Painting the Modelu O Scale Transitional Era Crew Bundle - Part 5 The Blues - Jackets

Even more blue. How can you go wrong with blue?

To start things I off I went with Reaper's Nightmare Black (9280) which really seems to be very deep, dark blue. Much like the HO versions I started very dark and do not intend to get quite to a faded look.

Painting the Modelu O Scale Transitional Era Crew Bundle - Part 2

Painting O scale is definitely a switch from working on the HO figures. Like the HO scale Transition Crew I decided to start out with a wash over the entire figure rather than straight to the skin tones. Even at this larger scale some of the  detail is subtle enough that I needed something to make things pop a bit. For this I used Walnut Brown (9136) from Reaper Miniatures. I thinned this down to a wash consistency. I used Vallejo Airbrush Thinner for this instead of plain water. 

I then painted each of the five figures with the wash and let them dry.

Now its time for the first skin tone; A.MIG-0134 Burnt Brown Red. I thin the paint a bit with water and apply it over the entire face. Normally I paint all of my skin tones first but for this crew only the face is visible. This step is pretty straight forward.

This should be allowed to dry but it that happens pretty quickly in this climate. I moved on to the second skin tone A.MIG-0133 Red Leather. Thinned a bit with water and then applied to the majority of face, leaving the deeper shadows and creases on the face in the original Burnt Brown Red.

This is a standard build up for skin tones in my painting process. I'm definitely out of practice but hopefully things will start coming together a bit better. From here I moving on to the third skin tone A.MIG-0118 Burnt Sand. Like the previous step I'm continuing to reduce the area this color is applied to, concentrating on the higher points of the facial features. Everything looks a little rough at this point. To smooth this out I created a glaze of Burnt Brown Red and applied this over the whole face. It helps blend the edges together and emphasizes the shadow area.

These are large enough to need one extra highlight, I used A.MIG-0117 Warm Skin Tone to apply smaller dots of color on higher points; the tip of the nose, point of the chin, tops of the ears. I then blended this in with a bit of Burnt Sand followed by a glaze of Burnt Sand. Just trying to pull things together. It was reasonably successful.

I have lost some of the definition on this one. I should go back and work in some more shadow

This one isn't to bad, the upturned face is hard to work with.

I like this one the best. could use a little more work.

A bit more difficult since he is looking down, I think I need to go back and re-work the mid-tone and maybe the highlight as well.

Another one where I started to lose the definition. He definitely needs some more work.

One note here, I'm electing not to try and paint the eyes. Since the "originals" are scanned as opposed to sculpted, the eyes are to scale and at this scale and from the distance they will be viewed you just aren't going to see that kind of detail, not to mention they are all squinting a bit. I let the eyes fill in with the shadow color instead of painting them.

Painting the Modelu O Scale Transitional Era Crew Bundle - Part 1

When I made my order from Modelu I ordered the Transitional Era Crew Bundle in both HO and O scales. Since I model in both HO and O I wanted to see how the Modelu measured up in both scales. Since these are, in theory, larger than my normal wargame figures I want to do push the quality a bit. I'm not going to try and push to a competition level, we will see how that goes, but I want them to look good on the layout (still way off in the future) since they are likely to get some rather intense scrutiny there.

These start off the same way the HO scale ones did, trim away the supports and some minor cleanup. That is certainly a nice feature of 3D prints, the lack of mold lines and injection marks is a big plus. As long as the resolution is high enough so you can't see the layers I'm good.

I drilled out a hole in one foot on each of the crew members for the wire and mounted them on bottle caps for painting. It is much easier to drill out that foot at this scale! Then it was off to the paint booth for a quick priming session. I used Badger Stynylrez Grey Primer (SNR-402) for this. By far my favorite primer although it is a bit pricey.

Basic work done, cleaned up, wired up and mounted for painting.

Its hard to tell at this point but the grey primer has been applied

Missed him in the pre-primed state but here he is primed and ready to go with the west.

Painting the Modelu HO Scale Transitional Era Crew Bundle - Part 2

I started things off a little differently. Normally I just move straight to the skin tones but this time I decided to start out with a wash over the entire figure. Some of the detail is subtle enough that I needed something to make things pop a bit. For this I used Walnut Brown (9136) from Reaper Miniatures. I thinned this down to a wash consistency. I used Vallejo Airbrush Thinner for this instead of plain water. 

I then painted each of the five figures with the wash and let them dry.

Time for the skin. My normal process is to paint all of the skin tones first, on these figures that's just the face. I painted all of the skin with three paints from Ammo by Mig. The first layer was Burnt Red Brown (A.MIG-0134) I thinned this down a bit, regular water this time, I didn't want the paint to be to thick. The second layer was with Red Leather (A.MIG-0133) again from Ammo by Mig, I applied this over most of the face trying to make sure the deeper areas weren't covered like under the brim of the hat.  My final color was Burnt Sand (A.MIG-0118),  thinned with water, I mostly, gently, dry brushed this straight down from the top of the head, catching just the higher areas to make everything pop a bit. Everything tends to look a little rough at this stage so I made a glaze of Burnt Red Brown and applied it on the entire face to help blend the colors together. A glaze is thinner than a wash and I used airbrush thinner rather than water for it.

I think I deleted a picture here, but at least two of them have the shadow skin color applied

Now the second layer, this is essentially the base skin color.

And then a combined step. The drybrush with the highlight skin tone with the shadow glaze,

With all of that done its time to sit back and ponder what colors I want to use on the rest of the clothing.