I was going to call this post ’6mm Prussians, an old Web Link, a Draw Full of DE and a colour wheel’ but I though that was a bit long not to mention a bit obscure for this location, so I’ll explain…
I’m back painting 6mm Prussians at the moment, now painting 6mm is easy, quick and once you’ve sorted what colours are going where, a low concentration exercise, which means I can fit other stuff in while I’m working on them. So I was clearing out old web links and came across a link to some instructions on how to paint (the newly released) DE. Now I have a draw full of DE, assembled but unpainted and abandoned (for reasons that would fill another post completely), so I thought that if I could come up with a colour scheme that would allow me to paint a bunch of 10 DE in between working on the 6mm each one or two hour session I could get the draw full of DE painted (I have a LOT of 6mm to paint). So I pulled up a colour wheel on the internet and consulted it – I have already decided to base coat the DE with green (because it doesn’t seem to be a colour that DE are painted), anyway the colour wheel told me that for the Green I plan to use Yellow was a complimentary colour and Red a contrasting, see my original title was quite logical 
.
The goal was to have a colour scheme / technique that would allow me to complete a single figure to a reasonable standard in 6 to 12 minutes each, assuming that I would be working on 10 figures at a time in parallel to 6mm painting.
The first step is to select the basic colours, as I have said I’ve settled on Dark(ish) Green as a base colour:-
Over this I applied a (heavy) dry brushing of Red:-
and on another figure Yellow:-
After the dry brushing I applied a thin wash of Green, this toned down the dry brushed colours but left a Turquoise residue in some of the recesses, so I then applied a thin wash of Black Green, could still see some Turquoise so applied a thin coat of Thraka Green from GW (the other two were from Vallejo), this was a great improvement so I did another lighter dry brush and a another coat of Thraka Green:-
Much better but, after applying the wash I noted that the figures looked MUCH better while they were wet! so I think that I’ll apply a coat of gloss varnish the the armour.
That’s as far as I’ve got so far, I’ll post more as it develops.
Update!
I completed the two figures:
The bases are naff, they should be much darker but hey, that’s what prototypes are for!
The expanded pix look quite good and I’m really pleased with the results, I recon that I spent about 2 hours in total on the pair, that’s not too bad considering that I applied 2 dry-brushings and 4 washes!, although 2 of the washes where in fact inks, no wonder I didn’t get the effect I was after.
With 10 figures on the bench, properly organized, I think that 12 minutes a figure is achievable given that the figures are all assembled and will be spray base-coated. The colour application sequence would be:-
- Dry brush (Red or Yellow)
- Wash (Thraka Green)
- Gloss varnish
- Flayed skin (Beige Brown/Ivory)
- Guns, Knives & chains (black)
- Dry brush Guns, Knives & chains (Brazen Brass)
- Guns, Knives & chains (Matt varnish)
- Eyes (Red or Yellow)
- Bases (not decided yet)
Now a lot of this work will be done as I’m waiting for another process to complete, the varnish drying on the 6mm prior to basing etc. and I think that I can complete 10 figures a week, not a lot but 10 more than I would have had done 
The only question to answer now is, what scheme to use? or use both? if both what colour for the Warriors and what for the Wyches (the other stuff I’ll get round to) and not forgetting the Vehicles!
Your thought’s would be welcome, just hit the comment button, I’m all a’quiver!
