Painting Challenge entry 10: Poilu

For my hero category entry I painted up a Forgotten & Glorious Poilu that I had received from them as a free sample. Voting and everyone elses minis are up at Curt's blog so go there and cast your votes!

I originally wanted to paint up a bunch of Finnish Ski troopers, but the Warlord ones that I ordered from one of their retailers took ages to arrive from the UK. They arrived with brilliant timing just after I had submitted this to Curt so they were left to be submitted later. Still I think this lone French trooper portrays my original idea, that ordinary soldiers are the real heroes in war, quite well.

I went for a really muddy and wet look on the base and the mini to try and get the feel of him attacking yet again through no-mans-land that has been turned into a huge mud field after months of rain and heavy shelling.

The miniature itself was great. The quality that Forgotten & Glorious has managed to achieve is just amazing.crisp details, nearly non-existent flash etc. These are really a pleasure to paint and if I ever get around to painting more WW1 minis these are definately the way I'm going to go. The bayonets could be a bit thinner, but then I'd guess they'd be snapping of all the time when playing.

Painting wise the light greyish blue was bit of a pain to paint, as getting a natural contrast between the shadows and highlights seemed quite difficult. I went for a smaller contrast to make the mini look a bit more natural. If painting for tabletop, I might go with a higher contrast. The mud turned out a lot better on these guys than the Finns I painted last week. Might have gone a bit over the top though as it's hiding some of the great detail I did on the legs and puttees :D

The base is done with a mix of Flat Brown paint, PVA glue and sand and then just slapped on around the mini. I used Army Painter strong and dark tone inks to add a bit of variety to the tone. Finished it off with a bit of gloss varnish in some spots to get them to look wetter.