Sunday 10 January 2010

Dippers









Ho hum, there I was on the straight-and-narrow, making a good start to my Burgundians when I go and get distracted!
These are some test figures for a potential demo game later this year, not yet definetly fixed up, for the 550th anniversary of a Wars of the Roses battle that's near to where I live. I need to see if I can possibly create at least 300 figures to a decent standard, in a few months, for both armies. Given the limited free time I'll have, I've tested a dipping approach - well, to be accurate a brush-on of 'Army Painter' dip.
The figures were white-undercoated and then the main colours blocked in, in shades that are much lighter than I would normally do, using the mid & light shades in the Foundry triads for example and the black clothing was painted as dark grey. I've then brushed on 'Dark tone' dip. The non-armour areas have been matted with Humbrol Matt Cote. This dip tone seems to work really well on the armour, pooling in the right areas such as the helmet rivets and joints in plates and giving a nice worn-steel finish. Where I'm a tad concerned is on darker clothing, which get dulled and there are no highlights post-dip. Also, from previous experience, the dark tone is too strong to go on whites. I may therefore use mid-tone on clothing and dark tone on armour?
Overall, the speedier process may just allow allow me to get these done, with an acceptable level of detail (thats already in the figure castings) brought out by the dip.

More test figures needed me thinks.


2 comments:

  1. Interesting post; I've always been reluctant to use the Army Painter dip/brush method due to the final look which appears, to me at least, as being too 'dirty'. However the speed in which you can get the figures onto the table is a strong incentive to give it a go. I’ll be looking forward to seeing the results of any further experiments.

    Regards,
    Matt

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  2. Matt,
    yes I know what you mean on the 'dirty' look; I'm now testing using a range of lighter colours to avoid this result (as well as the mid tone dip). Alternatively i may add a few highlights post-dip, although this adds to overall time.
    Cheers

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