The Case Against 1/48th (Edited)

There are lots of opinions around what scale 25/28mm miniatures our especially since manufacturers produce minis that while obstinately are 25/28mm vary greatly in size, proportion and appearance. There is a trend for WWII vehicle kits to be produced in 1/56th scale both in plastic and in resin and I'm throwing my hat into that ring. When I scratchbuild buildings I like to build in a scale and 1/56th is the one I have settled on for my town of Calamity. But even there I don't restrict my self to "scale" parts first because almost nothing is actually produced in that scale and second because why should I restrict myself to a scale when parts from any of the railroad scales will work? In the end if the proportions look good then use it!

I'm actually not trying to fan the flames of the scale wars but I was challenged to provide proof of why I feel that 1/48 is not only to big but way to big to be the "scale" of our 25/28mm miniatures as well as the Heroic versions standing closer to 30mm. I'm firmly in the camp of 1/56th as the best compromise scale. Unfortunately that precludes the use of the the railroad scales at least in the US; 1/64th or S scale and 1/48th or O Scale. 

Since sizes of minis tend to very quite a bit between miniatures I picked out a variety of miniatures to use as examples. They come from Black Scorpion, Reaper Miniatures, Dixon, Wargames Foundry and Knuckleduster. For scale examples I'm using flex track in the following scales and sizes: HO standard gauge, On30 (O scale but narrow gauge using the same spacing as HO), S standard gauge and O standard gauge.

I have also included pictures of the setup I used. My goal was to have the top of the bases that I use (and they are all on the same brand of bases) level with the inside edge of the bottom rail. Then I took a few group shots standing against the track as well as some singles against the O standard gauge track to really show just how short our minis are against it.

Here is the track. Top to bottom: HO Scale Standard (1/87), On30 Scale Narrow (1/48), S Scale Standard (1/64), O Scale Standard (1/48)

The setup using the HO Standard flextrack

Definitely to small for the minis but usable. From left to right; Black Scorpion, Reaper Miniatures, Wargames Foundry, Dixon, Knuckleduster

On30, exactly the same spacing between the rails as the HO standard, only the scale has changed so in this case the distance represents 30" rather than 4' 8 1/2" as it does in the HO shot.

S Scale, getting much closer again the distance between the rails is 4' 8 1/2". I like the feel of this and this is what I would like to use but equipment in S Scale is hard to find and somewhat expensive.

O Scale Standard gauge, they are definitely looking quite short here considering, again, the distance between the
rails is 4' 8 1/2". Only a couple of these miniatures are going to be close or over 5' tall  based on the photo.

All the following are closeups of the miniatures compared against the O Scale Standard Gauge track. Yea, this guy is barely over 5' tall.

ReaperCon Competition Minis - Steady Lads Finished

This is a quick post. Its early in the morning here and I haven't had any sleep. Not the best way to start the con. However, I did finish the Steady Lads diorama up and thought I would post a few pics for those of you who may have been waiting to see it. I think it came together quite well. The pics are missing the street sign but I have fixed that now.

A "New" Skintone Receipe

As happens frequently on my blog I can go off on tangents when working on something else. I have been working with my ScaleColor paints from Scale 75. However, I have found that they can be frustrating to work with at times. The regular line is just a bit thicker than a lot of other paints out there (including Vallejo Model Color) and thinning them properly can be vexing. When I have sat and worked with them exclusively for a while I find things coming together much better and their Fantasy Colors are much thinner and easier to work with.

One of the things that I have learned from Scale 75 is how to get a better variance in the skintones themselves (okay I knew this but I didn't really know how to put it in to practice). When you buy a set there is a little card in there with a couple examples on how to use their colors to achieve different effects. While the Spanish to English translation is poor (at best) they are usually simple enough to piece together what they are trying to say. It doesn't help that frequently the instructions are written from the point of view of someone using an airbrush. Its just impractical to use an airbrush to paint the face on a 25/28mm mini.

I decided that I would like to try and replicate the tones in the instructions with Reaper paints. Reaper makes up the bulk of my paints and I use them more frequently than any of the paints that I own. To match colors I went through an exercise that I have done before. On one sheet of paper I drew half inch squares with some space in between them. On another sheet I drew a much larger square and I cut the center out. The center being a 1/2"x1/2" square. The outer edges of these squares were painted with the flesh colors from Reaper and Scale75. I painted the different colors (and labeled them) on the 1/2" grid as well. With the center cut out I can slide the square with the color I'm trying to match with my smaller swatches of color. You can see a detailed example of this process in my post from June 9. 2014:Color Matching Brand to Brand

From this exercise I can see that Scale75's SC-22 Arabic Shadow is almost a dead ringer for 9220 Olive Shadow from Reaper. Using this method I was able to pick out 8 Reaper paints that are a pretty good match to the Scale75 Flesh set.

Here is the list:
SC-17 Pale Flesh  - 9048 Fair Highlight
SC-18 Light Skin  - 9234 Bright Skin Highlight
SC-19 Golden Skin - 9233 Bright Skin
SC-20 Basic Skin - 9044 Tanned Skin or 29822 Suntan Flesh
SC-21 Pink Flesh - 9140 Blushing Rose (I'll  have to find another equivelent for this if I run out of Blushing Rose, its a color that has been discontinued by Reaper).
SC-22 Arabic Shadow - 9220 Olive Shadow
SC-23 Indian Shadow - 29801 Crimson Red
SC-24 African Shadow - 9025 Burgandy Wine (probably with a drop of 9164 Dark Elf Skin to grey it down a bit)

I would then use these colors like this:
Base coat 1:1 Blushing Rose and Tanned Skin OR Suntan Flesh
Apply an overall highlight of 1:1 Tanned Skin OR Suntan Flesh and Bright Skin
Apply a shadow (working from underneath) of 1:1 Crimson Red and Blushing Rose
Apply a highlight of Bright Skin Highlight
Outline the eyes and the upper lip with 1:1 Crimson Red & Burgandy Wine
Apply a glaze to the cheeks of 1:1 Blushing Red and Crimson Red
Final highlight with 1:1 Bright Skin Highlight and Fair Highlight

The charts and some examples:

Color Swatches with product numbers and names. Don't forget this step!

You can see and maybe even be able to read some of my notes on the right

That's the Scalecolor colors on the top, everything else are Reaper Triads

Ultimately I will cut these out so I identified them on the back rather than the front.

The base coat of Blushing Rose + Tanned Skin

Here he is pretty much complete, probably still needs a few touchups

Reaper's BONES II, The Return of Mr Bones - Kickstarter Rewards

Reaper finished up shipping on their 2nd Kickstarter last week. I was in wave 10 so close to the end of the shipping process. So this very large 15# box  was on the porch when I got home. So it seemed appropriate to do a some "unboxing" pictures. One more successfully delivered kickstarter that I can check off the list. I have really dropped off on my Kickstarter support over the last year, I'm doing a better job resisting the siren's call. I'll keep this short and just get straight to the pictures.

The big box

Apparently filled with fillers (thank goodness it wasn't foam peanuts I hate that!).

Admittedly I didn't get very much. A printed thank you in the box was a nice touch. I also found a slip used by the person that pulled my order. In this case Ladystorm. If you have been on the Reaper Forums then you know that Ladystorm is one of the forum moderators.

This is what took up most of the box. Three copies of Dragons Don't Share II. One for me and the other two are going out to friends.

The little stuff. Bags of 25mm and 50mm bases, Hill Giants, the Kraken, Narthrax (dragon) and Troll Slayer Sophies (two for me, the last one goes with one of the DDSII). Looks like I can add some more to the plastic pile! I actually haven't managed to paint any of my BONES minis yet.

Diorama - The Supporting Cast I

With the basic construction completed on the diorama base its time to get some painting going on that as well. In this instance I'm actually using pigments as paint. Mixed is Isopropyl alcohol to make a sludge which I brushed on to the brick walls. I picked one primary color for the brick, in this case MiG Pigment old rust, which I thought had a nice brick color. I applied a lighter rust color to break up the pattern a bit and one called cargo dust to pick out some more weathered looking bricks. I sealed this with a fixative designed to seal chalk and pencil drawings as opposed to a regular matte finish. In many cases applying a straight sealer like dullcoat literally makes pigments disappear (the base is literally dissolving our pigments). The thing to keep in mind is that the alcohol will penetrate this fixative something to keep in mind for the next step.

I let the fixative dry for an hour and applied the mortar lines. Again using MiG Pigments I created a wash with the concrete pigment and dabbed it on so that it flowed between the bricks and into the mortar lines. If you try to brush it the alcohol will penetrate the fixative and smear the layer of pigment already on the brick. Let the capillary action do the work for you.

I'm not sure if I'm happy with the result at the moment. I think my mortar lines are to "white" even though they are actually light grey. I'll let it sit for a day or two and contemplate the result before I decide to try again.

I haven't done the cobblestones yet but the lamp post is pretty close to being finished, although the "light" still needs some work. To much orange I think, I'll start adding some yellow glazes to it, to brighten it up. I also added the first rat coming out of the wall in the alley. That really started to make the whole thing come to life for me.

Everything is starting to come together and I'm confident this one will be ready for Genghis Con coming up in February. I'm not so sure if the single miniature will make it or not, but time will tell.

On to the pictures!

MiG Pigments at the ready

Bricks "colored" and fixative sprayed on and dried. It really darken everything. I wasn't expecting that.

The Lamp post. Still needs some work.

Mortar lines applied, they may be to "white"

Adding the supporting elements to build the scene

This is the basic scene, just waiting to be finished. Obviously the cobblestones still need to be painted. That will help define the light and shadow of the piece.

A Rifleman to provide a little scale

The Alley side, now complete with a rat

And here we go, five more miniatures for another diorama. This one will be for Reaper Con so there is still time to figure everything out. At least the miniatures are ready to go!

Diorama - Painting the Minis II

So more work on the minis. The colors are all blocked in at this point with some of the shading and highlighting done. Moving forward with some deeper shadows, more lining and some higher highlights to make things start to pop. I also took a look at the aliens I'll be using and decided they weren't cleaned up well enough so I'm taking the steel wool to them to make sure they really are ready for paint.

Here I have straighten then sword and its ready for a new coat of primer

The Aliens, I found some molds lines and rough spots on these guys so it was back to the steel wool treatment for them.

Diorama - Building the Base IV

I'm getting close to finally wrapping up the building portion on the base. I'm filling in some of the imperfections and crumbling other things to get the "feel" I want. The only thing I'm on the fence about is whether I should put something in the windows or not. There is already a lot going on and I don't want the story to lose focus. Sometimes I think its a good idea and sometimes I don't! Either way though I need to get curtains in the window to at least serve as a view block to the interior of the building. I have downloaded some period posters that I'll use to help further set the time period. The end is in sight!