Painting the Modelu HO Scale Transitional Era Crew Bundle - Part 5 The Blues - Overalls

Rather than post each successive layer I figured it would be better to just show the finished product.

Let's start the beginning though, and some of this is probably excessive, I pulled three blues from Reaper to work on these overalls. I'm keeping these all at the same level of "wear" just because I want to keep things simple. If I do another batch I'll try some fading.

Reaper Ezren Blue (89528), Ultramarine (9188), Ultramarine Highlight (9189) and Moonstone Blue (9317)

I started off with the Ezren Blue in the last post but I had to go back and paint the caps so it was one step back to catch that little detail.

Next was a 

50/50 mix of Ezren Blue and Ultramarine. I thinned this down a bit and covered most of the overalls and caps with this, trying to keep the Ezren visible in the darkest areas of shadow.

I followed that with Ultramarine with just a hint of the previous mix in it. I try to keep working the brush in in downward direction as I go. In theory, this should keep this base color away from our shadows. This is the midtone the base color for the overalls.

Working our way up is a 50/50 mix of Ultramarine and Ultramarine Highlight with just a hint of Ezren blue added. Again, I went from top to bottom concentrating on just the higher areas of the clothing at this point. I managed to get a little enthusiastic with this and went a bit deep. I made a glaze of the Ezren Blue and toned down this highlight. It also helped to deepen the shadows and basically pull all the colors back together. I repeated this highlight and didn't get quite so enthusiastic with it this time.

I followed this up with Ultramarine Highlight with a bit of the previous mix in it and just kept hitting the highpoints. I thought this would be the final but things were still looking a little dark so it was off to one more color.

I had Moonstone Blue nearby from doing the study in blue so I mixed it the the Ultramarine Blue for one last highlight using it on the highest points. 

They look a little rough but its time to move on I think.

At this point I'm finding the details on these miniatures to be a bit to fine. While I'm not a huge fan of exaggeration there is a point when exaggeration is absolutely necessary. While the folds in the clothing is excellent, any other "softer", "smaller" details are lost at this scale. In particularly all the definition in the face has been lost. A sculptor would be able to exaggerate facial features to give the face depth and character. Difficult at this scale but I have seen sculptors do some amazing things at this scale (I have also seen some abysmal failures).

Painting the Modelu HO Scale Transitional Era Crew Bundle - Part 4 The Blues

Carol Highsmith photo from the Library of Congress

Sometimes you just come to a crossroads and you need to stop over thinking things and get some paint on the models. I picked Reaper Heather Blue (9231) for the base color on the shirt and Reaper Ezren Blue (89528).

I thinned them just a little bit and went to work. Pretty pleased with the result, the Ezren Blue dried a little darker than it was looking. Looks like a reasonable shade for newer denim. The Heather Blue isn't a bad start for a blue shirt color. I want to try a wash at this point, put haven't quite decided what color to use yet.

Painting the Modelu HO Scale Transitional Era Crew Bundle - Part 3

A study in blue. I'm trying to figure out the next set of colors for the transition era clue and without a doubt blue is the color to use. Between shirts, jeans and overalls it all just screams to be some shade of blue.

I grabbed a bunch of Reaper paints and decided that the easiest way to figure it was to do some swatches. Here is what I came up with.

After all that, I'm still not sure what I'm going to use. I guess I'll study it for a bit.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Jigsaw Puzzles - Christmas Puzzles Next One Up

The parade of puzzles continues with "The Pine" this is a picture I took about 40 years ago when we hiked up to the 4th of July Mine above Eldora CO. The original is a slide that I had converted to a jpg file. I should have run it through some editing software first but I can do that with the next print I have made from this file.

I decided to do a more start to finish on this one.

This time around I opted to work my way around and do the entire edge first. I have been experimenting with the best way to start and puzzle and this seems to work the best for me.
Top Edge

Adding the left edge

Working across the bottom

And back up to the top.

And this is what's left after I have cut the edge away.

This one came in at 173 pieces (which is right in the range I was shooting for), it could have been a couple more but I decided to not cut any of the whimsies into multiple parts. I think this one is going to be a pretty hard to complete there isn't a whole lot to distinguish one tree from another.

Jigsaw Puzzles - Christmas Puzzles Started

I have finished off two Christmas puzzles. Not terribly happy with some of the cuts on the first one, so I may just hold that one back as a display puzzle. Here is the one I finished this week. This one came in at 216 pieces, which means I'm cutting some of the pieces to small. I'm shooting for 180 - 200 pieces for 8"x10" puzzles so I'm overthinking things a bit at the scroll saw. I use some templates I created for the "whimsies" other than that everything is cut freehand.

This is a Carol Highsmith photo from the Library of Congress. She donated her entire portfolio to the LOC.

After I finish a cutting there is a lot of sanding to be done on the back before I can wrap it up. Sometimes its easier to see the shapes from this side.

World War II Project - British Airborne - reboot prep

I have done all the initial prep work and the everything is ready for primer (or re-priming in some cases).

What you see is a British Airborne Platoon based on the organization in Chain of Command. I admit that I was unsure of the composition of Section 3 as it has two Bren gunners. After haunting some forums and digging deep I found that there was a spare Bren gun issue to the platoon. It makes sense that rather than waiting for one of the three assigned guns to break to assign it to a section and create a section that could serve as a base of fire for the platoon.

Everything is from Warlord Games. I started this platoon when all you could get was metal. The issue is there are way to many Sten guns and not enough rifles. I have a stash of Sten gun equipment soldiers now. I also built up as many of the support units that I could. That is why I have a fourth section of Airborne troops, there are 3 Vickers, 2 3" mortars to go with that. I still need to build a section of regulars that I is another support option. Hopefully I can use that as a nucleus for a British motor platoon.

Not sure when I'll have time to start priming but everything is sitting in the booth waiting for the fun to begin.

An overall look at the platoon with the supports. This is before I finished putting everything on 25mm bases.

I needed 8 more figures so I turned to the plastic Airborne box to flesh things out. Overall I'm pretty pleased with these, but they are definitely a bit bigger and bulkier than the metal troopers.

A look from the Back

Platoon HQ section

1st section.

2nd Section

3rd Section, they have the extra Bren gun and the sniper.

The extra Airborne section

Support weapons.  These are support weapons and crews. Within Chain of Command these need 5 man crews. Typically some kind of counter is used (a die or something equivalent) to count down casualties. I'm thinking something right on the base itself or maybe just go with kill rings.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

World War II Project - British Airborne - reboot

I have been more than a little distracted lately with work and Christmas projects (I may have over committed on puzzles this year). Not to mention that after developing a window solution for the Church I have run out of steam. So in order to try and get back on track I pulled out my British Airborne to figure out what I have and what I might need.

In theory I have one section finished and second section getting close. However, I thought I should just work it out from the beginning again. My rule set of choice for platoon/skirmish level actions is Chain of Command (CoC) by Too Fat Lardies. All the miniatures I have on hand are from Warlord Games. I would love to replace these as there are some much nicer options out there now, but this is what I have in hand. In addition to a much of metal I have box of their plastics which means I could probably put together a second platoon.

After the initial sort I have all the components of the HQ section, all three sections and most of the support options (including an additional section of Airborne). All of this in metal, although the extra Airborne section will need some plastics to fill it out to full strength. I also wanted to use different figures for each section leader so three of those will be made up from the box of plastic minis.

I put one section leader together last night, he is definitely a bit bigger than the original metals. Shouldn't be a problem once everything is painted and based. And speaking of that I'm going to repaint everything to ensure that its all consistent, even the finished troops that are based. I'm not going to strip them just re-prime over what is there. I'm going to change my painting philosophy about this and go the army speed painting route.

At the moment I just plan on getting everything prepped and ready for priming. I still need to finish the church and the group of HO scale minis I have started painting.

In this shot, three full sections for the 1st Platoon, two Vickers supports, 2 mortar supports and most of a 4th section (way to many sten guns in the metal packs, I need more rifles).

Here is the platoon HQ section and some additional supports; medics, 2" mortar team and another piat team (in addition to the ones in the HQ section

There are still some support units that I need to get my hands on, most of which are engineers which may need to be converted from my box of plastic British infantry. I also need to put together a section of regular infantry as a support.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday