Friday 15 January 2016

Modern Russian painting guide.


I have been having fun painting some of our Empress modern Russians. The research was based on what I could find on Google and not too surprisingly many of the pictures related to Russia's recent 'fun' in the Crimea and Ukraine. Anyway as the uniform and equipment was and is in transition it was an interesting exercise tracking down the various cammo patterns used. 

This is what I ended up going for.

I painted the figure faces first and then moved onto the main part of the figure. Firstly the figure was painted with Vallejo Retractive green.  



Secondly I washed over this colour with Games Workshop brown wash called Nuln Oil. I love these washes as they are easy to use and save a great deal of time.




Then when dry using the original colour Retractive Green I highlight the raised surfaces on the figure. This can be done in a very detailed way or fairly quickly given that the next cammo colours actually break up the surface look. This means that you can actually not go into as much detail as you might use on a less cammo based uniform.


Now to apply the cammo dots. In real life the speckles are tiny dots but when shown on a figure on the table they disappear, as they are designed to do.  I therefore use slightly larger splodges. These are not used all over the surface but in small groups. For this I use Vallejo Yellow Green.



Following my research it becam noticeable that some uniforms had a subtle brick red dot pattern also mixed in. I have no idea what percentage this was used in producing the uniforms so went for about a 40%  with red dots and 60% without.  For the red dots I used Vallejo Red Leather.


Pack and equipment also varied with some following the cammo pattern and other being plain green the same as the uniform colour. I also noticed that some packs were the old khaki colour. I have done a few like this to break up the look of the unit.

Next up I did the black section such as weapons, goggles and gloves. These were black with Vallejo German Grey (very dark grey). For example the elastic head band on the goggles I painted grey. You do get some with the manufacturers name clearly stated in white. I presume these are private purchase ones.

 



The glass in the goggles I created by using a pencil to fill in the glass. This method is also great for creating windows in vehicles. The weapons are black highlighted dark grea and then a modelling knife used to scrap off some of the worn surfaces to let the metal show through. I then use the Games work shop black wash to blend the work in.

After this its pretty much finished apart from the usual small bits such as the Russian flag badges. All in all quite simple and fun with what I thought was an excellent finished look. Well I would say that wouldn't I?

Some of the finished figures. 

The face masks were also interesting in that many seem to be a dark green but also black was in evidence.











Plus some armoured vehicle crew.











Well I hope that was useful.

Cheers,
Paul

Tuesday 22 December 2015

Vietnamese Fishing Village.

Using the techniques described below I then created a pier with a couple of huts and a landing stage. These were placed on perspex so that they would stand on the sea scape that I had and fit either on the beach or the water.

Hopefully the pictures explain things for themselves.

And just for fun what it looks after a raid. The flames are made from wire wool spray painted black and grey and a light from Ikea placed in the centre. The lights flicker which looks great. I need to get some more next time I am dragged round by the missus.  


Vietnamese fishing village

Well this summers main project has been working on French Indo China. I now have accumulated a lot of figures and some vehicles. More vehicles being worked on.

I am a sucker for terrain and one of the interests for this conflict was creating a jungle which I have done in my usual megalomaniac way. Part of this project was to create a village, which then developed into a fishing village with huts able to stand in the sea. Great for those coastal attacks as per Apocalypse Now.

As the majority of the build was scratch built I thought I would show off how I did it.

To start I cut an MDF base from a spare off cut I had. I then marked out the buildings I wanted on and the first was the commercially purchased building from the Sarissa range. A well designed and manufactured product the building gave me a good scale to work on the other scratchbuilt items.
However this buildings would have to fit in with the others that I made and wanted a lot more detail and character and so it underwent a transformation. First of all it was glued to the main base following assembly. Then the floor boards were added using cut down coffee stirrers.


Once in place I could position the other two buildings on the base. These had stilts made from wooden chop sticks that I had picked up some where. Seemed appropriate. The floor was added and then they both got their floor boards added.




I then added some wicker fencing, available from Empress Miniatures, to create what was originally going to be a pig pen but eventually turned into a vegetable patch. 


At this point I had all of the buildings spaced out and glued onto the main base. Everything fitted well and not too cramped.  
Next job was to put the mud floor on. This was done with ready made tile grout and fine sand. Have to say that I love this job as its quite therapeutic slapping the stuff on and moving it into position with some water to give more fluidity. 

The two scratch built buildings were then created which is easy as they are simple box shapes. Once these were done I started on the roof of the Sarissa building. I wanted to have one with w tree bark roof with the central section made from old tattered material. Old cheese boxes were cut up and glued onto the Sarissa building roof. I made a scale mistaske at this point and made them too big but once they were dry I went back and distressed them into smaller panels.



All of the buildings had sacking cut and glued on to show the weave of the walls, even the Sarissa building. Once each wall was dry the windows and doors were cut out with a sharp knife. 

Wooden supports were cut from coffee stirrers and glued on.


Next up were the two roofs of the other buildings. These were going to be straw so teddy bear fur was cut and glued on. Once dry brown emulsion from the local DIY centre was painted on to create a firm shape. 


Once these were made the whole model was under coated with the brown matt paint.

Once dry the village was ready for painting. I wanted the buildings to lookm old and used so originally painted the wood very grey but when dry I realised that I had created the perfect black and white village straight out of an old photo which looked great but not what I wanted. I therefore added some browns and yellows to give it a bit of contrast and colour.

By using washes and dry brushing techniques the buildings gradually came alive.  

Then some grass was added to give it a good contrast colour which would fit in with the jungle. 

Plants were added to the veg patch.

Well that's it. Quite simple. Just time and materials necessary.

Cheers,
Paul