Vive L'Empereur!: Painting Napoleon Bonaparte

 

Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power during the French Revolution and went on to become one of history’s most revered figures. Of the 60 major battles he fought across Europe, Russia and Egypt, Napoleon was victorious 52 times and his Grand Armee became arguably the most feared and experienced army of its era. Under his leadership, France became a dominant power in Europe and he was crowned Emperor in 1804 until his abdication and exiled to Elba in 1814. He would return to France to retake power in 1815, culminating in his final defeat at Waterloo.

 

Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. Many consider this Bonaparte's greatest military victory and one of history's finest examples of tactical brilliance. Against a force that dwarfed his own by 20,000, Napoleon overwhelmingly defeated a combined Austrian/Russian force, killing or capturing 36000 men while losing only 1900 of his own.

I purchased my figure of Napoleon from Perry Miniatures. The set also came with Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Marshal of the Empire; and Mameluke Ali, First Mameluke and second-valet-de-chambre to Napoleon. Funny story about Mameluke Ali, he was a pure-borne Frenchmen by the name of Louis-Etienne Saint-Denis. Napoleon ordered him to change his name to Mameluke Ali and to dress as a mameluke, after the man Louis-Etienne would be replacing as second-valet-de-chambre. Just thought the story was really goofy. 

 

For now I'm just gonna paint Boney, maybe I'll make a post for the other 2 models later, Mameluke Ali actually looks very fun to paint. Anyways, let's get cracking on.

  Lets do the Emperor first, I primed him in black, then base coated his coat in dark grey.

 

I then painted his pants, vest, shirt, and sash. Using the black primer underneath as a base, I began layering grey on to his boots, hat and coat, leaving black in the recesses.

 

 

Base coats done, I applied washes to the miniature. I used Athonian Camoshade for the vest, Agrax Earthshade for the sash and shirt, and Nuln Oil for the rest.

 

 

Once the wash dried I painted raised sections of the clothes in the original base coat colors, than added highlights.

 

 

Next I base coated the skin and telescope. 

 

 

 

Then I did my best to paint a face. I don't often paint faces, but this is an important character and will be a command figure so I should put a bit more effort into him. First I mixed a red and dark grey to make a reddish-brown color, than painted them over his eyes and lips. 

 

 

 

I then took some off-white and very carefully painted in between the reddish brown on the eyes. The reddish brown surrounding the off-white should contrast the white of the eyes with the skin and help them pop a bit. 

 

 

 

Next I dabbed tiny black dots into the white of the eyes to paint the pupils, then mixed red with the flesh tone and painted the lips. It’s okay to mess up when painting eyes and lips, you can always fix your mistakes with your flesh tone. This is why I do the eyes immediately after the first base layer of flesh tone, so it’s still early enough in the process to fix mistakes. It’s much harder to fix your mistakes after you've layered and highlighted your skin. 

 

 

Next I washed the skin in Riekland Fleshshade, and add layers and highlights of Cadian Fleshtone and Kislev Flesh. I also painted the hair a dark brown and highlighted the lips. My final steps were to paint the buttons and emblem on the hat in gold.

 

After completing Napoleon, I moved on to his horse, Marengo. I primed him in black, then used the airbrush to lightly spray the horse in dark grey.

 

I then used my airbrush to spray him from the top with Ulthuan Grey, trying to catch his raised sections, while leaving the recesses shaded. 

 

Next I layered more Ulthuan Grey onto the horse before highlighting with White Scar. I then painted the hair with Pallid Bone Speedpaint, and the straps in Grim Black Speedpaint.

Then I painted the saddle blanket, saddlebags, and buckles before giving them a black wash.

 

The final steps were to add layers and highlights to everything I just washed and to paint the hooves and eyes

 I also tried to paint a glass effect on the telescope. It looks okay from far away or from a grainy picture off my crappy phone, but it looks miserable upon closer inspection.

 

I'm not the best painter, and its definitely not the best paint job, but I'm quite chuffed with how he came out. I'm not sure how I will base him yet. I was considering using a 60mm round base for all my command figures so I could make mini dioramas out of them but I have to figure out the basing rules for all the Napoleonic games I want to try. Anyways, I hope you liked the paint-a-long. Until next time!