Manda (Amachan) goes to the Eastern Front

I prepped 2 more bases to be painted. The results from the last paint test isn’t dry yet or it has dried a bit glossy, I’ll have a closer look tomorrow. But I am thinking that I want to use the painting technique of base 8 on the texture of base 6 from the previous test and that will give me the result that I want. I’ve prepped 2 so I have a second base to try something else if it doesn’t work and also because those are the last of my rectangular bases that are not planned to be used for anything. So these bases just got a layer of AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017) with tank with wet tracks pushed in and my wheel tool, wet as well, rolled through.

Here we go again…. I keep counting up the bases numbers from what I was doing before. I had some camera issues which I tried to resolve, but generally not happy with the quality all the photos.

Base 6

I am starting off with the base that I did last made with AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017) because I obviously thought I was going to nail this first time around (sarcasm). I started with a good coat of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Dark Mud (ABT130), followed by a drybrush of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Sand Brown (ABT245) and then a lighter drybrush of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Dust (ABT003). I then put some AK Interactive Fresh Mud (AK016) into the grooves and felt like this was too stark of a contrast. So I went in with another drybrush of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Sand Brown (ABT245) and then a lighter drybrush of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Dust (ABT003). I am liking this result.

Base 7

So the second base with AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017) that I did earlier, but because the coat of the muddy ground was less thick, it had less detailed impressions. Let’s see if I can do this without the 2 drybrush steps in the middle. So started with a coat of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Dark Mud (ABT130) and then did the impressions with AK Interactive Fresh Mud (AK016). Then I did the drybrush of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Sand Brown (ABT245) followed by a lighter drybrush of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Dust (ABT003). Not that happy with this result.

Base 8

So I looked at Base 1 that I did earlier and wanted to try the impressions with an oil rather than an enamel and see if that makes a difference. So I grabbed a base made with structure paste and impressions in it. I started with a coat of Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Dark Mud (ABT130) and then did the impressions with a bit of slightly thinned Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Shadow Brown (ABT015). Then I did the drybrush with Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Sand Brown (ABT245) and the lighter drybrush with Abteilung 502 Modelling Oil Color Dust (ABT003). I am liking this result as well.

Base 9

Why so complex? So I grabbed one of the bases with AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017) coated it with AK Interactive Fresh Mud (AK016) let it dry for a bit and then went over it with a wool dauber dampened with a little bit of white spirit. I can only really see how this will look when this is dry.

Base 10

An alteration of base 9. This base has some thinned AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017) on it, but that doesn’t matter. This time I started with a drybrush of Vallejo Panzer Aces Light Mud (70.315) and then did the coat with AK Interactive Fresh Mud (AK016). I let that sit for a bit as well and then went over it with the wool dauber dampened with white spirit.

This obviously didn’t lead to an obvious way to go forward yet, but I feel like I made progress finding the way. I need to prep more bases with the good impressions.

Why Oil Paints?

People have mentioned that using oil paints is an interesting choice and there are 2 main reasons as to why.

1. Oil paints blend easily with each other leading to far more natural blends than acrylics can. Mostly because acrylics dry way quicker and are thinner to begin with.
2. Oil paints have a long working time and since I am doing the basing after the models have been attached to the base, oils are easy to remove from the the models using a bit of white spirit. I just need to make sure that I use an acrylic varnish on the models before I attach them to the base.

In hindsight, most of the pictures actually look quite good on the project page, just as long as you don’t look at them at full size.

So here are the results from the last test.

The basing paste mix seems to crack if it is applied too thick, so that’s another nail in its coffin. That means it is either the structure paste or the AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017). My preference goes out to the AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017) especially since it gives a nice texture when just flattened out completely and then with the tracks of the tank wet and pressed in and the wheels wet and rolled through, I am getting a good appearance as long as I don’t use the paste too thin. And thus this is the winner.

Now that I have the texture sorted out, next is the colours. Since most of the WWII pictures I have are in black & white this didn’t help me much with the colour apart from the fact that the dirt looks pretty dark off road.

Source: ‘Images of War The Battle for the Caucasus 1942-1943’ by Anthony Tucker-Jones

So finding pictures about mud in the Caucasus for some reason led to a lot of pictures of Caucasian women in mud….. ?

But I did find 2 good ones that can help me get a good idea of the colour, so next up is more playing around with paints.

But a very busy one…. Anyway, more basing tests today. Here are the results with the basing paste mix from last post. I am really liking the result.

I am thinking about buying new MDF bases for everything so that I can also base my vehicle and not have the vehicle bases look different. So for that it would be great if I can just hide the bases moulded on the models in the texture of the basing, that would be great. So I glued 2 of the filler caps for the Battlefront bases on one of my test bases to see how this is going to turn out. I don’t want to see a rim of the bases through my basing.

In order to make tire tracks more consistently I made a little tool. I used 2 spare road wheel I had from the PaK36/Nebelwerfer kit, drilled some holes into them and glued them to a bit of a brass rod in order to make a tire track tool. I don’t have any spare tracks to do the same for tanks, but they differ per tank anyway, so I’ll just press the tank in.

Top Left: This is the basing paste mix over the 2 filler caps.
Top Middle: The basing paste mix where I pressed a tank in, but it just kept sticking to the tank and couldn’t get a good impression.
Top Right: More of the basing paste mix but I tried to roll the tires through it, you can barely see a thing.
Bottom Left: Just pure AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017) I pressed the tank in after wetting the tracks a bit and then rolled the wheels through it.
Bottom Middle: The same process but that with just the structure paste.
Bottom Right: Again the same process but with the basing paste mix.

So from this I am concluding that putting the the texture in the the muddy ground or in the structure paste is fine, but once you mix them together is goes wrong and can’t hold the structure. I’ll have see after it has all dried, but this is going to require more testing.

The bad news that got me completely down in the gutter yesterday has been resolved today luckily, but I was still very tired from a very bad night so I spend another day as a blanket burrito.

Today I am going to take a bit more of a dive into the battle for the Caucasus in order to help me set the scene for my bases and eventually terrain. I managed to get my hands on a digital copy of ‘Images of War The Battle for the Caucasus 1942-1943’ by Anthony Tucker-Jones and will be using that as my source a lot in this post.

So, the first picture is going to cause the first problem. These are Soviet prisoners at the end of October 1942 and the Soviet models I have are not wearing winter uniforms like these guys do.

And then there is this image of Soviet troops clearing a mountain road in the Northern Caucasus. They wear a different winter uniform closer to the summer uniform the models I have wear, but still not the same.

And then I have not even gotten into the German uniforms…. So that means I won’t be doing winter 1942. Luckily the raids done by the 9th Guards Cavalry against the 1st panzer army started in September, so that will be my focus. The following photos will give a good idea of what the terrain looked like and what I am going to do with my bases.

Here are some more pictures from ‘Images of War The Battle for the Caucasus 1942-1943’ by Anthony Tucker-Jones during the summer and autumn of the battle of the Caucasus.

And here are some colour photos I found on the interwebs from the same battle, these gives me a great idea of what colours I need to look at.

So that all gives me a great amount of detail to work with for now and I’ll be sure to follow up on this with my basing tests.

Today I got another blow to my already unstable mental health and spent most of the day as a blanket burrito not wanting to do anything….. But I was thinking, what if I mix the structure paste with the AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017)? I like the thinner coats as they are a bit softer in detail, but I can’t really add any structure to it. So I thought of mixing

It works!

So here is a base done with it.

And here is what happened if I add water to the mix, it s basically a similar effect as before, just a bit lighter in colour, so that won’t be an option for me.

So here are the basing results from the Sundays test.

I am personally quite happy with some of them and have learned a ton from trying different things. I am going to have another round of basing tests for which I prepped more bases and going to see if I can find something I really like the look of. I did prep a couple more bases with the texture paste as I did like some of the results and did add rocks to them again, even though they don’t stick, they did make interesting textures on the base. And then I prepped a couple with thinned AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017). The thinner coats looked better to me, so these are quite thin.

I kind of issued myself the challenge of posting something a day as a mental health exercise. By doing this I have a reason to do something for my hobby everyday and show something off. It helps me dealing with my depression and feelings of emptiness and not just sit in the gutter. So that is the reason why I am trying to do this.

I couldn’t sleep so I ended up thinking, bad combo, I know, but when I am waiting on paints and I run out of stuff to post, what will I do? As many know, I always tell people to paint tanks pink and yet, I have only done one and now I am doing a World War 2 project.

And thus it only seems fitting I paint another pink tank. I so happen to have bought this kit at some point in my life.

So I thought, this would be a wonderful opportunity to keep working on this project and include a pink tank. This will be my pink panther as a bit of a bonus in this project. It is just going to be a display piece and won’t add anything to Flames of War, but I think it’ll be fun. My priority still lies on Flames of War, this is just something I am doing on the side to keep posting something every day.