Austrian Napoleonic IR 29 – The Undercoat Commences

I’ve had these Essex Austrians for some time.  The person who I got them from had thought they could be converted to be the Prussian IR 29 formed from the Berg regiment who were dressed in white uniforms with light blue facings.  It just so happened that the Austrian IR 29 also had light blue facings.

From the previous attempt to paint Austrian white uniforms I knew it could be a challenge.  This time I started to experiment with different basecoats.  However after just a few figures I decided it was best to paint the figure totally black and then use grey as the base for the uniform.  The reason was that grey was hard to see on the base metal.