
Testing the old eyes on Victrix WW2
Recommendations: 48
About the Project
Iv been commissioned to paint some victrix 12mm WW2 British infantry. I’m not a commission painter generally but have done a few things for this customer namely some pony wars stuff. This will be a different challenge and thought it would be fun to document it.
Related Company: Victrix Limited
Related Genre: Historical
This Project is Completed
The Miniatures
Thought I’d write about the minis first up. 184 miniatures in the pack at 35 pounds RRP is a great price in my opinion. There is great variety here to in terms of weapons rifles, smg,s, vickers machine guns and mortars to name a few. Also a great variety of poses throughout the pack. The sculpts are fantastic. Crisp clean detail all round. I like that all spru gates are on the base of each mini which is great and stops the chance of breaking the models when clipping them off. The real triumph with these is the proportions. I often find that smaller scale sculpts have huge heads and hands etc but these look delightful. I would recommend for quality and price
The paints
Next a run through of paints that will be used. Not to many required as uniforms require a limited colour palette.
Vallejo English Uniform – used for the main battle dress.
Vallejo Russian uniform Green -helmet (these are uncovered in the set), respirator bag
pro Acryl – khaki – belts, straps, backpack, gaiters
pro Acryl – coal black – boots
Pro Acryl- shadow flesh- flesh base
Pro acrylic- tan flesh – first flesh highlight
pro Acryl – warm brown – weapons
pro acryl – Dark Silver – weapons
pro acryl – silver – weapon highlight (mixed with dark silver)
Vallejo – black grey – boots highlight (mixed with coal black)
army painter dark tone – all over wash
pro acryl – pale yellow – used to lighten other colours for second highlights.
Base coats done
As these are small I decided to start base coating in blocks of 20 troops. I find the base coating of 10mm figures the most time consuming. The first batch generally takes the longest while you get to understand where the details are an. Once you have painted a few brush control and understanding the models becomes easier. The pictures above are of the first base coated models. They can look messy but at this scale they are easily tidied up on the next steps.
Talent in a bottle
Next phase is the all over wash. I use dark tone from Army painter. Gives a great shading and find it particularly effective on these tiny miniatures. I think at this scale you could get away with these as done at this stage but that’s just not me 😂
Highlights and done
next is the highlights stage. First highlight is generally a coat of the base colour apart from the flesh boots and silver bits (see paints project entry). Next I push the highlights up a little further adding pale yellow to the base colour and painting the more raised areas (you all know the drill 😂). I’m pretty happy with the results and look better than my photography shows 😂. This took me two nights to paint 40 so happy with speed. At time of writing Iv base coated and washed another 40! I’ll show some of the heavier weapons off when I get to those!
A word on brushes
Just thought I’d put in a word about brushes. I’m usually a bit of a snob and use kolinskey sable (Windsor and Newton series 7) brushes. They do tend to be getting more difficult to get and prices are going through the roof. I got this brush set given as a Christmas present. It’s from a company called Fuumuui and they are synthetic brushes. The set comes with 18 brushes from size 5/0 through to 2 (with some duplicates) there are a couple of flat brushes and 3 specialist dry brushes. Iv used 3 brushes throughout this project and they have held up well keeping their point without to much trouble and hold paint well. They have seen me through painting 230 12mm infantry! I’m yet to try most of the others. I still prefer my sable brushes but for £25 this set is well worth a look.
And I’m done
So Iv rattled along with these. Iv added in some photos ( they are hard to photograph 😂) of some of the heavy weapons a vickers and a piat. This is a really good set with loads of options and they have been fun to paint. It’s taken me 3 weeks to complete the commission (not bad as I also work full time) and I’m happy with the results. Only drawback is I wasn’t basing the models for the customer would have liked to see them based and ranked up on the tabletop