World War II Project - Painting a German Infantry Platoon - Pt 1

These German troops are from Brigade Games Disposable Heroes Miniatures Kickstarter and have been sitting around for quite a while now. I needed to refresh my airbrush skills a bit and so I decided that these would be the victims. I wanted to try out a couple of different techniques on these, trying to reinforce some of the stuff I have learned over the years. My intent here is to achieve a good table top paint job and get some troops on the table. I have been diving into Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies and I would really like to play one of the Pint Sized Campaigns that they have published.

Bare Metal, let the games begin!

First step was to apply the black primer. I used Badger's Black Stynylrez for this initial primer coat and applied this over the entire miniature.

Group 1 in black. I do like the Badger primers a lot. Its pretty much my go to primer even if I'm painting it on with a brush.

Here are both groups with their first layer of primer

I followed this up with a coat of Badger's White Stynylrez primer shooting it from as close to vertical as I could get with a gravity feed airbrush (I used a Badger Renegade for this work). The white primer would lighten the follow on colors on the highest points of the miniature.

With the white from as near vertical as I can get it.

My original intent was to keep moving forward one color after another and knock the whole group out as quickly as possible. This is when I discovered the advantages of a good compressor over a cheap compressor. I had an Iwata compressor that hang on through heavy usage for about 5 years and it never failed me during a painting session no matter how long it was (thank you automatic cutoff switch). The small compressor from Harbor Freight was already beginning to overheat after applying the two primer colors. At this point I had to give it a rest before moving on to the uniform colors.

For this particular painting session I decided to try the German Field Grey Uniform paint set (AK 3140) from AK Interactive. One note of caution about this set, pay absolutely no attention to the color swatches on the box, they are not even remotely close to the paint colors in the set. I started off with the Field Grey Shadow color (AK 3144) and basically shot this from underneath the miniature. This involved handling each miniature individually which is not my preferred method but it was the only way to apply the shadows. This basically soften the look of the already applied black primer.

Field Grey Shadow (AK 3144)

There are two base colors for the next step so I divided the miniatures in two groups with about 40 figures in the first group and 20 in the second. I wanted some color variation amongst the troops so I planned on using both base colors. I started with the larger group and applied Field Grey Base (AK 3141) shooting it at just about perpendicular to the miniatures, probably slightly higher to preserve and blend the shadows. The smaller group received Field Grey Base 2 (AK 3142). Of the two Field Grey Base is much greener and Field Grey Base 2 is much grayer. The next time I use these colors I'll probably go with a 50/50 mix of the two.

Field Grey Base (AK 3141)

Field Grey Base 2 (AK 3142)

The original plan was to go immediately to the highlight color; Field Grey Lights (AK 3143). After mulling it over, as the compressor cooled down, I decided to do an intermediate step and apply a 50/50 mix of the highlight with the base color for each group. I'm not sure that I actually achieved the desire effect but I spent the time to do it. There are pictures of this step for both groups but its hard to see the difference so I'll just leave those pics out.

After applying the intermediate highlight I went to full strength Field Grey Lights shooting from as near vertical as possible.

Field Grey Lights (and not I'm not miss spelling it) (AK 3143)

I think my lights are washing out a lot of the color variation that you can see in person.

Now I was done with the airbrush portion of the evening and pulled out a nice wide brush for the next step. Since some of the color transitions were a little harsh I already decided to use a glaze to pull things together a bit. I turned to another AK Interactive product for this; Uniform Definition Filter Green Glaze (AK 3017). I was a bit concerned with this step as I was not looking for a traditional wash as I have done in the past. No disappointment, the green glaze went on darker than anticipated but dried nice and light and helped blend the various colors together. I'm quite pleased with this product.

Uniform Definition Filter Green Glaze (AK3017)

While it took nearly the whole evening to get the work done the actually painting time probably equated to about 2 hours during which I applied 2 primer coats, 4 paint colors and 1 glaze. Actually elapsed time was close to 5 hours because of the need to cool down the compressor between coats of paint. I will be on the hunt for a new compressor in the coming weeks.

Here is a quick side by side comparison of the two groups, prior to the glaze being applied. On the left are troops painted with Field Grey Base 2 and in the center and right Field Grey Base. Those on the right are definitely greener than those on the left. Its pretty close to what I was hoping would happen and should look pretty nice on the table. I saw a picture once of some German uniform coats that were all ostensibly field grey, they varied from almost brown to olive green, so variation in color is a good thing!

Now you are thinking that I have allowed myself to get distracted from the Sledgehammer diorama but this exercise allowed me to refresh my airbrush skills and test out a paint scheme for the troops on that diorama. I probably won't start the detail painting on these troops until after the Sledgehammer is done, that would be distracting.

World War II Project - Basing the Germans

With the expectation of the Badger primers arriving this week I went ahead and started preparing the Germans for painting. I have been going back and forth on what bases to use for this. My British Airborne are already mounted on 25mm rounds which settles that part of the equation. I don't like the look of tall bases on the table so I want something that's a lower profile. I have some 1.5mm plywood bases from Litko that were going to be my first choice, but I would need a lot of filler to hide the base of the figure and I had no intention of cutting all those troops off their bases. I started rummaging through my base box and I found a bag of 25mm round bases from Proxie Models. These are low profile with a slight lip which I think are ideal for this. I kept digging and found two unopened bags and about half of another. These are the bases I use for Calamity but I haven't worked on any minis for that for a while and I forgot I had them.

That takes care of the regular standing troops, but I need larger bases for the teams. I pulled out some 60mm Litko bases to get an idea and arrange the teams on them to see how they look. 60mm is good for the deployed two man LMG teams and the sniper team. I need something a bit bigger for the HMG  and mortar teams. Fortunately Proxie Models is still in business so I ordered 25mm, 60mm, 75mm and 90mm rounds. Hopefully those will arrive shortly, they have been pretty quick in the past.

In the mean time I have based and added the fill to the regular German troops.

Standing troops mounted on the Proxie Models 25mm bases.

Here is the 60mm Litko base (1.5mm plywood) for a two man team. I suppose I might be able to fit this on a 40mm round

The deployed LMG on the 60mm base looks pretty good though with room for some scenery

The mortar team looks a little tight, especially if I want to include some scenic elements on the base.

The HMG team looks really tight though.

I have two jars of stuff from Liquitex, Resin Sand and Natural Sand and I can never remember which one I like the best.
This gunner's base is filled with the Resin Sand

The ammo carrier's base is filled with the Natural Sand

The first batch of Germans with the Resin Sand, which has a nice rougher texture

The whole group sans the team

World War II Project - Brigade Games German Infantry III

The is the last of my Germans from the Brigade Games kickstarter. This batch is primarily support weapons; 81mm Mortar and crew, MG42 on Tripod and crew, sniper team and panzerschrecks. I also picked up another set of German NCOs (which I probably don't need) and MG42 teams. The MG42 teams give me the flexibility to use these as either regular infantry or as panzer grenadiers.

The only thing that really came out wrong was the Panzerschreck team came with US heads, but a quick check of the Bazooka bag showed that they had German heads so it worked out in the end. Although quite frankly I have plenty of heads for just about any eventuality.  The only other issue as such were the legs for the mortar which were pretty mangled in the package.

With everything cleaned up I'll get everyone mounted up on painting sticks and they should be ready for priming as soon as the new primers arrive. I'm going to give James Wappel's shaded basecoat a try and see how quickly I can get these guys ready for the table.

Today's work:

German 81mm Mortar and 4 crew

MG42 in Heavy MG role

Panzerschrecks

Sniper Team, no separate heads for this team!

The whole lot
From left to right: NCOs, Panzerschrecks, Mortar Team, Sniper Team, MG42 Team and the LMG teams

World War II Project - Brigade Games German Infantry

There was a little time to get some work done last night, after we cleared up the back porch from all the debris of fall. We were fortunate in that the one plant that Phoebe likes to chew on is the one plant that we have to cut down in the fall. She has taken care of most of that work for us!

I gave my wife some airbrush lessons and while she was busy painting things black and getting used to the dual action controls I pulled out the WWII miniatures that I received from the Brigade Games Kickstarter. I haven't really had a chance to look at these since I got them. Since my wife is learning how to use the airbrush what better excuse to prep some minis so that she has something to practice on. I pulled out the platoon bag of Germans and managed to prep G003, G004 (x2) and G005. From the website that would be the MG42 teams (three teams of two), Riflemen advancing (two packs of six in this case) and Riflemen Firing. A total of 24 figures, I still have the bag of NCOs and Platoon HQ to go.

Overall I am please with these minis. The sculpting has a rougher style than I'm used to seeing but I think they will look really good when they are painted up. For bagginess of the clothing combined with the rough sculpting style remind of the old Willie & Joe cartoons by Bill Mauldin. Ostensibly these are 1/56th scale minis, so at some point I'll do a comparison with the plastic ones from Warlord Games.

I'm going to try something completely different from my normal style on these. James Wappel uses a technique he refers to as the shaded basecoat and then finishes off the minis with a series of washes and glazes. James uses Badger's Stynlrez primers to create the shaded basecoat and I'm eager to give it a try. I would like to get these ready for the table as quickly as I can.

So here we have a first look at the Brigade Games WWII German miniatures:

G004 Riflemen advancing.
The heads are separate so you can change the look. I think the faces could have been better sculpted and I'm less than thrilled with a vent coming right out the chin.

And with the heads attached. I had eight heads in the bag so I will be accumulating a few extra as I go through the process. You should definitely test fit the head to the torso before you glue. I trimmed most of the "necks" shorter to get a good fit, the depth of the hole in the torso is not the same across the board so how much you have to trim off varies a lot. There are also a couple of heads with very wide "necks" and there are only a couple of minis those fit with.

The second set of G004

G005 Riflemen Firing
I feel that some of the firing poses are a little awkward. They do look better with the heads attached though.

And now with heads! Again there were spare heads which allows you to change the look a bit.

G006 MG42 Teams
I'm not thrilled with the look of the MG42 itself but I really like the poses of the standing minis. The ammunition carrier is really weighed down with equipment and spare ammunition. You three variations here, deployed and firing, walking and running.

And now complete with heads

I had the Warlord Games PzKfw IV sitting nearby so I grabbed that for a quick comparison shot. I think the BG minis look pretty good against it.