I recently went on the Toad's Wild Ride, cruising a number of San Diego hobby stores in search of some premixed colors I could apply to my leaden hordes. I was surprised to discover some excellent "finds" in the fantasy and plastic model shops and thought it might be worthwhile to pass them along. First, I came across a Floquil black spray primer. I had always liked the Floquil product, but had never seen it in any hue but white or grey before. I had tried auto paints and spray enamels, but wasn't satisfied with them, so this was a nifty surprise. In the fantasy corner, I discovered Polly-S offered a line of exceptionally interesting hues. There was an Ogre Dark Brown that was absolutely perfect for muskets, a Manticore Tan that was just the right highlight for khaki haversacks, and a number of Dragon Reds and Oranges that could be combined as dark, base and highlight shades to get a wonderful British Scarlet. As an aside here, I probably should mention that I don't do any drybrushing anymore. For example, to paint a green uniform coat, I first apply a shadow color, like the German tank color, Black Green. Then, I lighten it up, using a Jungle Green. Then hit highlights, using a Grass Green. This goes fairly quickly and gives an incredible feeling of depth. Best of all, it eliminates color mixing and, by using shades right out of the bottle, a figure painted today will blend identically with another painted a year ago. Moving on to the plastic model shops, I managed to get through the tank, ship and aircraft constructionists surrounding the paint counter and found some great colors in the Polly-S aircraft series. There were, for example, several shades of Earth Brown, one for each country. These provided some nicely matched base and highlight colors for Confederate uniforms. Not to mention the various Earth Yellows and Black-Blues and Greens. Before the day was out, I ended up with quite a haul. In addition, I managed to get several ideas on painting, basing and terrain, by stopping to examine the model r ailroad displays and the glass cases containing mini- dioramas of tanks and troops and ores and elves. My advice to you is to go out and cruise around next Saturday. Make some discoveries of your own and have some fun. And by all means, be creative and try some Dragon's Blood on that thin red line or some armor colors on your Rebel infantry. After all, who'll know? Back to MWAN #53 Table of Contents © Copyright 1991 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com