Tommy's War painting instructions for British World War One uniform

Fig 11 Fig 12
Painting - The Uniform and Equipment
While British Army uniform colours of WWI can
appear all the same, a variety of tones can be
ntroduced to represent fading, dirt and
weathering. Adding more Russian Uniform will
increase the green tone, something I usually do for
gaiters and water bottles. Adding more Khaki will
achieve a more faded look, while the addition of
New Wood will bring more warmth to the colour.
For our Tommy I have chosen to represent him in
a clean uniform, perhaps he is marching through
the home counties freshly called up for duty on the
front.
The dark basecoat of the uniform has been painted
over with a mix of English Uniform and black, as can
be seen in (Fig 14). Highlighting by increasing the
amount of English Uniform is the next stage, see
(Fig 15 & 16), highlights are increased by adding
a small amount of Russian Uniform and Khaki.
Again, filters of mid-tone (slightly darkened English
Uniform) are applied over the whole area to smooth
demarcation lines.
The webbing is painted in using a mix of Buff, Black
& Leather Brown with highlights created by
increasing the quantity of Buff, see (Fig 17) & 18.
Using a dark, not quite black mix, the webbing has
been lined-in to help create some definition, seen in
(Fig 19). (Fig 20) shows the pack and webbing
finished, following some further highlighting by
adding Ivory to the mix.
(Fig 21 & 22) show the gaiters and water bottle, as
mentioned previously, I have added more Russian
Uniform to the mix to change the tone from the
Uniform to become slightly greener and help break
up the different areas of the figure.
The final part of the figure is our Tommy’s trusty Lee
Enfield Rifle. A very simple way to simulate a wood
grain is to paint the rifle with a dark brown/black,
and paint quite harsh uneven lines (Fig 23) over the
mid-tone using the German Camo Medium Brown
and Medium Flesh. This is then covered with a few
filters (Fig 24) of Flat Brown to tone down the effect,
some extra highlights can then be added carefully
to certain areas of wood grain if needed.
Fig 24
For the finishing touches some metallic brass and
gunmetal have been used to paint the equipment
buckles and gun barrel respectively. I generally tone
down the metallics with regular paint, in this case
using Yellow Ochre and Leather brown mixed with
the brass and black and blue added to the gunmetal
for the metalwork on the rifle.
CONCLUSION
The final presentation of the figure is to
provide him with a base, in this case I have
chosen a simple wooden block, adding
epoxy putty to create a dirt road with a low
bank of grass to the side, fitting in with my
idea that our Tommy is marching off to war
on the Western Front.
Brave lad!
www.tommyswar.com
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