masterclub/evolution russian spestnaz

Hey, those do look good ... knowing the EVO figures, they should go together quite nicely.

thanks scott...as i said they had other's i wanted but i guess the new shipments of the new figures didnt arrive yet...but im on the waiting list!! cant wait to paint these!!

ooo those look nice, i need to do more modern stuff

Ditto, those look great!


Thanks, Jim

thanks guys. glad someone likes them. i am building them for a contest...hopefully i will do good!!!

Doing them as a vignette or as individuals?

Good luck with this and keep us updated.

it will be as a vignette...btw, any pointers???

The first two are more action oriented poses and would work well together. The third has a very casual pose and would be difficult to integrate into the vignette.

With vignettes like this the smaller the footprint the better as it really showcases the figures and not the base. A believable compression of the scene and action works the best. Sometimes this can be done by providing a multi plane base to your "picture". i.e. The sniper at the top of a wadi with the other guy working his way up the bank. Or a corner of a staircase with the sniper at the top, the second guy working his way up the stairs and the more casual waiting in a doorway watching the rear. While not in the line of fire, safe enough for a more casual stance. This multi plane allows you to compress floor space and gives the figures a more dynamic setting than just putting them on a flat pedestal base.

Some of the best vignettes I've seen are soldiers picking over wreckage or ruins, climbing out of a trench, working through architectural obstacles and all on relatively small bases that really show off the figures and their actions. One that comes to mind was in Atlanta a couple of years ago and had three german soldiers climbing over and around a knocked out 37mm flack gun that was at an odd angle in some ruins, sort of like a basement had caved in and the gun was on the first floor so it was almost on its side.

thank you for that ren...what about painting techs?

Not real sure what you're going to do overall so it would be hard to say anything specific. One thing you might consider when painting your camo is your shading and highlighting. Something we've discussed you getting into more and experimenting with. Once you get your colors laid in and are ready to start working on your details consider using a darker color to outline your pockets, seams, hems and where webbing and fabrics lay over one another. After this is laid in with a liner you can trick it out a bit buy running a slightly lighter color parallel to that outlining line. This gives the appearance of the folds of the fabric that comprise the seams of a garment and add alot of depth. Once your ready for shading on your camos, rather than trying to go in and highlight and shadow each color patch use a dark brown wash to shade if the overall tone of the camo colors is warm, or a dark blue for cooler tones. If you're using acrylics mix your ratio about 6:1 and pull the excess water out of the brush by touching the brush near the ferrule to a piece of tissue. This will allow you to leave a transparent film over your camo pattern and not pool in an unwanted areas. You can darken colors by using complimentary colors to make them darker and avoid using black which will flatten out and make for a less interesting and vibrant tone. i.e. a darker brown can be made by adding cyan and a darker blue can be made by adding orange. Try to avoid using white to highlight as it will only turn your colors more pastel.
The idea with smaller figures like 1/35 is to exagerate a little to make up for diminutive size.

If you have a digital camera, I recommend priming your figures and photograph them under a source point light. This will let you see how light falls across the figure and will point out areas of light and shadow. I pull mine into photo shop and desaturate the image making it black and white. This will really give you a "light map" and help with determining light cast on a figure.

Think about your environmental setting too. I see alot of figures that you can tell that the "weathering" was an afterthought and was very generic, having no association with the enviroment the figure is portrayed in. i.e. too much dust in a jungle. Tan dirt and grime on a guy standing in red clay, dark brown dirt on a desert filled with yellow sand, etc.

i appreciate your comments. if you dont mind, when i get to the painting stages i will p.m. you for more info. i like where your comments are going and i'd definately like to step my painting skills up a notch or two...or three. my biggest worry was just that trying to provide good shadow and contrast without adding white or black. interesting you can make brown using cyan....that's the kind of thing im looking to help in my painting!!! thanks again!!