Finishing off the Berbers

Finished painting! (What did you think the title meant?)

When I last posted, just a few things to go. I painted the base brown and let that dry while working on the rifles and such. The rifles are painted overall Rifle Butt, but sometimes Burnt Umber is close enough. I've found it's important to paint the whole thing, as later the gunmetal looks and covers much better over the dark undercoat. Also, if you haven't done the dark undercoat for the hands (I did this time because of the forearms), just breeze right over them, too. Good time saver. Next, paint the gunmetal on the top part. If it's a musket with rings or has sights, I'll do those with a "steel" or other mid to light metallic color. Really makes the weapon stand out and takes almost no time. Didn't have that on this rifle.

The hands are drybrushed with a color the same or maybe a bit darker than the face. Notice on the figure on the right you can see the individual fingers. That's because 1) Tony made them (including fingernails) and 2) the fingers were drybrushed ever so lightly, leaving the dark spaces between the fingers intact. Great look, little effort. I like that.

The pouches are made of--what else?--Moroccan leather so I painted them red-brown. Burnt Sienna of course. Beginning to see a pattern here? The artist colors are very versatile. The fringes at the bottom were decorative; I painted these a mid-green. The cords holding the pouches were little more than strings and Tony has made these appropriately fine. When I drybrushed the gandoura, at least one side of the cords was left dark. No need to outline these in a dark color as people do (especially outlining Napoleonic belting!). Just barely touch the tops with the color you want and you're good to go. In fact, some of the cords had picked up a little of the tan-shaded drybrush color and I was tempted to do nothing.

Back to the base. An indeterminate brown on the feet: could be slippers, could be sun-browned and dusty feet. The base brown is drybrushed Raw Sienna and then again with Yellow Ochre. I could have stopped with the Raw Sienna but it was looking a little too Halloweeny for my taste and the Yellow Ochre really brightened up not only the base but the whole figure. After all, these Berbers are mostly gray and brown--a little color can't hurt.

There you go--first batch done! I think it's taken me as long to write these two blogs as it did to paint the figures. I definitely think finishing 9 figures in one sitting is more satisfying than doing half of 18 figures.