Civilians (4)

I'm not sure that "civilians" is the correct description of these figures; involuntary migrant workers perhaps? Anyway, they are taken from Eureka's 19th century Colonials range, where they are described as "plantation workers". I bought a pack at the time of my first purchase of Eureka's ragged Continentals a couple of years ago; I needed to buy a few more figures to qualify for free postage from Fighting 15s. They patiently sat in the leadpile until last Friday, when I suddenly decided to paint them. I see that there are a few more variants in the range - in total Eureka have 5 women and 4 men. When I turn my attention properly to the southern AWI theatre (the latter half of next year on current projections!), I may buy some of those other variants, although it looks like they come in random packs so you can't choose the exact figures you want. The dress of the men is a little bit odd. They seem to be wearing tunics fastened with a rope belt; I'd have thought a simple shirt would be more suitable no matter there they are supposed to be.

I'll add a couple of painting notes in respect of the chap carrying chopped wood. Whilst on painting autopilot I almost began painting the wood with my usual Foundry "Spearshaft" palette, but then realised that of course chopped wood looks very different to other wood - it is pale cream on the inside and then much darker on the outside. So I used various "Boneyard" and "Buff colours to create a freshly chopped look. Not quite so suitable is the colour of the figure's tunic, which was painted with Foundry's "Raw Linen" palette. I find this set very difficult to get right. The differences between the 3 shades are quite extreme (as opposed to some of the palettes where the differences are negligible, like "Stone" for example). "Raw Linen" works ok on small areas, and it is one of my standard set of colours for shoulder-bags, but is less effective on larger areas when used "straight out of the tin". I should have mixed some intermediate colours; to be honest these figures were painting in a bit of a rush. Still, 4 figures in one evening ain't bad! Negro flesh I paint using the Foundry "Dusky Flesh" palette on top of an undercoat of Coat D'Arms "Negro". I blend in the second and third Foundry colours as those are more paints where the variation in the tones is quite stark.

The scenery is once again a Touching History cornfield (with Realistic Modelling trees in the background). This time I have taken the central section of the cornfield out, to show what the ground underneath looks like.

4 figures. Painted September 2007.