets.

The steel areas were then washed with thinned 72.094 Blach Ink, the brass areas with 70.939 Smoke.


[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

I primed the miniatures with Vallejo black primer applied through the airbrush.

Next, I painted the bases. The border and shadow color is Liquitex Burnt Sienna. The whole base was painted with that reddish brown.

Over that, the main base color, Liquitex Raw Sienna was painted, not drybrushed, so that really the major color now was the lighter brown.

Finally, a drybrush of Schminke Sahara was drybrushed over the base to pick out the raised areas.

The border of the base was then cleaned up with Burnt Sienna.

For the rocks, I used Schminke Stone Grey. As a shade I mixed it with black and a touch of yellow, and brown.

With these two colors I picked out all the larger stones on the bases.

Finally, the rocks where drybrushed with raw Stone Grey.


[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

With a mixture of PVA, flow improver (washing detergent) and black acrylic paint, I sealed the sand on the bases.


[Chain of Command]¶
Polish Infantry Platoon¶

I covered the bases of the 3rd section models (where I ran out of bases at the beginning) with filler and placed again some small rocks. To hold them in place and not loose them again, I mixed some PVA into the filler.

When that was dry, I covered all bases in PVA and sprinkled on sand.

When that coat was dry in turn, I sealed the sand in with a mix of PVA, water, black acrylic paint and washing liquid (to break the surface tension and help the mix to flow into all the nooks and crannies).

I have not decided yet how to do the bases for this project, so for the time being, these models are done. After the foto shooting, they got a coat of gloss varnish to protect them from any harm.

Next up are the senior leaders, anti-tank rifle team and light mortar team.


[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

I finished removing the flash and gluing the miniatures to their base. The riders I kept separate for easier painting, and mounted them on cocktail sticks. Into the horses I drilled holes accordingly, so that after painting I can use the cut down cocktail sticks as pins to hold the riders safely in place.

Then I mixed filler with PVA and blended the cast bases of the miniatures with the steel bases. I used decoration sand, small pebbles and larger ones (all from the dollar store) and pressed them into the filler/PVA mix.

I placed a stone with a larger area at the back of each base; on these I plan to paint a number for easy identification during game play.


[Song of Drums and Shakos]¶
Black Brunswickers¶

Evil Richard, like so often before, made me start a new period/game system - shame on him! But to be honest, I am also always quite weakwilled when it comes to that... ;-)

This time it is my first stint to the Napoleaonic period. The game system is [Song of Drums and Shakos by Ganesha Games](https://www.ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?cPath=1_7&products_id=49 "Ganesha Games"). We will keep the background quite loose, not fixed to a specific time or place; I looked through available factions and figures, and was quite overwhelmed. I wasn't aware how manifold the Napoleonic period is.

In the end I settled for the Brunswickers, to the best of my research as they would have looked like under British service during the peninsular campaign.

I ordered them from Perry Miniatures. For bases I used round steel bases from Product for Wargamers.

I started by removing the flash and gluing the miniatures to their bases.