First Ten US Paras

I finished these a few days ago but hadn't found the time to take photos of them. The photo's ended up being a quick and nasty job anyway to be honest. I still can't quite seem to get the lighting right to show them off and the photo's don't really do them justice. I think it might be the light cream colour on the highlights that gets washed out in the light

A couple of Artizan figs, I decided to do the pants on these ones a little different just to mix it up

A couple of carbine wielding fellas. They look a bit more yellow in the photos than in reality

Final group shot of the finished ones to date. The next ten are already on the desk

Questions, comments and suggestions are welcome!

US Paras test figure

I'v been working on a bunch of these as much as I can lately, I've got 37 to do and having never painted that many of one type of figure before it's a little daunting. I've decided to do them in batches of ten to try and get them done a little faster as I also have a whole bunch of Napoleonic British Guard infantry to do but given my snails pace painting style it might take longer than I think.

This is an Offensive Miniatures figure and I'm painting a whole mix of those and Artizan/Warlord Games paras. The Offensive ones are more anatomically correct with longer legs and the faces are nowhere near as caricatured as the others. Overall I think they're the best sculpts out of the lot for accuracy, just the guns tend to lack a little of the detail. I prefer the slightly chunkier ones of the Warlord/Artizan figures as they're easier to paint.

The decals are from the Warlord store and are about $4 AUD, well worth it to tie the figure together and I was never going to be bothered trying to hand paint the unit insignia.

I'm pretty happy with how this fellah has turned out, I haven't quite got the hang of the photography yet and it looks a bit more mustard coloured in reality. I'll post up the next 9 I'm working on over the next week or so 

Thanks for looking as always!

Busy Boy

Sorry about the lack of recent posts, I haven't been idle I just haven't had anything ready painted up to show. Work and general life crap have kept me plenty busy for the last month or so.

I have managed however to get a bit of behind the scenes work done and I based and undercoated about 90 figures over the course of a few days. It always takes far longer than expected but the results are worth it in the end.

I've started work on a commission of around 40 US paras and I'm halfway through the first ten so I'm hoping to have some eye candy up by the end of the week so stay tuned!

Empress Miniatures PLA

I've been off sick for a few days so I thought what better than to tackle digital camo....I've been living in fear of painting these figures

I expected it to be difficult but it still took a little longer to get the hang of before I committed to giving it a crack. I had a few old perry miniatures samurai figures that I use as test figures so a few hours later I thought it was worth a shot.

I used an cheap, small (I think it'd be about a size 2) brush I got at the hardware and trimmed down to make the bristles short enough for stippling.

I started by basing the camo with Vallejo Medium Sea Grey and took a little bit of care to leave very small black lines between the detail (of which there is stacks). Try not to make the lines too big as it will contrast hugely with the grey. I then gave it a light wash of Army painter Strong/Dark tone in a 50/50 mix and went back over it in the standard highlight method with Vallejo Light Grey.

Camo was done by rubbing off most of the paint from the stippling brush and trying to do really small patches (a smaller brush would help it be more controlled here). The green is Vallejo Gunship Green. Next up was the same idea with German Camo Medium Brown.

I tried to do the black spots a little smaller than the rest to stop it being too overpowering so I just got my 0 brush and tried to do some very small irregular black spots but not using too much paint because it will come up a lot darker than the stippled colours.

Face and hands were done in a standard darker skin tone that I made up (Flat brown, Flat brown/Panzer aces Shadows Flesh 50:50, Brown wash, Panzer Aces Shadows flesh, and lastly Flat Flesh/Shadows Flesh in a 50:50 again)

Boots were done in a black base and then highlighted by adding a little Pink (yes pink) to the black. That's a little trick I picked up out of the Painting War Magazines to make it a softer leather colour.

The gun was done by adding a very small amount of gunmetal grey to the black.

Let me know what you think about it!

The Finished Product

Here they are at last.
I painted these for a nice guy down in Sydney and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

I really enjoyed painting these guys up, not quite as fiddly as german camo uniforms but with more than enough colour in them to keep me happy.

I scratch built the sandbags using greenstuff and added the tubing from the water cooler to the bottom of the Vickers

A couple of riflemen

The two Bren Gunners

I forgot to photograph the finished shoulder patches in the last post but here is one to get an idea of what they look like. Fairly simple but it adds a nice overall touch I think.

The sniper and a mate

Flamethrower

All the figures in the group are Artizan apart from the one on the right which is a Warlord Paul Hicks scuplt. It was just as good to paint as the Artizan figures and I wouldn't hesitate getting more.

Final group shot. Let me know what you think, all comments are welcome

Paras WIP 2

Back again for more Denison goodness. Ive put the next 3 shots in to show a comparison of the colour change that occurs when adding the next 2 colours. I start by putting a layer of Glaze Medium on part of the smock (I work in sections to stop it drying too fast). Make sure its only a very thin layer because too much Medium will make the paint run and it wont look nice.

Next I apply German Camo Beige covering less areas than the original colour and straight away add Iraqui Sand over another smaller area.

The glaze medium will help blend the two colours together and you wont get a sharp transition which makes the cloth look a little more natural.

Comparison between a finished smock base and unfinished base

You can see the transition between the German Camo beige and the Iraqui sand additive in the next few photos. It really lightens the overall colour but that will appear darker later on once the camo is added.

With Iraqi Sand added

For the brown spots I use Flat Brown mixed with Glaze Medium applied in patches. The glaze medium helps keep the edges semi transparent so it's not too sharp a contrast.

The webbing is also highlighted by mixing 50% Russian Uniform WW2 with 50% Khaki to produce a lighter colour. I just do a standard highlight and try to leave the darker colour in the recesses. You can vary the khaki additive to create a more bright effect if you like.

A few of the figure have beards, this one is a bit of flat brown heavily diluted with glaze medium and added in several layers to produce the desired consistency. Try not to let it pool like a wash because it won't provide the right effect.

Green spots are added in the same way as the brown using Reflective Green

To do the shoulder patch I start by drawing an icecream shaped backing with German Camo Dark Green and draw a few small 'wings' off the side. It doesn't need to be super accurate as it blends with the Reflective Green and the white goes over the top. I seem to have forgotten to take a photo of the patch but there will be plenty in the next update