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Hi all, Figures are my most favourite element of modelling and I'd love to get really good at this, so I've embarked on a bit of a project. I have a experiment and practice here, consisting of 17 figures, one pig and a cart. (This will all take some time and take part in a large diorama including a tiger 1- It'll be called "Liebe deinen nachsten"; This is part one of a two part dio.). They will be made into volksgrenadiers, fallschrimjager, panzer crew and a civilian. This is the motely crew (They have been made up, pinned, flash trimmed, filled with vallejo putty in the gaps, sanded and tin foil straps added.): I add straps now as I find them even more of a pain to add at the end. They are mixtures of plastic and resin:( I've put them into groups mentally): Some are needed to tell the story and some are needed because they look awesome. -Mini art panzer crew at rest- plastic. These I like least...they are are terrible with mould lines running right up the sides of the faces/heads which is very hard to remove. The hands are just blobs and the jawlines from the neck to the head are massive. The set also includes the pig. I'm only using four out of the five provided as I will replace one of them with another resin figure. I should have replaced the heads with hornets heads (note for next time). -The majority of the fallschrimjager are Legion One resin and look great. The weapons are especially good and I may be adding decals from Archer/Peddinghaus to these. -One of the fallschrimjager is from War Front. Resin and looks very dynamic. -The civilian is from royal models. Resin and looks great as well, well defined features. This I will attempt my first oil painting with. I've bought some castle arts artists oils and sandsor odourless thinner for this. (inc cart) -The man with the panzerfaust is Evolution figures, resin and probably the best one. This will be painted as a volksgrenadier with splintermunster jacket/poncho etc. I'll try oils on the flesh and acrylic for the rest of the uniform (as figure this will be quicker for the easier bit). -Three other volksgrenadiers (are actually supposed to be Gebrigsjager), including the officer, are from masterbox. The are part of the 'who's their' set. They are plastic and surprisingly good. Their faces are quite large though, so a curse or blessing either way. They fit well and poses are pretty decent. Their hands and ears lack the detail of the resin but weapons and uniforms are ok. -peeing panzer crew is from Bravo six This is resin and really really good as well. The face is sharp and creases in uniform are deep which makes it interesting and easy to paint. The shot below is after my zenthial lighting of both black and white. Black, from below, primer rattle can spray and white, from above, rattle can primer. My first victim is below: One of the volksgrenadiers from Masterbox: This my wet palette and colours I used: As I said this is a bit of experiment and so for this one I started to paint from the lightest highlight without using any base coat. You'll note the eyes are all wrong here so I re-did them: The eye sockets are quite large and warranted, in my opinion, actual eyes. This is not something I would normally do I as I don't think in 1/35 scale you would actually see the colour of the eyes but will give it a go. The eyes are still not right, as now they are too big. So in the further steps I reduced them and made them a little less cock-eyed. He has an iron cross which I added minute chips to (not sure if an iron cross would get chipped!!). I also noticed from the pics that the shoulder to body join on the rhs is little amiss and could have done with more filler. In terms of technique I wont be going from lightest to darkest shade first again, its too hard and alien feeling. On to the next victim and technique to try: One of the panzer crew, bravo six. First resin figure. The mapping is deeper and so easier to manage: After priming I used a bright base colour as my experimental element. I used burnt red as the base (I mainly use vallejo model colours for my paints and really love their coverage and resilience.) hoping the brighter colour will detract from the zombie look at the end. I have a mantra in my head which says 'lighter and brighter is always best' this might not be true in all cases and generally a rule of thumb for me but so much of what we paint is military colours, therefore camouflage. So Olive 'drab' becomes the mainstay in most cases and so any opportunity to use lighter and brighter colours then I take it, or at least try to. Here he's really not happy about his spray tan! The end result below: The lightening of his black uniform is done with revell's anthracite, then further lightened black with basic skin tone- vallejo. I was happy enough with this one, even though his face wont be seen as he will be peeing against a wall. The red didn't really show through as I messed up on one of his cheeks (tried to go too grimy) and had to add subsequent layers which removed all traces of the base and so had to re-apply the burnt red in glaze form at the end to bring the colour back to his cheeks and make him less monochrome. Next up is another Volksgrenadier, he was base coated in a light beige I mixed up with sunny skin tone as a very light sandy brown (as seen above): The first 'stunned look' below. This looks harsh but gets toned down. This is also a master box figure, you can see I added eyes, again rather too large. The pupil has that cats eye look from the tip of the 000 windsor and newton series seven brush I use to touch in the black dot. Next time I will use a pin for the eye ball as the tip of a pin wont bend! No one will probably ever notice this but I added a extremely small dot of blue to the eye as well. Note to self- don't bother as wont be seen. Figures look hilarious when like this and have to remind myself that its only a stage. Each figure taking around 5 to 7 hours to complete. Always flesh (faces and hands first) so not to knock of paint from lower regions. Slowly building the paint in thinned glazes. He's blushing some but I think he'll be ok. Next up I'll be going to show you the panzer crew from Mini art, I expected better and got very frustrated. I have already painted three heads (about 4 hours a piece) out of the four I will need. A totally waste of time and effort as they were so bad that I had to dip them into pure alcohol to strip the paint and start again as I got to a stage were I had added roughly ten layers of paint and none of it was improving. I don't have any pictures of the mess but have pictures of the corrected faces to post up next time. This will be the very best I could do with these figures (also partly why I'm saving the best, the resin, to last.). I thought no point adding oil paints for the first time to plastic figures (as they say in goodfellas 'it'd e like putting a silk hat on a pig'), very excited to try this on the better figures (royal models- civilian, evolution volkgrenadier and war front fallschrimjager.) Just a reminder that this is all 'work in progress' and I'll do a final reveal in about twenty years or so once all 17 are finished! Best for now, Paul.