Welcome back everyone! Today we are going to be looking at a quick technique I’ve been using on some of my empire characters to add some extra detail to their uniforms.

The Empire strikes me as being very courtly and regal, so I wanted to add some decorative elements to them. After looking at a bunch of their miniatures and already having chosen to use aged gold for the armor and weapons, I decided to use green and whites for their uniforms.

When decided on what kind of freehand you want to add you your miniature, I recommend looking at different types of old uniforms online. Try sketching it out beforehand, that way you can visualize it while you’re painting.

For this technique, you will need:
• a number one brush,
• white paint
• two shades of green (or the color of your choice)

1) Starting off, I did the shading and highlights on the robe using a light grey, then a 50/50 mix of the grey and a white. You will want to get the clothes done first before you try adding any extra flourishes to them.

2) Using the green, add a thin line down the front seam of the jacket, and trim the lower tails. Make sure to go past the coat and get the underside. If any of the green gets on the legs, that can be cleaned up later when we paint them.

3) On the back of the coat, I continued the green along the tail of the coat, and added a green edge to the collar as well.

4) Once the basic trim has been done, we can begin with the decorative trims. First, determine the centre point of the coat, and add a thin vertical line.

5) Starting from the top of this new line, add some downward strokes to either side making an arrow shape.

6) To finish framing the shape, add to small ‘C’ shapes joining our first vertical line to the new tips of the arrow.

7) Now the basic shape has been laid out, fill the shape with the green.

8 ) This part may be a bit tricky. Starting form the tip of the arrow again, and moving upwards, make an upside down ‘J’ all in one stroke. When making your brush stroke, the point you start at will end up thicker, as when you near the end of the stroke, the pressure on the brush lightens and the painted line thins out. You definitely want the line to become thinner at the curved tip. You may wish to practice BEFORE trying it on the miniature itself.

9) Taking the white, add a small cross in the centre of the green arrow, and add some white at the bottom to clean up the bottom curved edges if they didn’t turn out perfectly the first time.

10) With the white, finish framing the cross and turn it into an arrow.

11) Using the green again, add a small dot in the centre of the diamond, and in the middle of the curve on the side.

12) Now that the trimming is done on this side, take whatever color you have decided on for the legs and clean up any places the green has spilt over.

13) Turning our attention again to the front of the miniature, make the same hooked upside down ‘J’ that we added to the arrow. Start from the tip of the coat tail and paint the stroke upwards towards to the wider area of the jacket.

14) Taking the white paint, add a small dot at the base of each of these lines to balance the back of the jacket and tie the two designs together.

15) Finish cleaning up the legs by continuing the base color around to the front of the leg.

Now that the designs are in place, mix a 50/50 ratio of the two greens, and pick out the raised edges of the jacket that the design falls over. We want to continue any highlighted areas that were there before, otherwise the decorative design may begin to look unnatural.

Now that I’ve shown you briefly how to go about doing some kind of decoration, experiment with it, and please show us your work on the forums! See you all next time!

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