Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Conflicts that came in from the Cold => Topic started by: Nysse on 30 April 2014, 10:20:43 AM
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To get myself motivated for painting different projects I'm rolling out themed months. Following Airborne April (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=65135.0) I'm going to try my hands on Modern minis this time.
I bought into Empress Miniatures Pacific Kickstarter last summer and as a result I have a rather largish pile of Modern minis waiting for painting consisting of roughly 80 infantry and 2 large M-ATVs.
Learning from my overly ambitious goals last month I scaled down my targets a little. I'm starting with 20 boonie toting marines in MARPAT for use against the PLA that a fellow club member has. These will be followed by some divers and DEVGRU and if I seem to have time on my hands I'll start with a force for Afganistan scenarios consisting of 2 Oshkosh M-ATV's and 20 marines.
Modern May goals
- 20 USMC, boonies, MARPAT - all done
- 5 Navy Divers
- 4 DEVGRU
- 20 USMC, helmets, Desert MARPAT
- 2 Oshkosh M-ATV
I got a little head start by prepping the first bunch of Marines and an M-ATV, which was really a pain in the butt to build. No instructions didn't exactly help and I had a few issues with fit on the model. And also the classical super glue problems. I have no idea how it fails to keep together parts that are correctly aligned, but the moment you put something on wrong it forms a nigh indestructible bond on milliseconds. So now I have a front bumber that is slightly crooked and a rear railing that just refuses to stay glued down.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rjw8OGpNAyA/U10aNcNwVgI/AAAAAAAACes/A6GQjoZ1Iuk/s1600/usmc.jpg)
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Looks like that you still have quite a lot of things to paint, even if you scaled down your target number :)
That M-ATV looks like a beast, nice to see the pic as I have been pondering on getting one at some point... but reading about your probs with building it, I wonder if I manage to build it at all lol
I wouldn't worry about the front bumber at all, with proper wear and tear and extra gear added to the vehicle, it's just looks proper, I think.
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Looks like a nice project.
I like the look of the M-ATV - I wish that they would also produce the TPV SWAT truck variant as well.
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Looks like that you still have quite a lot of things to paint, even if you scaled down your target number :)
Yeah, the desert guys boost the number up even though I probably won't be having time to paint them up :)
I got started on the first batch of Marines today. More of a practice set for painting MARPAT and finding proper colours before starting on the rest of the bunch. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and they colours seem accurate enough at least to my eye. Painting the camo pattern was actually surprisingly easy. I just did horizontal and vertical lines piled together to simulate the sharp edges of the pixel camo. Looks quite good if you compare it to what the real thing would look like from roughly 30 meters or so. Still needs a wash to pop the details out, but I'm pretty optimistic. Hopefully I'll get them finished tomorrow.
I'm still not 100% sure on whether to paint their faces with skin colours or camo paint. Any tips on how to successfully paint camo on their faces are really welcome. I'm thinking that painting a simpler version of the face with only 1 highlight followed by some really thinned paints for camo might work nicely. At least when I was in the army all the camo paint seemed to start disappearing from your skin almost immediately, especially in summer time.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IOFN1HDsd6Q/U2aIz9-sQqI/AAAAAAAACgs/zlXGpxc0ylI/s1600/marpat.jpg)
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Nice, I really like the way the marpat came out... thanks for describing the process
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Yeah, the desert guys boost the number up even though I probably won't be having time to paint them up :)
I got started on the first batch of Marines today. More of a practice set for painting MARPAT and finding proper colours before starting on the rest of the bunch. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and they colours seem accurate enough at least to my eye. Painting the camo pattern was actually surprisingly easy. I just did horizontal and vertical lines piled together to simulate the sharp edges of the pixel camo. Looks quite good if you compare it to what the real thing would look like from roughly 30 meters or so. Still needs a wash to pop the details out, but I'm pretty optimistic. Hopefully I'll get them finished tomorrow.
I'm still not 100% sure on whether to paint their faces with skin colours or camo paint. Any tips on how to successfully paint camo on their faces are really welcome. I'm thinking that painting a simpler version of the face with only 1 highlight followed by some really thinned paints for camo might work nicely. At least when I was in the army all the camo paint seemed to start disappearing from your skin almost immediately, especially in summer time.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IOFN1HDsd6Q/U2aIz9-sQqI/AAAAAAAACgs/zlXGpxc0ylI/s1600/marpat.jpg)
Great looking, but can you make a picture with maco? I would like to see your camo as help for mine?
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Yeah I'll get my DSLR out when I get them completely painted. Just a wash and the bases to do. For the WIP shots I'm too lazy to dig out a proper camera and sometimes the mobile phone pics don't really work that well :)
I might try to do a step-by-step tutorial for the camo at some point. Might make it a bit clearer to see what I've done.
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These are mine:
(http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x429/forofo27/73EFAAF3-0C6A-44B2-9BEE-2F42B7EC0FD6_zpsuukvgaac.jpg~original)
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So I just finished basing the first fire team yesterday evening. Hopefully the better pics help in understanding how I paint the pattern. I'll try to do a small tutorial later on to show it better.
Painting wise I'm not that big of a fan of modern infantry uniforms. They just look a bit dull however nicely you paint them. Darn practicality and camouflage properties being deemed more important than the flashiness of Napoleonic times for example :D Still these are actually quite fast to paint as there is basically only the uniform and then the armor and webbing to do. On the uniform I just painted the basic colours followed by a wash and on the armor and webbing I added one highlight before using a wash on them.
I left the faces with just skin color to add at least a bit of contrast to the camouflage colours. Camo paint on the face would probably have turned the whole thing too dark and heavy at least in my opinion.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GvKm0QgTF9U/U2nj-Y-owiI/AAAAAAAACh8/_KbI7XfSZ70/s1600/IMG_1166.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yB6zT_np8GA/U2nj-Ak3tdI/AAAAAAAACh0/ykLjwoplKvI/s1600/IMG_1167.jpg)
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MRXHaS-aDWM/U2nj--hpq3I/AAAAAAAACiA/DHZb-DydT9Q/s1600/IMG_1169.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n30iwpZ9sxA/U2nj-df9J-I/AAAAAAAACh4/JMhTHe_c7wM/s1600/IMG_1168.jpg)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FkYA26rHL2s/U2nj-w79GAI/AAAAAAAACiI/_v0EKzzXPu8/s1600/IMG_1170.jpg)
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Chap on the left is really sticking his neck out. He must be hunting for a medal :)
Very nice brushwork tho'. Quite a fair impression of the scheme.
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Chap on the left is really sticking his neck out. He must be hunting for a medal :)
Very nice brushwork tho'. Quite a fair impression of the scheme.
Thank you! And yeah I didn't cut the neck short enough. The only real problem with the minis are the necks really. You have to remove around half of it to make them look normal.
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They look great.
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I think they look great and I'm sure the neck will be ignored at gaming height. Lookin' good. Must resist the urge to start collecting moderns...staaaaay the course. :)
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You really need to chop the necks a bit more , I had the same problem, but i removed the paint off and chopped the necks off . The pattern is good.
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Thanks guys!
Yeah the neck is really only a problem on that guy from the whole batch. Didn't cut it short enough and neglected dryfitting :D When I checked the length superglue had already done it's job. Didn't bother with fixing it as it doesn't show from normal viewing distances anyway. Close-ups are too revealing :P
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Nice work on the Camouflage Nysse, it came out well.
I for one hope you make a step -by-step tutorial when the paint your next squad, as I was wondering what paints and washes you used and the technique you used to get the effect.
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Yeah the neck is really only a problem on that guy from the whole batch. Didn't cut it short enough and neglected dryfitting
Instead of chopping of the head , you could put some camo on the neck as with the miniature underneath ;)
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A little shemagh or camo net around the neck would look fine...or he's just a standup fella, always willing to stick his neck out for his teammates...(badum...ching...)
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I would go for the shemagh rout myself
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Thanks guys!
Yeah I might have to add a shemagh on that guy later on. Fixing issues comes after everyone is ready for gaming :P
I've got the next 8 about 50% done now and I'm taking some pics to show how I do the camo. Hopefully up by the end of the week.
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I'm taking some pics to show how I do the camo. Hopefully up by the end of the week.
Looking forward to this - I think you have nailed the colors of marpat perfectly.
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That M-ATV looks huge! :o
Is it properly scaled to the troops? It looks bigger then Imprint BMP-3s lol
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That M-ATV looks huge! :o
Is it properly scaled to the troops? It looks bigger then Imprint BMP-3s lol
Well in real life it is bigger than most WW2 tanks :D It looks pretty ridiculous next to a tiny Tetrarch that I have for my WW2 british airborne ;)
Finished up the next two fireteams of marines. Still two more to go with the Woodland coloured fellas. Though I am thinking of just painting the rest of them in Woodland camo too. Forget Afganistan, we need more manpower to conquer China!
Tutorial on the camo coming up shortly, I just need to finish writing it up on my blog and then I'll post it here!
I also realized I should probably paint some of these guys with darker skin too. I would think that it's pretty much impossible to find a marine unit consisting of only white males. Need to find some good tutorial for painting dark skintones as I haven't really tried it before.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o48iv16ww14/U3TkhsEpWZI/AAAAAAAAClQ/fMLLAICvciQ/s1600/IMG_1197.jpg)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zQGw9qm5kLI/U3TkpNe4qbI/AAAAAAAACmA/0eZupYwmvO0/s1600/IMG_1198.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RUQBWr1kLPg/U3TkjlBE6MI/AAAAAAAAClk/RkvUp7wXkkg/s1600/IMG_1200.jpg)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UG9FTMmsJ24/U3Tklmhxx-I/AAAAAAAAClo/eQdNhzL8R4Y/s1600/IMG_1202.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7sKscIfw6zo/U3TknGWG43I/AAAAAAAACl0/DlhxHSc1z-4/s1600/IMG_1204.jpg)
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That M-ATV looks huge! :o
Is it properly scaled to the troops? It looks bigger then Imprint BMP-3s lol
commissarmoody, these vehicles are huge. I don't think most people realize just how big they really are. Here are some photos that will give you some idea of the size of the beasts.
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Well they do say the American automative industry is being forced to adapt their designs to meet the needs of a heftier populace. Betcha those ATVs have super sized cup holders too.
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I just wanted to make sure. they started fielding those things after I got out.
I guess they had to make them bigger to provide an effective shaped hall, and to handle the extra armor.
Also might think about picking up some LAV-III's for the Armored scout section. :D
And Yes a few guys with darker skin might be a good add on. I know that my old company had a few Asian's(Korean a Thai and one guy from Vietnam) 3 of African decent. A few from Guam and the Philippians and about a dozen from different south and central American country's. ( One Puerto Rican, 4 of Mexican's, 1 Nicaraguan, 1 Columbian, 3 Cubans and a guy from French Guiana) Of that group only the dude from Guiana was actually from Guiana. the Rest all grew up and where raised in America or its territories.
And to end it all we had three guy's of native American decent. But no feathers they where a bunch of skater kids who liked rock and pop-punk. And would be doing kick flips on their free time.
The rest of us were your generic ethic emulsion of European descent. But we had the movie trop's, Bostonians who you can barely understand. Some trendy New Yorkers, mouthy New Jerseyan's, The Cali'click (Californians) The Texans. Red necks from every where, southern boys, mid-western farmer kids and a few wannabe gangsters.
I can break it down even more if you want? lol
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I can break it down even more if you want? lol
Yeah I think I understand what you mean :D Seems the army is a bit more of a melting pot of cultures there than anything else :D Funny enough even here in Finland we're starting to have quite a bit of non-white guys in the Army now with a lot of second generation immigrants. Seeing a black guy put on white camo paint during winter always seemed a bit funny... :D We actually had some guy from Serbia/Kosovo who had already been to war there when he had to do his military service in Finland when he got citizenship. Never saw anyone move so fast while practically becoming what seemed like paper thin on the ground. Maybe being fired at for real does help you grasp the finer points of staying in cover a bit faster :D
But to a more serious matter. Anybody have a good tutorial for painting black skin? I guess the South Americans could be done with just skipping the final highlight on the skin and maybe adding a tiny bit of brownish red to the whole mix, but I'm a bit at a loss with black dudes.
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Nice work, maybe a bit shinny, perhaps you need a varnish mate coat on them. Can you tell me were to find M-ATV? What scale is it? 1/43?
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Finished up the painting tutorial for MARPAT. Longer version up on my blog for those more interested: http://engineered-gaming.blogspot.fi/2014/05/tutorial-usmc-in-woodland-marpat.html (http://engineered-gaming.blogspot.fi/2014/05/tutorial-usmc-in-woodland-marpat.html)
Paints used for the camo and the webbing are as following. Vallejo Model Colour mainly.
70824 German Camo Orange Ochre
70890 Reflective Green
79894 Russian Green
70886 Green Grey
70995 German Grey (or black if you like)
70921 English Uniform
70998 Khaki
GW Devlan Mud (or any other dark brown wash or ink)
Basecoat the whole uniform with German Camo Orange Ochre
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YZy9Zt2L51U/U3TcLaNowDI/AAAAAAAACkk/h_iGSZjd_AE/s1600/IMG_1176.jpg)
Apply first layer with Reflective Green. This should cover about 50 percent of the uniform. Apply it in horizontal and vertical lines to simulate the sharp edges that the real camo can have.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IMTnguJdRdQ/U3TcAkiXKMI/AAAAAAAACjU/-xaf2XwRtEs/s1600/IMG_1178.jpg)
Apply German Grey (or black of you want it darker) in similar fashion as the previous layer, but in smaller areas and covering only under 10 percent of the whole uniform.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3-r6WVjTtjQ/U3TcBsjHYrI/AAAAAAAACjk/Frenahjctq0/s1600/IMG_1180.jpg)
Add small areas with Green Grey. This should only cover a few percent of the uniform.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fizkcJxbpuY/U3TcC4Gxv4I/AAAAAAAACjo/H2uOM6kzWNY/s1600/IMG_1182.jpg)
The webbing is painted with English Uniform and Highlighted with a 50/50 mix of English Uniform and Khaki
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-svgowLAvgxI/U3TcEbSDIaI/AAAAAAAACj0/cKbnRGDRzdQ/s1600/IMG_1184.jpg)
Finally the whole uniform and webbing are covered with a wash. Keep it thin as you don't want to emphasize any folds too much, but rather just bring out details like pockets etc.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Iqg2pdAmioc/U3TcKcJVrvI/AAAAAAAACkg/HXiaXVD1PdE/s1600/IMG_1193.jpg)
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Nice work, maybe a bit shinny, perhaps you need a varnish mate coat on them. Can you tell me were to find M-ATV? What scale is it? 1/43?
It's more due to the lighting I have on the photo booth at the moment. They actually have a few coats of matt varnish on them and don't look shiny to the eye.
The M-ATV is from Empress Miniatures (http://www.empressminiatures.com/). 1/56 or 28mm scale.
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The company that Empress bought out that produces their modern vehicles builds their range in the 1/50th scale. I have a couple of their models. The detail is great, and they fit nicely with my 28mm minis.
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Well my painting speed has been going down quite a bit lately thanks to switching to a new job that sees me traveling quite a bit more and having to work longer hours. Still I managed to finally finish the last 8 Marines and got started on the first Oshkosh and the Frogmen.
This time a few of the guys have darker skin than I normally paint and I guess this is probably also the first time that I even attempted painting skintones like this. I tried to go for a light brownish African American skintone and a bit more reddish Mexican/Latin American skintone. I think the brownish tones worked out quite nicely, though I probably should have gone a bit darker.
On the Oshkosh I have gotten the main paint layers down with preshading, main colour and some colour modulation done with an airbrush. Next up painting the few details that the truck has and then weathering, though there's no way that I'm going to finish this during May anymore. Maybe next week then.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9a8PIxFXgIA/U4oye1IJLvI/AAAAAAAACqk/3p6sMHXcZiQ/s1600/IMG_1252.jpg)
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gW_bfbSKBwU/U4oye_47h6I/AAAAAAAACrA/fOZwcAc6m80/s1600/IMG_1254.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eohyIsuSzJE/U4oyezk8HnI/AAAAAAAACqo/ywnG88JbvUQ/s1600/IMG_1255.jpg)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TvROUkIWqpQ/U4oyf5GSUaI/AAAAAAAACq4/DkU1ZkKu_hQ/s1600/IMG_1256.jpg)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eIDY01iItkc/U4oygAquicI/AAAAAAAACq0/q_VjKDg57iQ/s1600/IMG_1257.jpg)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YGx0bQWte5g/U4oyrMSbuDI/AAAAAAAACrM/vK9qEXRzHPc/s1600/oshkosh.jpg)
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Nice work - well done :)