A Few more Painting Guides

While I have manage to wean myself off of continually buying new rule sets I seem to be unable to pull that off in regards to painting guides. There is a new painting magazine called "Painting War" being produced by Designs & Edits WxW Co. They are currently producing "Season 1" and have published 4 issues at this point. I think their intent is to publish on a quarterly basis. Issues one and three have focused on WWII while issues two and four have been focused on Napoleonics, so something for two of the more popular periods. They intend to alternate periods until they have completed those periods. There will be issues devoted to other periods as well. Each issue will be feature the techniques of a single painter. I have issue 1; WWII German Army in Campaign and issue 3; WWII Japan & USA Armies on Campaign, the painter featured in issue 1 is Ruben Torregrosa aka "Heresybrush" and issue 3 is Claudia Zuminich. These include guides for both 28mm and 15mm miniatures.

The guides are quite nicely done, not as many in progress pictures as I would like to see but very nice high quality pictures. Colors are listed both by name, number and with a tab of the color. Each step by step indicates the paints used and how they were applied. There are separate sections for 28mm and 15mm showing an definite understanding that the two scales are painted differently. At this point all the colors used are by Vallejo, which is not to surprising. Although I don't think it is a Vallejo publication masquerading as an independent magazine as there is an ad for AK Interactive in there. Hard to say though as its quite possible that Vallejo actually makes the AK Interactive paint products.

I read all the way through Issue 1, and I found it interesting and a worthwhile read. There are plenty of step by step pieces as well as a whole raft of completed figures with full descriptions of paints, techniques, and hints/tips listed in the back. They are definitely expensive though and I'm likely to be very selective about which ones I get rather than just gettting a subscription (these were $28 each!). I received mine, quite promptly I might add, from Brigade Games here in the US.

I would certainly recommend these if the subject matter is of interest to you. For instance while I have both WWII issues at this point I'm not likely to pick up any other WWII issues. In the Napleonic series I would pick up the British issue (which might be Issue 4) and which ever one the Bavarians show up in.

The table of contents for the German Issue. While it shows some AFVs on this page there are no guides to painting AFVs in this issue.

When it says USA armies it means it. It covers both the Army in both theaters as well as the Marines.