Painting Flames of War WWII Russians

As promised, here is the process that I use to paint 15mm Russians from the ancient Flames of War Strelkovy Company boxed set. I can't remember where I found it, but the scheme I used was specifically for use with Games Workshop paints. I tend to use the Foundry paint system, but have a few legacy GW colours, which just so happened to fit this scheme. Mystery contributor, wherever you are, I salute you.

Enormous note: Games Workshop have changed their paint system while I have been away and sadly I have run out of some of the colours I needed. I asked some chap in a Games Workshop store if he could get me the new equivalents and he had a handy guide. Sadly, upon buying and using these new paints it appears as though they aren't exactly the same, so there is now some colour variation in the Strelkovy Company. The new colours are in brackets after the old one.

Step one, undercoat and basecoat: I undercoat the figures with watered down black after mounting them on bases with blutac. Then I basecoat the figures with Scorched Brown (Stirland Mud) which acts as a shade tone for the entire model. Furthermore, most colours adhere quite happily to the brown, whereas black isn't so forgiving.

The group of figures I am painting undercoated.

Basecoated.

Step two, skin: Given that the skin is often the "deepest" part of the model I start here. I use Foundry Flesh, the "B" tone, straight onto the brown basecoat, but taking care to leave the recesses dark. I focus on the nose, chin and cheekbones, and on the hands I take care to leave shading between the fingers. Again, leaving the dark brown is key. I used to use a inking technique, but I find on 15mm figures there just isn't enough depth to really make it work.

Step three, tunic and trousers: I use Graveyard Earth (Steel Legion Drab) leaving the folds in the clothing dark brown. It is also nice to pick out collars if they are there as the break up the miniature quite nicely.

Step four, belts and satchels: These are painted Kommando Khaki (Karak Stone). If the figure has a canteen or pot or something metal, I quickly blitz these with Foundry Metal B.

Step five, the rifle: I start by painting the metal parts of the rifle Metal. After this I use Foundry's Spearshaft B for the stock. The rifle sling is touched up with Scorched Brown if necessary. Since I have the Scorched Brown out I paint the bedrolls as well.

Step six, helmet and boots: The final step is to paint the helmet Catachan Green (Waaagh Flesh) and the boots black.

Fin.

I find this painting style produces neat and stark figures which look good on the table, and this is pretty much how I paint all my 15mm figures. I can quite easily get at least ten chaps done per day in this manner. Naturally with simple schemes, like say Numidians, this ratchets up to about twenty a day. I hope, gentle reader, you find this post useful. Comments are as always welcome.