"District Attorney Denton," said The Red Queen," Why are we in the jungle again?"
"Because the boss has limited terrain for his tabletop."
When I started "seriously" painting miniatures (Thank you Airfix!) at the tender age of 16, fortunately my father told me that paint sticks better to paint. I started out priming my figures with white. Even then, I did not buy fancy hobby primer; I would purchase the cheap generic flat white. Some where along the road, in the mid 90's I believe, I switched to black primer when I started building armies for the War of Spanish Succession. Since then, I prime my figures 99% of the time with black primer.
I'm a gamer that does figures primarily for three reasons:
1. I get obsessed with a new project (I blame the famous Craig Cartmell for transporting me back to 1895).
2.I see a figure and I say to my self, "Self, that's a cool figure!"
3. I paint for eBay to generate funds to purchase the new obsessions or cool figures.
With In Her Majesty's Name consuming the majority of my painting and gaming for the last few years, I have slowly discovered manufacturers for Victorian Science Fiction and also one of my favorite genres, Pulp. Lately I have been purchasing figures from Pulp Figures and Pulp Alley. My most recent purchase is the Red Queen and DA Denton from Pulp Alley. Why? See reason #2 above.
Black primer definitely is the "easy" way for me to paint; it hides a multitude of mistakes and naturally adds shadows. On the gripping hand, it does make colors darker and if you want lighter colors you need to add extra steps to paint base paints where you want the light colors. With white primer, colors are brighter and more vibrant - but you really have to look for those painting mistakes and shading is a bit trickier. As I wanted The Red Queen to be bright and glamorous I went with white primer - DA Denton would be grittier and no-nonsense so black primer for him.
DA Denton with one coat of generic, everyday, inexpensive black primer.
Another view of DA Denton, scourge of the Underworld and all around good guy.
The glamorous Red Queen, leader of a secret criminal empire, primed in generic, everyday, inexpensive white primer.
Another view of the femme fatale.
I gave Denton a base color of Vallejo Dark Flesh for the skin. Unless specifically mentioned, all paints are Vallejo.
Arrghhh! With the Basic Flesh Tone base applied, I realized that I missed some cleanup of flash, mold lines or whatever happened to her forehead. I know have a new challenge since primer and paint has already been applied.
The rear side of The Red Queen figure. I used Base Flesh as it is much lighter and as stated previously, I really want The Red Queen to stand out as a brighter figure.
Next I used some GW Ratskin Flesh and thinned it to be a wash to seep into the recesses of the flesh for a shadowing technique.
Another view.
I used thinned out Dark Flesh for the shading and started adding base colors. Flat Black for the gloves and revolver, GW Skragg Brown for the hair and something a craft paint called Folk Art Lime Green for the dress and shoes.
View from the back.
The dark flesh wash is hiding some of my repair work on her forehead but I am still not quite satisfied.
Base colors for Denton. Dark Blue for the suit, Leather Brown for the shoes, Neutral Gray for the hat, and German Camouflage Orange for the overcoat. I also decided to give him gloves since he is wearing a suit and overcoat and repainted the hands Flat Black. His shirt base color is Flat Earth Brown.
View from the side.
View from the back. Note how the black undercoat is already producing shadows and on The Red Queen you can see the natural highlights just from the white primer.
Next: Let's finish these figures. Nothing like great figures to make them easy to paint.
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