How it all started, my involvement with Crann Tara

 Firstly, thanks to all for the positivity about restarting posting. Nice to hear from many folk that I respect and admire, and glad you've all got through the last few years.

On reflecting about some sort of structure/logic/narrative to posting images etc, I thought it might be of some interest to talk about my focus over the last few years, which has been making and painting the Savoia (Piedmont-Savoy, from the War of the Austrian Succession) figures and the parallel work helping (at times) with the development of the Crann Tara range. I'll say from the start, that the range exists, due to one person, Graham Cummings, who very much was the driving force behind it, taking it from being a small emerging Jacobite range to one which ultimately covered a huge range of nationalities and troop types for a period covering the middle of the Eighteenth Century. The other significant recognition also needs to go to the late Richard Ansell, the sculptor of the range (and the excellent, and very much compatible, Minden/Fife and Drum Figures), who, in my view, didn't get the recognition he deserved for the quality of work he produced. Sadly, the price of not being instep with "fashion". Perhaps, in time, his work will be better appreciated.

Some of what I'll say, has already been said elsewhere, these are my recollections and my "story" of involvement in this, something, which was a hugely enjoyable and rewarding exercise, in many ways.

My involvement with this range started very informally, through John Ray's "A Military Gentleman Forum". Graham was aware that I'd done some fairly rudimentary (Many might say I still am! 😀) sculpting/figure making, and offered me some dollies and bits and bobs from the range to "have a play" with. I thought I'd have a go, and roughly about this time, Charles Grant, was getting involved in the range too, helping do a lot of the research work on uniforms, potential future figures and the like. I knew that one of Charles's fathers favourite units from the old, spencer smith era, was the Fusiliers de la Moliere (FDM), so I though I'd have a go at them and see how I got on. It was my first go at doing figures in this quite fine, detailed, slim style, and it wasn't easy! Ultimately I made 8 foot figures and 4 mounted for the unit. In my view, they were "ok", inevitably, now, a number of years later, I think I could have done them better in some respects, but they are certainly passable. It was also, in hindsight a silly figure to start with, all that Brandenburg lace and the mounted figures hat/helmet were really difficult to do.

Here's a few pics of the figures I made, painted by myself:

More to come .....

John

Painted Crann Tara Figures

 In the interests of potentially restarting this Blog, from it's current deep freeze, I thought I'd post a few images of some of the units and figures I painted up in the last few years, almost all those I'll post are from the Crann Tara range of figures (Now sold by Caliver Books), and the majority shown (like those below) are figures I sculpted and then painted:

In no particular order, first up, some Savoia Cavalry, a few shots under the desk lamp, and one from outside of the whole unit on a sunny day! 

I have a reasonable archive, which I will post up, plus some work in progress as well.

Hope the last few years haven't been too grim for you all.

Regards

John

The Final Word ....

So with the figures painted, it only remains to bring the shiny and matt bits together, to get a consistent finish to the figure. I do this by varnishing first with a brush on gloss, revell email color no1, and then, once dry I spray matt with Winsor and Newton Professional Matt Varnish. I find this gives a really good overall flat look.

And it's job done! (apart from the other 40 rank and file I have to do for the rest of the unit .....)

My last word on the figure style debate ..... (is it a debate? 😄 )

Here is the previous image line up with the addition of a scaled down image of an actual person dressed in a period uniform .....

I'll scuttle off now and leave the chunky boys to the feast .......

Bye

John

A Little about Figure Style

On a different tack ......

I recently attended a rather enjoyable wargaming weekend to help with running a large C18th game, using Charles's Grant's excellent "The Wargame" rules (other rules sets are available, ......they're just not as good! )

Anyway, the after dinner drinks discussion ranged far and wide, but at one point touched on the fact that the Crann Tara style figures look like they have been on a starvation diet etc.

So, I thought I would do a small visual comparison, between a Crann Tara figure, an Old Front Rank I happen to have, and a scaled down image taken from a drawing book, created to illustrate typical human proportions. Now whilst I appreciate folks come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, it is a useful benchmark I would suggest.

At the end of the day, everyone has there own taste, and I can see why chunky, cartoon style figures are popular (they are so much easier to paint, the head alone being twice the size at least from what it should be), but I know which style looks better to me .... 😉

Finishing Off

With the bulk of the figure complete, it's time to finish by doing the final detail.

The musket is painted with a deep brown colour, then highlighted with a light tan/orange hued colour (I used Foundry Spearshaft 13c). I tend to do thin lines to give a suggestion of wood grain, it's totally out of scale, but seems to work. Metalwork is then painted in, using Coat d'arms 142 gun metal and Coat d'arms 220 silver for highlights. The gold is first painted Foundry Spearshaft 13a then overpainted with an acrylic gold. I find most metallic colours benefit with an undercoat of a base slightly darker flat acrylic colour underneath as they tend to be quite translucent and it helps give them depth.

Hair is painted all in an acrylic colour, like a light grey or light tan, then, once dry, washed over with a suitable oil colour (like Blue Black or Burnt Sienna respectively). Lastly the tricorne lace etc is painted, again, in this case, Spearshaft 13a as the base, with Foundry Ochre 4c as the top coat.

In all this detail work, it's important to leave a margin of a darker colour between surfaces, it helps to define the areas and makes it really "pop".

At this stage the figure is basically complete, all that's left to do is to deal with the fact that we have shiny and flat finishes at this point. An easy fix, which I'll describe next time.

Starting on the detail

With the core blocks of colour completed, it's time to start working towards finishing the figure by adding the detail. This stage of the process is very important, as, done well, it can help us deliver the third key element we are looking for, the "definition". 

My way of making the figure "pop" is to be quite focused when doing the detail to ensure that you paint in such a way that it leaves an effective "edge" between different colour areas on the figure. In the past some folk have thought that I lined figures in, in the way that Peter Gilder used to do, I don't, but the principle is the same. By creating a clear colour boundary and contrast on the edges of colours, you define them more clearly to the eye and make the figure much sharper and visually attractive.

If you don't do this than figure can often blend together in a way that means they get lost and it all just merges into a bit of an undefined mess.

So, on these figures I've done the following .......

The belts have been painted in with Foundry Buff Leather 7a, then 7b and finally with Foundry Base Sand 10c. Wherever there is an edge, eithet between the belts or the coat, I've ensured that its sufficiently dark to define the edge, in places this has meant a small amount of a mid brown colour being painted in.

The cartridge box was painted with Foundry Spearshaft 13c, allowed to dry and then washed over with Burnt sienna oil, I find this gives a nice tanned leather effect. The canteen painted in a dark grey then highlighted with some Coat d'arms Gun Metal 142, and then Silver 220.

On the buttons, these are painted in Foundry Spearshaft 13a, and then gold acrylic applied on top. I make sure that the base brown colour covers the full button and a little bit more so that when the gold is applied it leaves a very small "edge" of brown behind, This helps really define the button and make it pop. Look at the buttons on the coat, the coat is yellow and the buttons gold, without doing this they would just be totally lost. It takes a little practice, but makes a huge difference.

With the detail now done on the core figure, next time I'll move on the the musket, hat, hair and complete the figure.

John

Progress on other things

Taken a break from painting last couple of weeks, but will be picking up the brushes again now. The work in the interim has been on finishing the French Dragoon Command:

And also doing a conversion to create a suitable Grenadier figure for the unit currently being painted:

Back again soon ....

John