Molatarian Gatling gunners - test figure, undercoat

Moving on to the painting of my Gatling crew test figure I have to solve one minor puzzle - how best to paint the trouser stripes. Better modellers than I might do this freehand, but even if I had the brush skill to do this there is the small matter of the figures arms being in the way!

Once I solve how to do the stripes the rest is pretty straight forward so let's get that out the way...

For these undercoat colours I am using my normal Vallejo Model Color paints. I began by painting a broad line down the side of the trousers, not easy with the magazines in the way. Then I cut some strips of masking tape to the correct width of the stripe I wanted...

I can then paint over these which - hopefully - will give me a fairly neat guideline when I peal the tape off.  It should just, then, be a matter of neatening these up with the Tamiya top coat.

Anyway, the stripes dealt with I can move on to the rest of the figure. The more opaque the base coat the more successful the Tamiya top coat will be - the Tamiya paint is tricky stuff so a good foundation coat really makes the job a little easier.

The painting was a little rough, but that doesn't matter so much as I do the real neatening up when I do the top coat. Still it gives an idea of what the finished figure might look like.

Update: Haven given the black trousers time to dry I removed the strips of masking tape to reveal the orange stripes. It sort of worked, a bit rough at the edges but wasn't meant to be a 'finished' effect but rather a guide for when I paint the top coat.