Some test painting on 10mm figures

Hello,

If you have been following along with this blog recently, you'll know that I've been painting my little heart out on 10mm War of Spanish Succession troops. I've been doing pretty well with getting units painted. As I look at other painters who paint 10mm figures and other sizes, I'm always looking for a faster way to get these units painted.  So I decided that while I was painting my most recent units I would also paint three other stands with different methods that I read about around the internet.

Before I jump into the test units I thought I would describe what I normally do to paint the units I've already completed.

1st the usual cleaning of flash etc..

2nd I prime the figures with white gesso.  I use gesso because I can brush it and do it indoors. Living in Oregon the weather can vary and in the winter its usually raining. Having something I can apply indoors is a boon to production.

3rd I use a wash of Citadel Nun Oil over the figures.  The black wash brings out the detail and adds an instant shade to the figures.

4th I start painting. I usually start with the guns, then the flesh and then the uniform.

5th I paint the flag and drum.

Pretty basic.

Now the test strips.

So these two strips where primed with white gesso. I then painted the guns. I skipped over the wash of nun oil.  These two will get washes after they are painted. 

This stand was primed with a light grey spray primer. Most of the French have a light grey almost white uniform. This was the closet I could get in a spray primer to that color also I wanted something different than white.  This stand will get painted and then dipped with army painter dip.

So the three above pictures show the units painted. Not really much difference between them.  Painting the two first units with the pure white gesso primer was difficult only because I had to paint everything.  The grey primed unit was easier as I only had to paint the parts I didn't want grey. :)

This unit was given a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone Ink. You can kind of see that the uniform went from a grey to a light brownish.  I don't like how it changed the color of the uniform.

This stand was given a wash of Citadel Nun Oil. It added a nice shade to the figure but didn't seem to really fill in the folds like I thought it would.

This stand was the grey primed one and then was dipped with army painter soft tone dip. After letting it dry over night I then brushed on a matte varnish.  The uniform did get a slight brownish tint to it but it doesn't seem as bad as the stand with the soft tone ink wash. 

At this point I don't think any of the above methods made the painting any faster. If anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them.  For now I will stick with what I've been doing until the next best method comes along. :)