Paint Queuemas Day 6: US Army in MOPP Gear

"On the sixth day of Paint Queuemas..."

Today's entry is another group of Eureka Miniatures - some 28mm US Army in MOPP Gear. This is a great range of figures with a lot of variety beyond even those I have here. If I had one criticism, it's that the mold lines are kind of tricky to see and remove because they often run along seams, pockets, etc.

This is another bunch of miniatures I've done using zenithal priming and glazing. The fatigues are done by painting one coat of Dark Green ink, then a coat of GW Camoshade, and then I applied blotches Vallejo Medium Brown and Medium Olive, then did a final wash of Camoshade to tone the transitions down and blend it all together. Yes, I know this isn't true US Army woodland camo as it lacks black but I decided against including it since it didn't look nice and took away from the shading. All the webbing is Reaper Worn Olive, washed with a coat of GW Camoshade.

Doing the flesh was surprisingly easy, as I opted to simply paint the brows and cheeks with Vallejo Flat Flesh, and then washing it with a heavy application of Fleshshade and Sepia. Once I filled the lenses with Testors Canopy Glue after sealing, it gives the effect of deeply sunk eyes inside a hood. Gunmetal was done with basecoat of Dark Grey and a coat of Black ink.

As I wanted to go with a post apocalyptic "Twilight 2000" vibe, I kept the bases very sparse of vegetation, opting solely for rocky soil using a variety of craft paint. I did not include much dirtying of their fatigues, as I wanted to give the impression that they'd just been deployed or airdropped somewhere.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post!

Paint Queuemas Day 5: Pulp Germans

"On the fifth day of Paint Queuemas...."

Today's entry is a group of 28mm Interwar German mercenaries/baddies for pulp gaming from Copplestone Castings CC's Back of Beyond range carries a lot of dynamic and unique figures from a period that doesn't get much attention. Best of all, they are clean castings so require little prep work to get started.

These were zenithal primed and painted using glaze techniques.The Freikorps uniforms are one coat of Dark Green ink wash and then 2-3 coats of GW Camoshade. Their stalhelms were painted with Vallejo Golden Olive, sponge chipped with Vallejo Light Rust, and edged with AK Gunmetal, then washed in diluted Camoshade. The skull emblems are handpainted.

The naval officer is one coat of Secret Weapon Soft Body Black and then ~3 coats of Blue ink wash. His pants are Vallejo German Grey and his boots and gloves are black ink wash. I just realized I forgot to paint the buttons of his peacoat! The femme fatale is one coat of dilute Purple ink wash (for extra shading) and then 3 coats of Dark red ink wash.

All the leather was done using two coats of GW Sepia wash. The weapons are all AK Gunmetal washed with Soft Body Black. All the flesh tones are some combination of Vallejo Flat Flesh, Basic Skin tone, Salmon Red, and/or Luftwaffe Uniform. I opted for very basic urban rubble bases painted with a variety of thinned craft paints.

I now have a crew for the resin MkIV tank I painted up years ago.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post

Paint Queuemas Day 4: "The Beast", Soviet Tankers

 

"On the fourth day of Paint Queuemas...."

And now for something completely different. It's been years since I've painted a unit of true 28mm miniatures, so I decided to add to my burgeoning Cold War collection with this Soviet tank crew from Eureka Miniatures that are definitely NOT based on a certain action movie from 1988 😉.

To speed up painting, these are zenithal highlight primed and then painted using glazing. For the khaki uniforms, I applied one coat of thinned Vallejo German Camo Beige, and then two diluted coats of GW Earthshade. The helmets, gloves, and boots are thinned Vallejo Leather Brown, covered with two diluted coats of Secret Weapon Soft Body Black. Because there's so much brown, I wanted something to offset that, so I chose to paint the gasmasks in Vallejo Golden Olive, which was then given one coat of Dark Green ink wash and then two coats of GW Camo shade.

The gunmetal is Dark Grey craft paint, with two coats of Soft Body Black over that and the bakelite AK parts are Vallejo Orange Brown, washed with GW Sepia. Lenses are Vallejo Light Turquoise with a Blue ink wash and buckles are AK Gunmetal.

I painted the bases uses multiple light coats of earth toned craft paint. To get the dusty boot effect, I dampened the figures boot with a clean brush and let the craft paints "bleed" unto it via capillary action. Then, when I did the final highlight, I did a light dry brush over the soles and front of each boot. A very easy and convincing effect!

Finally, I sealed them all and added some Testors Canopy Glue to the mask lenses. Cool little squad, now I just need to pick up the Rubicon Models T-55 tank for their ride!

1/48 scale Citroen CV11

(EDIT: I noticed the tide marks on the tires and above the windshield as I was editing these photos. They've since been cleaned up.)

Tamiya 1/48 Citroen 11CV in Luftwaffe service, Berlin

Well, this was my first ever Tamiya kit and I'm legitimately blown away by how easy it was to assemble and how nicely it looks finished - so much so I picked up the 1/48 Kubelwagen last week!

This build is straight out of the box, with the exception of the license decals. As its scaled perfectly with 28mm figures, I wanted this to represent a vehicle for my Battle of Berlin army and needed the 300 series. The car is painted overall in Tamiya Field Blue - with a few drops of Tamiya Neutral Grey to tone the blue down - with detailed painting done with Vallejo acrylics. Unfortunately, you can't see the interior in the photos, but that is well detailed, fully painted to represent brown leather seating, and weathered.

As this is a staff car, weathering was lighter than what I normally do, mostly consisting of oil pin washes, some acrylic dried mud spatter (Secret Weapon Caked Dirt is perfect for this effect), and AK enamels to represent petrol spills and the rusty muffler.

Definitely my most enjoyable build of 2021 so far.

 

1/56 scale Soviet KV-1/2 Tank

 Warlord Games/ Italeri Official Account 1/56 scale KV-1/2 Soviet Tank

Soooo I finished this model back in May however, I had an absolute hell of time attempting to photograph it. Luckily, with the help of the Night Shift youtube channel (you should sub, he's great), I was able to diagnose the problem as the wrong color temperature light bulb. The build itself is pretty out of the box, with the exception of heavy steel texturing on both turrets.

I really wanted this tank to have a partially worn whitewash finish, as if the crew were clambering all over the tank throughout the long, cold Russian winter. As such, I just did a base color of Soviet Green, with some details like the MGs picked out. I debated about whether to include stowage or not, ultimately deciding against it since I wanted this vehicle to look very spartan, as lacking in supplies as its crew.

All the whitewash is done by first applying a blue oil filter on the areas where the whitewash is heaviest. After that was thoroughly cured, I applied white oil paint and began dryblending it, working from heavier to lighter areas. After *that* was thoroughly cured, I added soot, smoke, and dried dirt with oils. And after *that* was thoroughly cured, I added the mud and dirt splatter with various acrylics.

4Ground Shotgun Shack - Painted!

 Decided on a whim to paint up my 4Ground Shotgun Shack that had sat in a box for about 5 years now. Wanted to give it an old, weathered look, so I used acrylic washes and ink to give it an overall green tone. I also added a rubble foundation using vinyl spackling and gesso, a tarpaper roof made from black construction paper, window glass from acetate sheet, and a few torn drapes from soaked tissue paper.

Artizan Hungarian/German PaK gun team

Another project that's been sitting in my paint queue for over a year was this Artizan PaK gun and crew. I bought this years ago from Ebay and the gun came damaged and lacking the lower front shield, so it sat in my bitz box until I got bored and put it together. My Hungarian army is lacking an anti-tank gun, and I often proxy my Brigade Games Gebirgsjager was Hungarian border troops, so I just decided to throw this in too.

The gun is painted and weathered using my usual technique however, because it sat in my paint queue half-completed for so long, it was impossible to remove the hairspray for shipping and I instead opted to do the chipping by hand. While it's a nice effect, it's too time consuming to do for anything larger. Once that was done, I gave it a yellow/light umber oil filter, a white oil wash, and then dry blended more white to build up the whitewash effect.

The crew are somewhat different than the techniques I used with the Gebirgsjager. To simulate shadows on the overwhites, I primed in white and then picked out areas of shadow using Vallejo Air USAAF Light Grey and then adding more highlights by mixing in more Vallejo Cold White. The Air formulation is thinner than regular MC, which is a detriment if you need more opaque coverage, but good if your base color is lighter than the later coats. I also wanted to give their faces a more life-like, cold appearance and, thanks to the advice of a friend, did a lot of washes with purples and greys, rather than my normal light brown flesh wash. I also picked out the starkest highlights in Vallejo Basic Skintone, which is a more pinkish-white tone, and added a very subtle glaze of Vallejo Salmon Pink to noses and lips. The final effect produces a nice cool skintone nipped by cold weather and I might go back and overpaint my Gebirgsjager's faces using the same techniques....

 

Shinto Temple Complex, Part Deux

Another month, another temple complex commission but this time for Fall-In. To be honest, I can't say there's much different here than the last one I did for Fighting Kentuckian, though there were some changes in color tone. Oddly, I also had issues with my vinyl filler material adhering to the wood - whether that had something to do with my filler or this batch of wood, I have no idea.

The walls this time are a flat off-white finish, while all the red lacquer is built up from multiple layers of Tamiya paints. I started by undercoating all the pieces in Flat Red, then added areas of shadow and highlight by adding in Purple and Orange respectively, and finally applied multiple coats of Red to really bring out a depth of color. Natural wood was done by using long strokes of various shades of tans, browns, and beiges running with the grain. Once given a light, slightly diluted coat of a mid-tone tan, this melds the colors and produces an effect that looks vaguely similar to wood. The pantile roofs were airbrushed with Tamiya Flat Black, then given multiple layers of a 50/50 mix of Tamiya OD Green and Dark Green, and finally highlighted with Olive Green. To give everything a more used look, I added Vallejo European Dirt Wash along the edges of roofs, along walls, and on upper horizontal surfaces.

The "stone" texture is achieved by applying multiple layers of gesso with a stabbing motion of the brush. Unfortunately, the base being MDF means that you have to apply a lot of gesso, but once that's dry it provides a nice rough texture without destroying any texture on the MDF itself. For example, on the gate and bell tower bases, there were lines showing the edges of the stone tiles. As the gesso shrinks, it does fill these lines, but taking a sharp Xacto blade and rescribing them was simple and didn't destroy the gesso either. Once dry, I applied multiple shades of medium through light grey paint, edge highlighting with almost pure white.

Shinto Temple Complex Commission

Recently I was contacted by the "Fightin' Kentuckian" to assemble and paint a small Shinto temple complex from Things From the Basement. He wanted a nice, clean look reminiscent of the product photos on their website and I dove right in with my usual gusto for terrain (several times he actually had to hold me back from going completely overboard adding little details and heavy weathering).

Having never assembled TftB MDF kits, I wasn't sure what to expect but I found them to be pleasant kits to work with. There are a lot of cleverly hidden joins, which meant less filling and sanding than I'm used to with other MDF kits. The "pantile roofs" are provided and cut from half sections of cardboard, sliced on the bias so that they bend to accommodate the curvature of the Asian-style rooflines. I particularly enjoyed making the small stone lanterns - these are kinds of tiny ornamental details I really like seeing in real life and on the tabletop - as they went together easily with a interlocking mortise-and-tenon assembly that required little to no glue.

Once all the sub assemblies were together, I went about painting everything. The walls are a pure satin finish white, while all the red lacquer is built up from multiple layers of Reaper Purple into Vallejo Flat Red. Black lacquer wood was done with a pre black basecoat, then successive highlights of Dark Pavement, then drybrushing (following the "grain" of the wood) with light grey and a little golden brown on the edges. Natural wood is done in a similar fashion but using beige and tan. The pantile roofs were airbrushed with Tamiya Flat Black, then given multiple layers of a 50/50 mix of Tamiya OD Green and Flat Black.

The "stone" texture is achieved by applying multiple layers of gesso with a stabbing motion of the brush. Unfortunately, the base being MDF means that you have to apply a lot of gesso, but once that's dry it provides a nice rough texture without destroying any texture on the MDF itself. For example, on the gate and bell tower bases, there were lines showing the edges of the stone tiles. As the gesso shrinks, it does fill these lines, but taking a sharp Xacto blade and rescribing them was simple and didn't destroy the gesso either. Once dry, I applied multiple shades of medium through light grey paint, edge highlighting with almost pure white. To tone down the transitions and give the stone a "dusty", ultra flat finish, I then washed it with Secret Weapon Concrete wash and applied some Vallejo Dirt wash around the base of each vertical piece.

Pulp Alley - Carmen, Jack, & Bugsy

One of the nice things about Pulp Alley is that it affords you the opportunity to use miniatures that are generally overlooked, unused, or generally out of place in larger, more organized miniatures games. All three of these minis I received as swag and have sat neglected in my bitz box for a long time. After some cleanup, slottatab removal and a nice white primer coat, they painted up relatively quickly.

Carmen is a world-traveling thief, known for always eluding local police and private eyes. Her criminal network reaches from poor slums to the seats of government power. Among her most trusted associates are....

Jack - Not much is known about the man who calls himself Jack besides his experiences in the last days of World War 1 and his disillusionment with government, especially the military. He carries multiple identification tags around his neck but it is unknown whether these were from fallen compatriots or his victims.

Bugsy - a young gangster from Chicago, Bugsy has an extensive criminal record despite his age. After a statewide manhunt, Bugsy was thrown into Joliet prison but managed to escape and find his way into the employ of Carmen. He has a passion for automatic weapons, fast cars, and jazz music.

Afrika Korps Schutzen

If I'm being honest, I only made these Schutzen for my Afrika Korps armoured platoon because I got two sprues of the new Warlord multi-part plastic kit for free and wanted to beef up the army to 1000pts. By combining them with an extra sprue of Warlord Blitzkrieg troops I had laying around, I was able to get 18 men for about $5 - a bargain if there ever was one. As such, I really didn't spend any time doing my normal detailed paintwork. These were all primed and basecoated with a rattlecan, the details were painted, and then they were washed and sealed - about a week's worth of work.

They are primed in Rustoleum Camouflage Khaki, drybrushed with Vallejo Light Sand, and then washed with some heavily-diluted (and ancient!) GW Chestnut ink. The green uniforms are Vallejo Light Olive washed with GW Camo Green. Safari hats (and some gas mask canisters) are straight Vallejo Light Sand and their kit is in Vallejo Red Leather, washed with GW Earthshade - not the most historically accurate, but (again) quick and easy. Gunmetal is Vallejo German Grey, highlighted with Pewter Grey, and washed with Secret Weapon Soft Body Black.

The skintones are the most complex, as I wanted a the look of pale European skin with a light sunburn. For this I basecoated with an old Ceramacoat shade called Gypsy Rose (think a deeper hue of pale pink), then mixing in successively higher concentrations of Vallejo Salmon Rose and Vallejo Basic Skintone into the highlights, finally washing with GW Fleshshade. To give the illusion of high zenithal sunlight, once that wash was dry, I went back with some diluted GW Earthshade and applied that to areas in shadow (under hat brims, around the eyes, around cuffs and collars, etc.). If you try this, be sure to have an extra clean brush and water to help "spread" the wash and eliminate tide marks.