Wednesday 20 August 2014

The Great War - Tommies - Mark IVs and Whippet

Here's my next instalment for the Great War, the Tanks.

I found the mark IVs a little tricky to paint, they are very narrow and very long.  The panels on the side are quite nice though and give you plenty of scope for doing simple panel highlighting that's quite effective.
I used this opportunity to try shading and highlighting with oil paints, which is a technique MiG Jimenez teaches.  I bought some cheap oil paints off Amazon for £1.10 and set about trying it.  I definitely worked and worked well, I need a bit of practice with it to get my technique down but I could see how it would work...that's until I applied Matt Varnish...it had a bad reaction with the oil paint and looked really bad...so that's something I need to investigate.

I ended up smothering the bad bits with pigments, so we've got very muddy looking tanks...but that fits better with the infantry bases I've been doing.
On to the whippet, what can I say, cool tank...need more, nice to paint.
I expect most of the pigment to come away with handling....not a problem.
Thanks for stopping by and stay classy

His Royal Winnerness, Dave

p.s. Just 1 platoon of infantry and I have a Great War Army...yahooo

8 comments:

  1. Lovely work on these Dave, they came out really well.

    The oils usually need quite a bit of time to dry properly, which may explain the reaction with the varnish.

    CdlT

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    1. Good tip, definitely one to try again sometime.
      Thanks buddy

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  2. Nice Dave
    Am I buying these as well LOL

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  3. So a friend of mine came across a crazy but effective way remove the white frosting you get fomr a bad reaction. Olive Oil... yeah I thought he was nuts too. Take some olive oil of a cloth and go over the affected area and then wipe it dry. your model will be shiny but another hit of mat Gloss (once its fully dry) will fix that. I have not tried this yet and like I said I though my friend was nuts but he showed me some miniatures he fixed this way and they looked good.

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    1. I love that tip...this wasn't the dreaded "white frosting" which some have experienced...this was a reaction with the oil paints which caused them to become very bright...however if I ever have the white frost of doom then olive oil it is.

      On another note I use olive oil to lube my airbrush needle...my wife thinks I'm nuts.

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  4. Hello Dave,

    Great looking stuff! I'm really enjoying your blog & podcast.

    About your oil problem- try sealing the oil paint (after it dries of course) with an acrylic-based clear coat like Tamiya's or Future Shine (which has once again changed it's name- use your Google-fu).

    The acrylic will keep the oils from reacting to subsequent enamel or lacquer-based coats like Testors Dullcote.

    Matt

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  5. The tanks look great. You've achieved a really nice realistic look to them. Great work!

    As others wrote, oil paints take a long time to dry. Like 24 hours or more depending on how thick they are. I usually leave mine at least overnight before varnishing.

    Another thing I have found is that oil paint quality makes a difference. Cheaper oil paints seem to have larger particles in them and don't look as good on small models. I bought some windsor and newton single tubes. They were pricey but last a long time.

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  6. What colour did you end up using as the base colour for the mark IV? I've got a pair I need to paint up.

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