The lightening war- Leichter 221- hobbyboss 1/35 ****FINISHED***

[Muchmirth]

13 hours ago, StuartH said:

Excellent weathering and the oil paints have really added a nicely distressed feel to the vehicle. Great job 👍

If you're placing mud on the lower half then possibly have it streaking down and running off the vehicle...keep it really thin as if it's being washed off maybe? Start with it thin and see if you like the look?

Cheers Stuart, I’ll give that a whirl and see what happens. Nice idea though as can add to doesn’t look enough then.

[Muchmirth]

8 hours ago, Robert Stuart said:

That's coming along nicely, with good subtle weathering.

 

I, too, use Rosemary's brushes, though I try to keep synthetics for acrylics and natural hair for oil and water colour.

Thank you.

Interesting about your brushes. Would you use the synthetics for base coating a vehicle as it’s a stiffer brush and the bristle of natural for oils and watercolours because it’s slightly softer? Just getting to grips with her vast catalogue at mo…. Addicted to buying brushes like some sort of weird collection!

[Robert Stuart]

3 hours ago, Muchmirth said:

Thank you.

Interesting about your brushes. Would you use the synthetics for base coating a vehicle as it’s a stiffer brush and the bristle of natural for oils and watercolours because it’s slightly softer? Just getting to grips with her vast catalogue at mo…. Addicted to buying brushes like some sort of weird collection!

Modern synthetics can be soft too, and a hog bristle can be pretty stiff.

My concern is more the nature of acrylic paint; it tends to block the scales of natural hair, making them stiffer and less flexible.
There is also a risk of acrylic paints reacting with the oil residue on brushes, and stiffening them beyond the point of usability (learned that one the hard way, pun not intended).
The general rule is: old acrylic brushes can be used with oil paint; old oil brushes can not be used with acrylics.

As to Rosemary's catalogue, look out for a pointer or a spotter.  They are great for picking out fine detail.
Her special effects brushes are worth a look too.  See what appeals to you, and experiment to discover what you can do with it.

[Muchmirth]

2 hours ago, Robert Stuart said:

Modern synthetics can be soft too, and a hog bristle can be pretty stiff.

My concern is more the nature of acrylic paint; it tends to block the scales of natural hair, making them stiffer and less flexible.
There is also a risk of acrylic paints reacting with the oil residue on brushes, and stiffening them beyond the point of usability (learned that one the hard way, pun not intended).
The general rule is: old acrylic brushes can be used with oil paint; old oil brushes can not be used with acrylics.

As to Rosemary's catalogue, look out for a pointer or a spotter.  They are great for picking out fine detail.
Her special effects brushes are worth a look too.  See what appeals to you, and experiment to discover what you can do with it.

Thanks again for the tip. I did not know that. I’ll have to separate them for use. I saw the spotter as well, did look good.

[Bertie McBoatface]

There are plenty of good skills on display in this thread. I love the faces - straight out of Commando comics!

[Muchmirth]

Ok so this thread/build has slowed considerably. I finally got the leichter into resin so can now take my time and enjoy the build more (pics of the river to follow later).

   So below I have done a a couple more bits for the dio. A milestone and chain which has more chips than David Dickinsons dinner:

 

The writing isn't great but best I could do. Its situates the diorama in Belgium near Dinant and that leads me to explain a major flaw in the dio as a whole. The odds would be greatly against a recon vehicle such as the Leichter being involved in a front line river assault however they did have great fording ability and their are pictures of them crossing rivers but more than likely at a later stage. Around the 13th May the bridges were blown across the Meuse and then motorcycles crossed followed by rafts and pontoons going up. 

   I've also done more vegetation: Below is one of six fern plants I've made from actual ferns. I used to take clippings of the tips and then put them into glycerine but this time I tired a different method. I dried them in a pot for three weeks and then trimmed them, set them in bunches with pva and left to dry on parchment paper. Then I sprayed then with matte varnish (to stiffen then as they become brittle after drying) and then painted them with various light bright greens. The benefit of drying them is that one it preserves them naturally and two once the moisture comes out of them they shrink and thus become more to scale. 

   

  This is where having an air brush would come in handy, as would get into the nooks and crannies, where as I currently use a paint brush for everything.

 

Ok so I did all the French figures, took around a week and was pretty happy with the results (I love doing figures) then I had a major disaster which I don't think I can fix and has pretty much ruined all my work. But as I can't fix,...I'm gonna have to suck it up ad get on with it. Basically I painted the figures and then let them dry as usual, I wanted to put some matte varnish on them sat morning before going to the rugby and so went down the shed and picked up a can of varnish, shook it and gave them a spray, thin even coat. All good. Came back and all the figures where all frosty/grey coloured. I had shook the can for a long time but the can was so cold and the air out side full of moisture that absorbed or whatever into the vanish and made it...well pretty wrong looking. But I found a solution on line that said if you rub them down with virgin olive oil this will reduce or take out the frosted look. So I did this and it worked! But theirs a cavet to this. The first round of varnish hadn't fully hardened off and so the oil now got absorbed into the varnish and made them shiny and oily looking. No problem, just rub them down and given then a clean with water and a cotton buds, dry them and reapply matte varnish...Not from a rattle can this time around.

   The figures are still glossy after four coats of matte. I cant get rid of the gloss effect and I've put on so much matte varnish that the figures have lost their detail and definition, the oil makes the water based varnish bead up and stick in spots. It wont' stick in an even manner. Here's what I mean below... If anyone has any miracle solutions I'm all ears but I think I'm just going to have to chalk this one up to experience and lessons learned the hard way.  

   

 

 

 

   

 

Inspector clouseau? He's a bit clithe French but I felt he needed a goatee.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Muchmirth
Date corrected

[Trevor L]

That's a shame about the figures as the painting looks great, and you must have spent a long time on them.

[Stef N.]

Aye, the figures look great, very nicely painted. Hopefully someone can come up with a good solution to the gloss. Great tip on the ferns.👍

[Muchmirth]

I’ve just been hunting on line and apparently the Lahmian medium by citadel may help me with regards to fixing the glossy problem with the figures… worth a shot! It’s a clear pigment binder which is thin and matte! 

 

https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/citadel-technical/67058-citadel-technical-lahmian-medium-24ml?gclid=Cj0KCQiAkMGcBhCSARIsAIW6d0BapS8FTo6JsoZUdp9ImFlSst84dPPzi21m4-sqeARUAhAENASfaiIaAlkqEALw_wcB

  

thought I’d post this up incase it helps anyone else stuck with similar issues in the future. It’ll be a few weeks before I get it and give it a try.
best for now,

Paul 

[PeterB]

Your varnish problem sounds to be temperature related but I remember a problem with old (pre acrylic) Microscale Flat. If I put on too much in one coat it pooled and went milky. Fortunately a second light coat seemed to dissolve it out and solve the problem. These days I use Windsor and Newton Galleria flat thinned with Tamiya acrylic thinners and that usually works.

 

Pete

Edited December 7, 2022 by PeterB

[Muchmirth]

15 hours ago, PeterB said:

Your varnish problem sounds to be temperature related but I remember a problem with old (pre acrylic) Microscale Flat. If I put on too much in one coat it pooled and went milky. Fortunately a second light coat seemed to dissolve it out and solve the problem. These days I use Windsor and Newton Galleria flat thinned with Tamiya acrylic thinners and that usually works.

 

Pete

Thanks Pete. Think I will have definitely switch varnish’s for sure and heard the Windsor and newton one was good. 

[IanC]

Those figures are superb Paul. 

 

If it's not too late to suggest something, I can recommend AK Interactive's Ultra Matte Varnish. I've recently started using it after seeing lots of praise for the product online.

 

I've found it gives an incredibly flat finish, even better than the Winsor & Newton stuff which I also rate very highly. 

[Muchmirth]

4 hours ago, IanC said:

Those figures are superb Paul. 

 

If it's not too late to suggest something, I can recommend AK Interactive's Ultra Matte Varnish. I've recently started using it after seeing lots of praise for the product online.

 

I've found it gives an incredibly flat finish, even better than the Winsor & Newton stuff which I also rate very highly. 

Cheers Ian. All suggestions still welcome and hadn’t thought/heard about the ak one. I was using cheap rattle can and/or Vallejo which is quite thick. But I’ll pop this on the list too. 

[Bullbasket]

Clouseau and Co look very good, shiny clothes and all. If these are the finished article (ie; your not going to do any washes etc), you could always use the old Humbrol or Hannants matt varnish. I always found them to be more matt than acrylics.

 

John.

[Muchmirth]

2 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Clouseau and Co look very good, shiny clothes and all. If these are the finished article (ie; your not going to do any washes etc), you could always use the old Humbrol or Hannants matt varnish. I always found them to be more matt than acrylics.

 

John.

Ah thanks John.
  I might do a few a bit of an experiment and try a few different ones and see what comes out best. Thanks for the suggestion. 

[Muchmirth]

Well been away from this thread a while. Had a week off at xmass but Its finally time to move over to the gallery.  To finish it up I made a tree from twigs, dried astilbe from the garden and hornby fine scatter (dark green and light green.) 

It turned out like this:

  I did the same with the bush under the ft-17 as I wanted to do something roughly like my ref pic at the start of this thread, where the Renault hits the tree (or bush in this case). You can kinda make it out in the background. 

   I also made a water explosion, I wish I had documented how I did it but didn't as I 100% thought I was going to bin it. Anyway this is it below:

The gunner here looks like he's taking part in some extreme fishing event!

   With the explosion I cut up some thin Perspex into rough shards, then placed on tin foil, on a baking tray (Mrs Murphy doesn't know this! ssshh!) I then baked on a low temperature for ten mins. until it warps and crinkles (lovely with a bit of cheese ontop!!) in a random way. Then I placed into a rough circle and glued it with super glue at the base. I made another conical shaped plume with fill fibre and dripped CA all down it, so that it stiffened. I placed the fill fibre inside the plastic circle. I then hung it upside down (with a clothes peg) and layered/drips of clear silicone down it, using a toothpick to tease the silicone outwards into more violent shards. The persepex gave the whole thing a hard shape for the silicone to cling to and the fill fibre gives it a wispy look on the inside.

   Once I had done the resin pour I glued it place and poured more resin down it (the resin was tinted with Vallejo flat earth to give it more of a dirty river water look.). The outer wave/shock wave is more silicone, resin and vallejo water texture layered up. 

  

In the end I went with the shiny happy people. I used a cotton bud and meticulously stripped the old Vallejo varnish off with ethanol (watered down) quite risky but it worked out ok-ish! I started off with a 60% water to alcohol solution to remove the varnish globules. Then went over them, very cautiously over and over again, each time increasing the alcohol by around 10%.

  

I put the Houx sign in place and still want to add a title in chalk to this side of the model. 

Also added flowers and bush's I picked up from Ebay.

   Also as you can see I added the Ft-17. As I said at the start this is more about the Leichter 221 and so wouldn't be right to add a load of pics of it here so I have placed a few pics in the RFI section of armour, if anyone is interested in this:

 

  

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed this GB and loved taking part. Thanks to Robert Stuart and Mark Lo.

Thanks all for looking, All the best,

Paul

Edited January 18, 2023 by Muchmirth
Added link.

[Stef N.]

I'd seen the FT, which works well on it's own, but it adds to a great scene. Top dio Paul and the water explosion is ace.👏👍

[Robert Stuart]

That's a great little diorama, Paul, with all that action.

The Leichter 221 fits it very well.

 

 

[Trevor L]

Great job. Lots of interesting elements.

[edjbartos]

Crikey Paul, there are so many things to take in, wonderful job and great modelling.  I like the effects that you have done. Another nice thing is that you can view the scene from many different view points. excellent...

 

Ed

[sardaukar]

Hi Paul

 

Now this is pretty cool, a real sense of action to this diorama, love the explosion too.

 

Cheers

 

Calum

[StuartH]

Brilliant diorama and a real sense of action. Very well done! 👍