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The good, the very very bad and the extremely ugly! German figs in 1/35.


Muchmirth

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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. 

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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. 

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My first victim is below: One of the volksgrenadiers from Masterbox:

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This my wet palette and colours I used:

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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:

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

base coat 1

Here he's really not happy about his spray tan!  

The end result below:

 

base coat 7 base coat 6 base coat 5 Base coat 4

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. 

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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.

base coat 3

Slowly building the paint in thinned glazes.

base coat 2

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.

 

Edited by Muchmirth
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As promised the panzer crew below, three out of the four of which had their heads dipped in alcohol (something I'd quite enjoy!!) and re-started from scratch....very frustrating. This is the very best I can do with these figures, its not great but will have to do:

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Note how only the guy on the far left has eyes, I've not done the eyes for the other three. The worst one, the one I like least it the 'boss man' the guy second in from left, smoking, with jacket on his shoulders. I just couldn't blend or grade in his flesh tones. Just glad its done. 

   Next below is my experiment into oils:

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Instead of trying to use one my figures for the diorama I've decided to try and do one of the spare heads from the panzer crew, as I'm only learning to use oils and they are very difficult to use I'm using this guy as the test bed. This is the start/or base coat of the oils, yes its very dark but want to build up the layers by adding a colour per day until I get the hang of wet blending.

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This is my second oil paint vehicle below, he looks ok, again I have to wait a day for the result, so the oils dry out some:

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I've also nearly finished this guy:

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Eyes are a bit large but I'm happy with the hat. I have since toned down some of the transitions of shade on his trousers and jacket with extra, very thinned light and shade glazes. I've post of further pics soon as it seems to have worked. I've used the following tutorial on him, http://rickyoj.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-to-painting-face-figure-scale-135.html I don't know the authors or name of the technique (if it has one) but I call it the 'black and white technique' . One because its so simple and to because it uses black to darken and white to lighten. Now he has obviously perfected it and I haven't but I found it easy to follow. You start quite harsh and work on layers of glazes to blend as opposed to lots of blending as you go. The results he produces speak for themselves. He also loves Vallejo and the base coat it very very nice in tone and so will keep using the brown sand/burnt red mix. 

   I also started this guy below:

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Its just slopped base coats with some darkening so far, very untidy and will continue on this guy tonight. I've dropped the idea of doing him with oils as I'll need to keep my basic test bed going til comfortable. 

 

best for now,

Paul

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Finally happy with one of my fig, I'll call this one finished, in case wondering the panzerfaust will be resting on broken chair (he's not just incredibly strong.):

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The paint in above was still drying (you can see the wet on his boots).

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Not that it makes much of a difference but I took a few more once dry and in daylight:

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I was happy with the chipped helmet, panzerfaust, bino's and I liked the 'red leather' as highlights on the leather pouch at his front. The face might be a bit dark but the helmet would naturally cast some shadow (well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

   The hawkeyed amongst you will notice that the splittertarnmuster camo is (my first attempt) minus the tiny dark lines which run down the whole scheme. I will practice this once I get to the fallschrimjager, just for a it of variance. I really enjoyed this one epecially getting to so the camo effect on the jacket. What I did here was the 'add it all then take it away technqiue' (something I just made up). I made up the brown and green colour patches to large in places so then dabbed it off with a cotton bud, whilst still a little wet this turned into a happy accident as made the camo less bright, almost a sort of background which I could then go back over and reapply but this time not to the whole patch of individual colour, so some looked faint/worn and some patches look more clear, just the way creases and faded battle fatigues look in real life. Well I like it anyway, you guys be the judges as to weather you agree. 
 You may also notice a bit of roughness on his right arm from filler I didn’t smooth ( I’m not too bothered by this as hardly noticeable once covered with paint).

    His trousers are a made up colour. I used the field blue and green which I was to reserve for my paratroopers but just got impatient to experiment with new colours. 

Best for now,

Paul

 

Edited by Muchmirth
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Started fallschrimjager, this is the one from war front, this time I added the lines to the splitteranmunster camo. Made his face a little paler, just in contrast the last fella:

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Apologies, photo's might be a bit bright this time as we finally have sun in northern Ireland now.

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I

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I added cigrettes to the panzer crew, made from abs styrene rod and melted with polycement:

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I wont be carrying on with the oil paint experiment as I couldn't get it to work out. I will try another time, probably with a 1/10 bust or something bigger. 

 Just noticed that some of the paint has chipped off the bottoms of the legs and boots, despite being varnished? I thought laquer was supoosed to protect against this sort of thing?

I'll have to touch up these bits next. 

Edited by Muchmirth
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  • 4 weeks later...

Well I finally finished over a week ago and here are the final figs:

 

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I actually quite liked how this guy turned out, a nice contrast  to military fatigues, however I wont be able to add him to the diorama as now I realise it would be a mistake to. He is appearingly able bodied and a male of military service age. At this time in the war it was all hands to the pumps in Germany and their is no way he would be their without wearing Field grey and carrying a weapon. So I will add him to another dio in the future instead, He will gain a French or Polish passport at some stage I’m sure.

 

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This fallschrimjager is my favourite of all. I didn't spend ages and loads of loads of different colours for his face, in fact, ironically I paid very little attention. I think this was why he turned out ok as I wan't trying so hard.

   I did break and loose the tip of his gun.

    

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Happy enough with this guy too.

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I couldn't get the contrast in this guys face to blend very well and not totally happy with the odd shades of green in his uniform jacket. 

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I made up the camo pattern for this one.

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This one below is my least favourite, I couldn't get his face right no matter how many times I revisited. 

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He looks grainy and too dark.

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Also the eyes are all wrong, too large and dark. 

 

Finally a group shot, all painted:

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Edited by Muchmirth
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