Hold Until Relieved. Hold Until Relieved.

Wash, highlight and base and the Brits have landed.

Time to get some camo down – my first time attempting camo – should be fun!

Think that turned out pretty well – I used German Camo Red Brown to start – this is a Model Air paint from Vallejo – just because it looked like the most appropriate colour I had. This turned out to be a pretty good choice – the airbrush paint was the perfect consistency for putting down the fine lines without any thinning and covered fine in one coat. So for the green I also used an airbrush paint – Camouflage Dark Green

That’s the MG42 teams complete in terms of painting but I decided to hold off on the basing just for now. These will be the first complete units for my larger German army so the base will set the tone for the rest of the units. I want to try out a couple of new ideas and some different basing materials.

So while I wait for some things to arrive, I went ahead and got started on the Brits. Since I last worked on this project, one of them seems to have disappeared into the plastic ether so I’m down to 12 – we’ll just say he was injured in the glider landing! Ah well I might (read: almost definitely) pick up some more Airborne in the near future to bulk up the number. On with the base coat

Colours used (Vallejo unless noted):

• Denison smock(base), webbing, pouches: German Camo Biege
• Helmet: Russian Green
• Beret: Dark Red
• Trousers: English Uniform
• Wood: AP Beige Brown
• Skin: AP Tanned Flesh
• Boots/Metal: err.. Black! 🙂
• Blankets: German Camo Dark Brown
• PIAT: US Dark Green

Highlighting time. Everything got a first highlight of the base colour. Then a 2nd – most of the colours I mixed with VCM Iraqi Sand to get the highlight – but then flesh was mixed with Basic Skin Tone. I gave the uniform a 2nd lighter highlight just cause they are the biggest part of the model and so most noticeable.  The skin also got a 2nd highlight of Skin Tone cause I thought it was a bit too dark.

Then all the black/metal/webbing areas got painted int. Metal bits got a highlight of Gunmetal Grey – Bronze on the ammo – and Dark Grey for all the black areas. Then a wash of Dark Tone.

Time to get painting! I started off with the uniform which in retrospect was a big mistake. I’d watched a youtubes of someone painting a German Grenadier and they’d left the flesh to near the end and think that was in my mind but it was a bit silly. Especially on these models where most of the flesh is hidden. Should have stuck to the old paint from the inside out mantra.

Anyway, mistakes were made but the first base coat went down in the following colours (Vallejo unless noted)

• Uniform & Field cap: German Fieldgrey
• Bread Bag/Anklets/Helmet: German Cam. Beige
• Boots/Water Bottle: AP Oak Brown
• Gas Mask Canister: German Cam. Dark Green
• Gun Mount: Khaki Grey
• Canteen: AP Desert Yellow
• Blanket: AP Uniform Gery

Next up time to apply some camo to the helmets and blanket (not sure if this is historically accurate). Not going for anything in particular, just a random 3-pattern scheme. So on with a few blurbs and lines of AP Oak Brown then a 50/50 mix of German Cam. Dark Green and German Cam. Bright Green.

Next up – good old Strong Tone.

Finally onto the skin – as I said this was a bit of a pain in the hoop, but with a very fine brush and some contortions, I managed to get a base of AP Tanned Flesh down without requiring too many touch ups on other parts of the mini. This then got an AP Flesh Tone wash.

So as I said in a previous post, I wasn’t totally happy with how the telegraph poles turned out. With just one loose point of contact it didn’t seem very secure, also after the PVA dried, the base was just very slightly warped. Finally, I just didn’t really like how they looked.

Now I might have just been watching too main Terrain Tutor videos of late, but I had it in my head it could be just a little better. I thought if it had a second base just slightly larger than the original, it would remove the warping and stability issues and also just look better.

So I took a couple of the spare MDF sprues and, using the straight corners where possible I cut out two squares just slightly larger than the base. I just used a Stanley knife for this, then slightly beveled the edges and rounded the corners just a little. I didn’t want exact straight corners but also didn’t want them to be as rounded as the original base.

Finally I glued these to the original base, clamped them down with clothes pegs and when it was dry gave it a spray of AP Uniform Grey. It’s definitely solved the warping and stability issues and I think it just looks better! Let me know what you think about this!!

Just took a quick pic to show how much I’ve got built and primed so far. Just the Germans and the actual bridge left to build and then it’s on to painting!