Miners from Sloppy Jalopy Painting Log

[PanzerKaput]

I have never done one of these before so please bare with me on this as I am not totally sure how this will work out. Its might actually be a little boring but hopefully not and it will be of interest to someone. So without further to do the painting log for Sloppy Jalopy's new Very British Civil War miners.




The figures as I have said before in the previous post are very nicely done and sculpted by Mr Matt Bickley and Mr Bill Thornhill. The casting is very sharp and clean with few mold lines which can be easily files away. The actually figures are now that I have had a good old chance to look at them up close and personally are very nice, well detailed and have a very naturally posed.




The nice thing about them, besides the look of them and there versatility is the fact that they have separate heads. Now I know that some of you will think that separate heads is a pain and figures look better with the heads sculpted with them on but these are actually very good and actually work very well. There is a nice range of different heads from Miners Hats, naturally, wouldn't be miners without Miners Hats, but also bowlers, bare heads and flat caps. I know that Sloppy Jalopy with be doing other heads including helmets, straw hats and other head wear which means that you can have a good number of variations with these and if Sloppy do other militia types, like urban wear and rural wear militias, you could have a wonderful range.




All I have done with these chaps is to pose the heads and place them on the bodies, cleaned up the old mold line or two and then glues that to bases, in my case 2 pence pieces, I love them as they have the right height and add a little weight, especially to plastic miniatures. Then I added the mixed gravelly sand mix and undercoated them in matt black spray paint, I used Wilko's BBQ and Woodstove spray paint, which is quite cheap but it does give a good finish if when you first spray it it looks to thick and all the detail has been covered and lost but once it is dried in looks rather neat.

Well what with work, lucky enough to be temporary promoted to team leader, Mrs PK trying her best to fill every second of the day with going here and there I have managed to progress these Miners along a wee bit. What we are going to see is the stages on how I painted the fresh tones. Now I am no expert painter, no matter how I kid myself, but I have found, possibly the longer way to paint skin ever and you will see what I mean.



Now as I have said I am no expert when it comes to painting and I paint figures rather like I paint my illustrations which means you can see the brush strokes of the paint that I have laid down. Also I do water/thin down my paints a fair bit which allows me to layer paint on top of other to try and give it a more natural feel, not really sure that it is worth the enough though.





First off I applied a thin coat of Vallejo's Model Colour, Hull Red as the base for the skin as I want the feel of tough, hard working men with that weathered, ruddy look to the skin. I have found this to be a great colour as it keeps the luminosity of the layer that are laid down on top of it within making the other paints fight and jar against it.





Next a mixed Vallejo Game Colour, Tan, I use this colour as I cannot find a suitable colour close to tan in the Model Colour range, with the Hull Red that I used previously, and painted that over most of the skin leaving the recesses between the fingers, the eras, around the nose, the mouth in the darker base colour so to forum shadows. After this I painted the next layer using the Tan colour again on the top must areas so building the skin tone up.







The next layer I painted using Vallejo's Model Colour, Sunny Skin, mixed with a little tan and applied this to the nose, chin, cheek bones, the eye brows, ears, basically all the areas where light would hit it and then I washed the whole skin area down using Vallejo's Model Colour, Burnt Cadmium Red, to basically use the skin that glow that skin has.I have to admit I love the Burnt Cadmium Red colour as it is great for this as it gives a slight glaze to the figure.





After this I paint another layer of Sunny Skin mixed with a little Tan on top of this along the nose, cheek bones, eye brows, ears, all the areas where light hits the skin and then I highlight where pure Sunny Skin on all the above again but it lesser amounts. Once this is all done I simply paint the lips in Tan to finish off the figure.









I am not totally sure it is worth all the effort to paint the skin this way but I think that is gives a good naturally feel to the skin and in my opinion it is the part of the model that you should work the hardest on as it is the part most people look at first.

Well I hope you like that next with the painting of the clothes before I go onto the weapons and all the other bits and pieces.

Have a nice day.

PK

[Burnin Coal]

Nice log PK....good to see the figures up so close...haven't ordered mine yet but seeing the detail and sculpting in flat black has just got me extra keen now...look forward to following your progress

[Mason]

Nice work, PK.
A very informative and clear process for achieving an excellent result.
 

[Hu Rhu]

This is a great tutorial.  Looking forward to seeing how they turn out. 

I have to admit the figures look good close up.  So tempting that I might kickstart my VBCW project just to include these. 

[marianas_gamer]

Very nice, please continue.
LB

[PanzerKaput]

Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone and I hope that this year is going to bring you happiness and joy.



I have been working of Sloppy Jalopy's Miners over the Christmas period as much as I can, which is been not a lot, but I have managed to progress a couple of the figures to a point where they are nearly finished. I started working of the unit leader/commander/ foreman first, thinking that it makes sense to me to start with him. Now these are 1930s miners for the Snibston Miners Section and I wanted to get that working class feel for them so I have gone for the mutes tones of greys, blacks and browns. I was thinking of having the suit as a Prince of Wales check but thought that as these chaps as Socialists I thought it wouldnt suit their ethics.



So to give him some colour I have gone with a red armband and a red tie, making him or rather them out as a socialist section and I think that it works well. I decided that I was not goig to give his a red scarf too as I thought this would be too much red so I when for a Leicester City football scarf or a couple of reasons, one, it adds more colour to the figure and two being working class I couldnt imagine him following the Leicester Tigers Rugby club. Now I could of gone for a couple of other clubs, Notts County, Nottingham Forest or even Derby as they are all local to Snibston but decided on Leicester as these chaps fight for the Socialist Corporation of Leicester.



I still have the metalwork on the lamp and the gun to do but I am waiting to I have finished all the chaps before doing that.



Next up is one of the banner bearers as you get two in the pack. This might seem a little strange but actually it makes as colliery banners usually require two or more men to carrier as they are big. This chap is in what I would call your average coal-workers clothing being dressed in overalls and with what was very common for the time a flat cap. I have gone for the standard blue for the overalls, doing my best not to make them look like denim material as they would be a heavy cotton trill, God I have gone all technical, which I painted using Vallejo's Model Colour Dark Prussian Blue and Prussian Blue with a little bit of Blue Grey mixed into the Prussian for the highlights.



The shirt I wanted to be an off white colour, the colour of an old, well used shirt with I used Russian Uniform for the base and lighted it with Blue Grey and top highlights of Off White, all again by Vallejo Model Colour range. Again I did the armband red to add some colour and the flat cap I painted grey and checked with Tan Earth and Iraqi Sand. Again the metalwork on the buckets and the gun, which is stuffed into the front pocket of the overalls is still to be done.



Next up is the other banner bearer who is a work in progress as I have only done the trousers, jacket and the miners helmet and just put the base colour down on the overcoat. I am hoping on having him finished soon as I can them work on the colliery banner, once I have found some reference for it. Again I am going with the muted colours and didnt want to do this as a suit but rather a jacket of trouser combination, which I think has worked well. I am in two minds on whether or not to have a checked pattern on the overall, which was quite common during the 1930s.



The overall is bases in Vallejo's German Extra Dark Green, which I think is a wonderful dark green base colour while the trousers where painted using German Black Brown, German Medium Brown and Tan Earth by Vallejo.

I have you are enjoy this and more will be coming soon.

Have a nice day

[Burnin Coal]

Looking really good PK...nice brushwork and evocative of the times...some of your finest to date I would say and carry VBCW into 2016 in fine style...

[SiamTiger]

Interesting project. Do you think they would be a good match as interwar german miners from the Ruhr-Rebellions?

[PanzerKaput]

I think they would do as they are rather generic and they are mainly armed with P17 rifles

[PanzerKaput]

I have to admit that the work on these miners is painfully slow, mainly due to the fact that I am knackered when I get home from work and all I want to do is veg out, which is a pity as I want these fellas painted.



As you can see I have now finished well also finished, the metal work needs to be done, the lewis gunner and loader, which means that the command pack for the miners is finished, almost, and I can start work on the other chaps and the Colliery Flag.



As with the other figures in the command pack these chaps are lovely posed and have great character. I have aimed still for the muted tones and colours adding some blacks and browns this time. I have gone for the working class look still with these, no fanciness with these chaps, though the suits and the fellas themselves are rather clean, most of washed before fighting.



I am enjoying painting these chaps and each one is different and a little gem which is helping to build up the character for the unit. The mutes palette is working and the hint of bright colour is stopping them from being dull. More to come soon.

Have a nice day.

[Burnin Coal]

Am enjoying watching these come together PK....they really do look the part so are well worth all the time and effort...working with a muted palette is a great choice and you've got the tones absolutely spot on...these chaps are building up into a great looking unit...so I'm cheering you on in the meanwhile

[PanzerKaput]

This is just a quick update on the progress of the miners by Sloppy Jalopy that I am slowly working on.



I have finished another two of the miners leaving just four to go and I am still loving painting these figures as they have bags of character and a real pleasure to paint. I am still keeping with the muted tones but this time I thought I would add a little variation in the mix by giving one of them pin strips trousers.



I have to admit that painting the pin strips, the first time I have done it in a very long time, with a right pain, but these sculpts have lovely flat areas which helped to make it easier and I think that it has come out rather nicely. I was thinking of painting his tank top in a fair isle pattern but I thought that would be a little too much but I might come back to it later.



The other chap I have painted I have gone for the muted, sober tones of a plain green suit but I have added a bit of colour with a red, poker doted, neck scarf. Again this was a dream to paint and very nicely sculpted.



Thats all for this time, so have a nice day.

PK

[Bullshott]

These are looking very nice. I can see I'll have to buy a pack

[PanzerKaput]

Yes indeed I am nearly at the end of painting my miners I have got from Sloppy Jalopy, with now only one left to paint and then its the metalwork and bases to do.



The more I have painted these boys the more I have enjoyed it and now I have been working on there characters and personalities in my head as I have painted them. Please tell me that someone does this too because if not then I am a right nutter.



So first up is the "Old Man". Actually when I first this the sculpt I thought that this was the weakest of all them as it didnt shout out to me as the others did but once a suit was done it popped, strange when that happens isnt it? I again went for the sober suit colour with this dark prussian blue colour. I was thinking of having a simple check patterning to it but decided against it as it would taken away from the figure. The accents of colour with the strap for the rifle and the sticks of dynamite set the figure off.



Next is the "young chap" who is the youngest member of the mining team and is wearing a hand me down suit. I really like the pose of this figure and besides having the bandoleers, which I like as I like that would be the most common bit of webbing, is the fact that he has a jumper on under the suit. I have painted him is a sober bluish grey colour, like it is his best.



Lastly here is the "Pretty Boy", in his working coveralls, bandoleer of shotgun shell and armed with a shotgun. I really like this figure as it ouses character. In my mind he is a more political member of the militia, having missed out on fighting in the Spanish Civil War for the Republicans, took up the trade union banner and joined the local Independent Labour Party. Always fighting for his Brothers rights and the rights of the working man, he is always the first into a fight.



Even though these figures are for Very British Civil War I can see these being used for other periods like a workers militia for the SCW or the German Civil War, 1919 to 1921. I can being used in a Peaky Blinders, 1920s style game to be being used in a Spy Fi game like James Bond.

Anyway enough of my ramblings and hav a nice day.

PK

[PanzerKaput]

I am not totally sure if this is Work in Progress or finished as i still have the bases to do but I guess until the bases are finished it is still a WIP.



Well I have actually finished all the painting on the miners and I have to say it has been a very enjoyable project to do. Now this does mean that the Snibston Miners Militia is finished, no not at all. I still have the banner to do and mount and the bases to finish but in general they are finished.



I have kept with the muted, natural tones throughout the unit with just the hint of colour to make the unit stand out and I really think that the unit works well together. I think I have managed to capture that 1930s working men look and because of the limited(ish) palette it has unified the whole unit together.



I think the sculpts have helped and added some of the character to the unit and I have to say it have been one of my most enjoyable units to paint for a long time.



Now you can see the bare bases before I add my things to it and they are simply a 2 pence piece with some fine and mid coarse sand glued to it. After that it is primed black and then base coated Vallejo's Model Colour Flat Earth. Then a light drybrush of Vallejo's Model Colour Tan Earth is applied and then Vallejo's Model Colour Iraqi Sand is light dusted on top as a final highlight.

Next up with be the bases, so until then have a nice day.

PK