Marienburg Handgunner - 'Sketch' Approach First Full Attempt

Following a handful of aborted experiments I've finally settled on my 'sketch' approach for painting - a fast way of getting troops ready for the tabletop that uses a painterly technique even though I'm working swiftly... I get the work done and also fortify my artistic sensibilities. I'm priming in white then applying a skeleton bone base coat, both with Army Painter sprays. Then I'm working up sepia tones over the whole model, first with the GW wash, then with a slightly diluted sepia ink from Daler Rowney. Then I set about developing colour using a variety of inks and washes. I'll discuss each of these briefly under the photos that follow:

The Marienburg colours are blue, red and yellow. For now I've decided to leave actual yellow out of my palette and work mostly with blue and red - I figure the skeleton/bleached bone is quite yellow anyway at this stage of development. Additional shading is being supplied by another Daler Rowney ink, Payne's Grey.  

I think the barrel of the handgun is probably where my different approach stands out the most in this example. I'm actually very pleased with it, although these pictures don't really do it justice. My self criticisms (getting those out of the way first) focus on the skin tone and the feather. I decided not to go back and highlight the skin - although I may do this at a latter stage - because I want to maintain the technique that works entirely with colour shading, leaving the sepia/bone as the top highlight. This might not work with the skin... The feather just didn't work. I may actually use yellow ink on these with a flesh wash, which is something that has worked on other models.

My colours - the blue, red and brown - are all mixed P3 inks and Model Color transparents in the first instance. I used just the inks to add some extra depth. I applied them using a broadly zenithal lighting approach, so the colours are thicker and darker where shadows/shade would 'naturally' fall. This is going to be the main area where my painterly approach combines with the three dimensional realities of model painting.  

Overall, I'm very happy with this first attempt: I do need to think a little about human skin and perhaps diverge from my original plan with those surfaces. Next month I'm aim to finish a full ten man handgunner unit.