First try

[Mark Cunnington]

I’m liking your work. I agree with the advice re more shade. Like you I’m more used to round figures and I have found that flats need more emphasis when adding light and shadow. I started off a little bit too subtle.
There’s no turning back now as Ed rightly says.

[Goatmajor]

That is so helpful Hannibal ! Thank you !

[John Alberts]

Impressive illustration Hannibal!

[Hannibal]

YES!!!    Simon,  thank you!!!!
To illustrate the comments of nick, and the exemples given from mike's book, I have electronically added some shadows on your painting (center), with a light coming from the front right side (on the left), or from the left from side of the soldier (on the right), to show you how you can give more volume effect to the body, the face, the hair, the boots, the hands, the cuffs, ... by adding not only shadows, but also highlights, depending on the direction of the light source, very important in painting a flat.   It is up to you to choose where you wish to position the light source, keeping in mind that higlights and shadows must be compatible with the light direction, and if you paint several characters on a diorama or a serie, they should all have the same light source !


Good painting !

[Goatmajor]

These are 2 of Mike’s illustrations on shading and highlight if light is from the upper left. Hope this helps😃

Thank you !

[Goatmajor]

Does this work better Hannibal ?

[Hannibal]

(yes, here I see Nick's pictures, on the contrary) ... but no problem, I'm just blind on this discussion ....

[Nicholas Ball]

These are 2 of Mike’s illustrations on shading and highlight if light is from the upper left. Hope this helps😃

[Hannibal]

I am not seeing any picture ... but well on other posts ...?? (excessive size, format? ..)

[Goatmajor]

Thanks all for you encouragement, advice and kind comments.


Yes Nicholas/Snagy totally agree that i need to make the shading more bold - thats a conversion problem from 3d figures where the sculpting does a lot of the work for you i think !! I will study other pictures on here and try to improve my technique ! gradually !


John: The regiment is IR25 Thurheim. The picture i had showed them as maroon red facings - other pics ive seen are more just plain red


Ed: Actually myself and the pub used the same inspiration. I picked a forum name for a wargaming forum when i was painting my AWI armies and reading about the Goat Major (keeper of the mascot of the 23rd Foot - later the Royal Welch Fusiliers) and picked it because it seemed cool. Thats also how you will find me on Twitter/Bluesky etc but some people insist on calling me just Simon !

[Ed Humphreys]

Well, that's it, Goatmajor, there's no turning back. Stick to flats from now on. Interesting to note you've named yourself after a pub in Cardiff.
Ed H

[John Alberts]

I really like the red/purple shade on cuffs, collar, and front, what color is that and what regiment?

[snagy]

Nice work!
I backup Nicholas: a bit more shadowing would be even better!
Sandor

[Nicholas Ball]

That’s very nice clean painting to improve it further it needs more of a 3D effect, so additional shading and highlight.  Your light source  can be either upper left or upper right.  Look through the gallery and you can see what I mean. I will take a photo from Mike Taylor’s book which illustrates the effect perfectly and post it here for you.    In the meantime a great start. 

Nicholas

[Goatmajor]

Hello all, this is my first post here but I have been enjoying  reading through all the posts on the forum.


I've been painting 28mm round wargames figures for some years now. On a recent holiday to Vienna I was persuaded by the lovely owner of Zinnfiguren Bohm to buy some flats..


So here is my first effort. In acrylics- so please feel free to advise on how to improve ! Thank you !