Painting – Page 20 – lighteffect.net

June 11, 2011

Operation “Get Cracking!” – US airbourne

It took more than 2 years for the US to train their crack airborne Para troops for WWII.
I however want more for the up coming August offensive…

So I have done some research on painting US WWII airborne and apparently they had two uniforms..the 1942 and the1943.

The 1943 is defiantly more olive drab or dark green and I decided not to go for this but adopted the 1942 with the very light tan colored uniform.

Unfortunately there is no decent color from Tamiya paints that represents the uniform. So I decided to wing -it with colors and expect some variation any way in the final shade.

I have decided to use dunkelgelb or sand yellow… I will use some tinted shades.. much like inks to get the desired effect.

Here are some nice photos of what is desired
This shows the 1943 uniform in comparison… which is very green.

This beautiful figure is the basis of what I am trying to achieve.

On to business.

I have decided to use airbrush and washes/inks to make speed with this job. The desired finish is table top standard.. not display.
Because of the overall color scheme this is much more achievable as the trousers and blouse are all the same color.

Step one:
I have my figures glued to card strip and metal primed already. I just take the trusty snips and cut them to strips of troops.

US airborne glued to cad and metal primed

Cut

Step two:
Assemble my work space… here I have my airbrush, paints, pots and all the other necessaries to air brush.

Step three:

I have mixed Tamiya XF-60 or dunkelgelb with a considerable amount of; Alcohol thinner 100% (ideally 90% works better), Liquifying agent, water, and a tiny amount of retardant.

The mix is very watery. If sprayed at too close a distance it will bead like water on the model. at the right distance it mists the model as a first coat. Because it has so much alcohol ad water in it, it dries real fast. Which means a second coat in about three of four minutes when your on a second cup of paint adheres beautifully.

And that’s is it so far… here are finished results today.

Now I will be brush painting next.

May 24, 2011September 16, 2015

Spitfire Mk IX

So having recently watched an episode of James May’s toy stories where he built a 1:1 scale plastic (/airfix) spitfire it occurred to me that I had never built a spitfire. In fact I have never owned or built either a lancaster or a spitfire, the two archetypal model kits that all boys of that bygone age had done. So anyway when I went into Aargon games next my wife convinced me to buy a kit, was only like $15 so I thought I might as well. This is the result. Not quite an unmitigated disaster but what I would consider pretty close. I’m not happy with it. I made a mistake with assembling the kit (missed a piece), the gunsight had a molding defect, got excess glue on the wing surfaces, but worst of all was the application of the decals which were just horrendous. Even with micro-solv I was unable to get them to conform properly, some split, needed lots of cutting, which was difficult to say the least….. it was all very frustrating to be honest and I now remember what it was like and why I don’t make them anymore.

April 3, 2011

116th Panzer Division – Panzer IV’s

Well my army has always been modeled on the 331st Grenadier Division. Unfortunately they didn’t have any tanks but they did serve with the 5th Panzer army in Normandy before being systematically slaughtered in the Falaise Pocket.

And as a part of the 5th Panzer army they had opportunity to serve with some very veteran tank divisions. Being a couple of SS divisions, Lehr Division and 116th. As I’m not a real big fan of the SS units I have adopted the 116th as the stable mate for my 331st.

116th was also a Veteran of the Eastern Front, they had Panthers and Panzer IV’s.

So anyways for my upcoming tournament army I am having Stug IIIG’s organic of the 331st. Numbered inappropriately as the 4th Battalion.. even though they only had two.

And the Panzer support is a platoon of three PzIV’s. I finished four tanks even though I only needed three, so as I can field a decent or larger platoon later.

These tanks are PzIVG late tanks.. in the tournament the book says PzIVH should be used.. they almost look the same except the big air filters that should be on the right hand side… but I’m cool with it. And I don’t think they will notice. (Which reminds me I must sculpt some Panzerfausts to lay on the base of some of the command teams to stay WYSIWYG legal.

Going on… the tanks are numbered from the BF decal sheet except the black crosses which are command decision decals. The swastika flag is green stuff. I have a sculpted whippet dog to sit beside the platoon commander but I wasn’t happy with it..looked more like a German Shepard.. wasn’t thin enough. So I left that off..You will notice his hand seems to be resting in mid air.

The command figures on the Stug III G are Peter Pig figures.. Craig Courtis put me on to these years back. You need only buy these and glue (or in my case putty GS) them on. I find these very good as they are stronger and look right. You will notice I left the MG42’s open on the earlier two Stug’s .. because of he fidliness of the figures and MG’s.

The Stugs have got some of that paint rot that seems to have plagued some of my earlier figures and vehicles. Which I am sure is associated with the floor polish glaze and the polyurethane Matt varnish… but i also have a suspicion it is a Tamya paint issue too as I have some that aren’t glazed or varnished which have it really bad. But I digress… the Shurtzen has some obvious parts where the paint has rotted off… however it looks like a white or light gray has been added to the cammo pattern.. and I like the effect so instead of totally stuffing it up and trying to repair the paint job, I have kept it as is.

Anyway enough of this Jibber Jabber as a TV famous Judge in a Boston court who also played the part in a very funny Blues Brother movie as a Nazi once said (yes I’m loosing it) on to my poor photography…

Platoon commander