I ran a game of Disposable Heroes at the last Trumpeter Society meeting, British Paras defending against a hard German push in Arnhem on Day 2 of Operation Market Garden. It seems that no matter how much I paint, there's always one or two more things that need to get done before I can fill the rosters for the scenarios I want to run, so I was busy the week leading up to game night. This time it was some German support.
HMG team:
I decided with this team, unlike my mortars and other HMG teams, to dispense with futzing around with blue-tacking the minis to the base on the off chance that I want to put them somewhere too restricted for the full team base. These guys are permanently welded on.
Stug:
This one was a bit of a rush job (as rush a job as an airbrushed model with pigment dust can be), but I'm really happy with the result, especially when sitting in a light box and viewed through the magic eye of my camera. It's another really nice Bolt Action model. I'm impressed at how solid the schurtzen feel, so much better than my 15mm FoW Panzer IVs, which feel like they are going to crumble to dust in your hand. They are way, way too thick to be properly in-scale, but they need to be able to withstand the rigors of game night.
I have been reading a lot of AFV modeling websites lately in advance of starting on my 1/35th Tiger, so there are a lot of places where I could have poured my life into more detail and better weathering, but it's a game model and most of that disappears at game-viewing distance anyway.
Lovely, as usual!
ReplyDeleteWhat did you use to seal the StuG? I read that varnish destroys the effect from the pigments and since I wanted to use pigments for my British tanks!
Cheers,
Burkhard
I've had the problem you mention, where sealing kills the weathering. My dirty (literally) little secret is that I seal it after painting, and *then* apply the pigments. My usual course of action is:
ReplyDeleteAssembly
Base Coat
Camo
Details
Dirt wash
Dullcote
Dust & Dirt
The downside is that your fingers get a bit dirty after playing with the vehicles for a while, but it's not as bad as you might think. Most of the pigments are in the recessed areas, so you never touch them, and the pigments I use are pretty waxy, so they really glom onto the model without the need of sealing anyway.
That is too bad... I wanted to use the pigments on the raised areas to depict the fading of the paint. :-(
DeleteThere are products* out there that are purpose-made for fixing pigments, but I've never used them so I can't comment on their usefulness for wargaming.
DeleteOn my StuG, you can see that there is quite a bit of caked 'dust' on the side skirts, and that stuff seems pretty well attached... I could probably scratch it off with my fingernail if I was keen to do so, but it seems pretty tough. I apply my pigments by brushing the model heavily with 70% isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, then scattering pigments onto the wet area with a paintbrush. You can do this in multiple layers, just dripping more alcohol onto the pigments that are there and scattering it again until you're happy with the effect. When the alcohol dries the pigments look just as dry and dusty as they do in the container, but the alcohol binds them to the model quite well. You can then scrub it with a rough paintbrush to smooth out the clumpy areas, if that's the effect you want, or add scratches and whatnot. I would caution you that once you get pigments onto an area, that area is going to be the colour of the pigments forever... they are really tough to remove, at least the ones I have.**
* http://migproductionswebshop.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_36&products_id=70
** http://www.aimprodx.com/index.php?page=powders