I recently resurrected my “stash” of flat metal figures in an effort to try my hand at painting them again.

Way back when I was first introduced to them, I wasn’t that taken by them, as I much preferred painting the full three dimentional versions.  I bought quite a few over the years as they are wonderful creations and pieces of art in their own right in bare metal. I always had the intention of revisiting them (when the time was right for me, so to speak) and recently I’ve started to paint some again.  After cleaning up the casting, I prime it with white or grey and then apply a base coat of matt black.  I prefer to paint out of a black base and work up to the lightest tones. Another technique I’m experimenting with is, to underpaint the figure with a black and white mixture and block in the various values/shades of grey and then “over-paint”  it with a glaze of the appropriate colour.  The figure of Murat was done five or six years ago (not very well I hasten to add), so I repainted it again by giving it a blast with primer using the airbrush.  I’m working through the various shades of grey to roughly establish light and shade first and then I’ll tidy up the detail and finally overpaint it with colour glazes.  The mounted Cuirassier was painted using a straight colour technique over black base, and so far the horse is looking pretty good.   The Roustam figure has just had a white primer coat applied, with a black base coat to come.  The Bonaparte bust casting has just been cleaned up awaiting a coat of primer, so this is pretty much what the castings look like before any paint being applied.  As I said earlier, a piece of art that could be framed just as it is!   More on these as I progress with them.  I’m hoping at some stage to create a flat of Tazio Nuvolari (who else!) and hopefully get it cast in metal, we shall see!