Ortosilian staff

After a long wait and lots of work, my last exam in this term is today, and this afternoon I will be enjoying the summer regardless of its outcome (I will pass).

Lol nope. Still got one on Wednesday.

But the good news. These fine gentlemen are the leading personalities of the just begun Napoleonic South American Imagi-Nation Thing, and are painted from the Italeri Napoleonic staff sets. Namely, from left to right,  

Don Carlos Cristobal Guerrero, Reverend Major - French 

Don Pedro Carraro, Shareholder of the Treasury, personal attendant - French (Napoleon :~) )

His Majesty Manuel Ortega the 2nd, Glorious and Magnificent - Russian

Don Diego Alejandro de Robles, General of Artillery, Keeper of the Cattles - French.

The names are generated using 100 Spanish first- and surnames, 2d100 cast. I'm taking no responsibility.

This is the great Ortosilian banner. I'll compose a separate post about background and whatnot.

Made with the Flag Designer website.

While not very noticeable on the figures IRL, these pictures show that the vests' collars are high and the necks are a tad short. I wanted to add a cigar to Don Carlos, but I couldn't find a small enough piece of scratch I could handle, and this was post-priming so no chance of adding GS.

The photos are also rushed a little bit and badly lighted, but the batteries were running low and I had urgent business to do. Maybe later group shots with the whole staff (this is just a small part) will be better quality.

Again a slightly different approach was used on these figures. Namely, two layers of base and medium paints put on before glazing. It worked very well on the blues and reds I think. The blue was mixed from VMC Flat Blue and VGC Magic Blue, highlights from Flat and VGC Electric Blue. This flat blue, used previously on the GNW Swedish figs, does not have that 'uniform blue' hue I wished for in itself.
The faces also had some extra care, to give that sunburnt look- Burnt Umber mixed with flesh, washed with sepia, highlighted, glazed, highlighted again with a much brighter tone.

The bay horses had a black glaze while the white had a grey one (Revell Gunship Grey + Vallejo glaze medium). The white, on the most part, is not a real white but VGC Wolf Grey. White was added before the glazing and then as highlights.

The bases are painted with VMC Flat Earth, washed with Vallejo's Umber Shade, highlighted with a mix of VMC Buff and Flat Earth.

A small note on blacks - now that the 'How I paint' page is removed due to being not revolutionary enough. A cool black effect can be achieved by painting the area a medium/dark grey (Gunship Grey mixed with some black in my case), then adding a thicker black glaze to it. This brings out the edges in a more natural way than grey highlights.