I started painting a battalion of RSM Russian Grenadiers and I though that it would be helpful and of interest to our readers if I went through a step by step tutorial of how I paint miniatures.

Step One: I start by washing the figures in rubbing alcohol to clean it of any dirt or mould release. The I prime the figure with grey primer. I like grey because it doesn’t overwhelm the lighter colors such as your reds and yellows, yet it is dark enough so as to make the lighter colors appear too bright, as you would get with white primer. I used to use black primer for everything, because then all of the black bits on the figure are already painted, which saves time. However, I am now with grey.

Step Two: Now I block in the basic uniform colors. In this example, I paint nearly the whole figure Russian Green. I am not concerned about the paint getting on the areas where there will be red paint. Then, I paint all of the skin areas with an undercoat of red-brown. Flesh looks better with a darker background than it does if you apply dark flesh over the grey primer. It results in a „doll house“ look that I don’t like. So go with a red-brown undercoat. Next, I apply the secondary base color, in this case, the red breeches, waistcoat and cuffs.

Step Three: After all of the basic colors have been applied to the figure, I do what I call blacking the figure. I paint all of the equipment (muskets, cartridge boxes etc.) and black bits (gaitors, hats, mitres, etc). This can be kind of tedious. I have timed myself on this and find that it takes about 5 minutes to do all of the blacking.

Step Four: Once the blacking is completed, I add the color for the cross belts. This gives the figure the look of having  black lined the cross belt which is a neat effect. Then I paint all of the brown bits (hair, musket stock and fur bags) over the black. This seems to produce a nice effect on the brown coloring. Note also that the musket barrel and mitre front plate are black – when the metallic colors are added, they stand out better with a black undercoat than they would atop of the grey primer.

So the crossbelts, skin and a bit of the white undershirt have now been painted on the figure on the right, below.

For the face, I let some of the red brown color stay uncovered in the eye sockets, moustache and around the nose and neck. A dot of dark flesh on the nose, the chin, each cheek and the forehead are all that you need.

Step Five: Now I paint all of the metallic bits, in this case, the mitre plate, the gun barrel, the copper buttons and the copper on the cartridge boxes. Metallic colors show off better when there is black underneath them. For example, buttons should always start with a black dot on the button, followed by the metallic button color.

Step Seven: Now we are ready to complete the figure. All of the highlighting has been done except for the skin. I do this next. The face is easy – just a small dab of flesh highlight on the chin, bridge of the nose and on each cheek. You can also add a line or two of flesh highlight on the hands.

Part of the last step is painting in the eyes. Many people don’t like to paint the eyes, which is ok. Paint the eye socket black and then you are finished. However, I like to paint the eyes so I put two small dabs of white paint in each eye, leaving the center of the eye black.

The finished figure is shown on the right in the picture below.

So that is basically how I paint my figures. It is a good and easy system. There are a lot of other methods too, and basically we each have to choose our own preferential way of painting. I hope that this tutorial can help you improve your figure painting. Use some of the tips or use them all as you see fit.