AIW Painting Challenge Month One WinnerDave's Jordanians

As I type this, it's the 23rd July and I've only just started the painting challenge.  In my defence, I couldn't afford to stop painting the 144 figures you get in a Strelkovy box, otherwise I'd never pick them up again.  Also the delay in shipping means I didn't receive my tanks until two days ago.

Sneek peek at the end result

So 500 points worth of miniatures, is not going to happen.  Then again it never was.  Points in game terms don't translate well into painting effort. So I'm going to focus on getting the infantry done (A Moshaa Mekaneekey (Mechanised) platoon, which is only 190 points and hope I can catch up in months 2 and 3.

Painting Painting ZSU-57-2

So I've started our new painting challenge and as with every new painting project I try to learn a few new techniques and tricks, and this project will be no different.

So I choose these guys as a nice little unit which can form part of my first months painting, they are similar enough to the T55 (obviously) to be a great test bed for the painting.

I started by cleaning up the models, and as a base colour I tried one of the Vallejo air brush base colours 'desert tan base' - the first issue is that this colour is a lot lighter than desert tan (my colour of choice) but by using a light colour there is less need for multiple layers to cover the black, also unlike the grey base I've used before, it's easier on the eyes to distinguish between the paint and the grey of the resin.

After basing it, I then did a layer of desert Tan, after this I covered the tank in a variety of tape and blue tab to highlight in a type of 'bad modulation' as I call it ( I used Vallejo air Sand) I tried to get some nice areas of contrast between panels, (, with varying degrees of success) in some places it's more subtle than others...

Random thoughts about Airbrushing

Hello fellow wargamers

Airbrushing is a big topic, full of opinions and there is simply no way I can cover all the aspects of airbrushing in this post.  I've owned 3 airbrushes since March 2012 and I've learned a bucket load in that time, but still have plenty left to learn.

Airbrushing the early days

I started airbrushing by purchasing one of those cheap Chinese kits you can get from eBay.  Now most airbrush artists will tell you not to get one.  My opinion, this is a great place to start and I'm very glad I did.  First off you may find you don't like airbrushing, that it isn't for you.  It's a steep learning curve and this can put people off.  Please don't think you can pick up an airbrush and start knocking out awesome looking freehand camo stripes because you've seen some youtube videos and it looks easy.  Back to the Chinese copy...I spent about £80.  I got a compressor, it lasted about 2 years and  I ended up donating to my FLGS along with the hose and of course I got a gravity fed, dual action airbrush which suffered a tonne of abuse at my hands for about a year.

Since then I've learned a thing or two, I now know that I should have gone for a kit which had a compressor piggy backing a tank and have gone for a single 0.3mm needle and nozzle.  This experience was put to good use when Adam's wonderful wife asked for my help in buying him his first airbrush as a present.  As far as I know, Adam's put that thing through its paces and it's still going strong.  I've just had a quick look on eBay and you're looking at £65 for similar setup, that my friends is a bargin.

Thoughts On Edge Highlighting and an Elefant

When I started painting, it was because I wanted to master smooth transitional blending, I thought it looked cool.  I wasn't really into edge/extreme highlighting and the few times I did try it, it looked awkward and not like how the big boys do it.  Then FOW entered my life and edge highlighting wasn't even on my radar any more...I mean if Reuben doesn't do it...then I don't need to...right?  That was until I saw this...this is by a chap who goes by the handle of stalkerminsky on www.heresybrush.com

That got me thinking about edge highlighting, I mean that is one cool looking tank right?  As I wasn't starting anything new any time soon though I've delayed it.  That's when the Italy books came out.  One of the things that struck me, was that the painting of the minis seemed different...might just be me, but have battlefront got new painters?  The thing that struck me was the prolific use of edge highlighting.

Review - Anarchy Models stencils (and some Jagdtigers)

Hi All Coxer here,

I thought I'd bring you a review of some stencils we were sent here at Breakthrough Assault.

They're from http://www.anarchymodels.co.uk/ and if you check their website they have some helpful videos to talk you through their use. Now They are designed to work with an airbrush, but I think with a bit of care they'd work with hand paints too as well. We were sent two sets of stencils, one of camo stripes one of German crosses, I thought I needed a big canvass to work on, thankfully I have 4 Jagdtigers lying around.

Finnish: Jääkäri Rifle Platoon (Winter)

Ok so let's start with the first unit for my 'Project Finland' force. I've decided to go for an infantry platoon initially as they are the core of all the forces and this I always feel a good starting place.

Firstly the models themselves. The models themselves had a fair bit of flash and lines that required trimming and filing, but nothing too excessive. The sculpt quality was very good! Compared to the British infantry I'd last done, the details were clear, hands and faces really sharp too.

Weathering a KV1

Hi,
I've been asked a number of times how I did the weathering on my Russian tanks, which is very flattering.  I had 10 KV1s originally, but I knew I wouldn't need that many.  I only fully painted 9 of them and left this one behind so I could a give a more detailed account of how I did the weathering.

and here it is.

Annoyingly I got got carried away and have only just noticed that I actually did the rust already so I can't show the previous step.  Anyhow, you can conclude from the tide marks of the rust, that a) I used really really thin paint and b) I wasn't too precious about applying it.

All ten tanks took no more than 10 minutes.  I took vallejp panzer aces Light Rust 301, added a tonne of thinner/water and ran it into all the crevices.  I then cleaned and dried off my brush and went back over it and soaked up some of the excess.  At this point I ran a few streaks down the turret.

Rust done...if that's all I was going to do, i'd have been way more careful with my application, but as I'm doing a number of steps I was quite splap-dash.

Painting a Hohei Chutai - EW Japanese Painting Guide

Hey guys,

Winner Dave here, talking about how I went about painting the all new Hohei Chutai.  I have an amazing ability to paint something, decide I don't like it and repaint it.  The Hohei Chutai is no different.  I got my hands on a new magazine called Painting War, which features my all time favourite painter Ruben Torregrosa, the guy is a legend and I've learned so much from him.  However my lesson this time round is that I have a style and it's not the same as Rubens.  I tried to copy Ruben's style but I didn't work out so I went back to my own style.  Here's how that went...

(Edit-quick pic of the finished product)



After the ever arduous task of cleaning the flash and straightening the bent bits, I primed and then undercoated  with Tamiya XF9 Brown.  After this I basecoated with Khaki Grey VMC 880, I used an Airbrush to speed the process.

Next I tackled the boots (Flat Brown VMC 984), then any wood parts like the rifle stocks and handles I used Beige Brown (875) and the bag Green Yellow (881).  So far these are the recommended colours you'll find in Rising Sun.

PSC's T-70 Painting Guide

Winner Dave's journey in painting Plastics Soldier Company's T-70...like this

Hello All

After doing my review of the PSC T-70, I thought I'd do a step by step guide of my 10 day journey on how I painted them.