First figures in 1/35 scale german tank riders

When yo usay "cram too much into them", what do you mean? Is that in reference to painting or adding equipment? I'll have to disagree with you if it's in regards to painting, but I agree 100% if it's in regards to equipment.

Anyway, very nice work. I like the tone of the uniforms. Some of my resources show them being very close to that shade of green. My only comment would be that I would have made the pockets, seams and folds more stark through shading, but otherwise, very nice work. What kind of paints are you using?

Equipment.  I should turn them around and show the backs.  While the detail is good, it just seems a bit out of scale and space is at a premium on these puppy's.  I use acrylics for figures, tried oils once, they looked like the race of mudmen from Thundarr the Barbarian by the time I finished.  Went back to acrylics after that.

Yes, space is definitely at a premium in that scale. I used to do a lot of 1/35th scale Vietnam stuff in my youth, and I crammed as much crap on them as I could fit. I thought it looked great at the time, but looking back, it often looked cluttered.

I think I've modeled maybe four 1/35th scale figures in ten years, and two 54mm figures. Sculpting is really my forte, and I work mainly in 120mm and up, so that's what I tend to paint. You can certainly get away with more equipment on a 1/9th scale figure than on a 1/35th scale figure. My 1/9th scale Green Beret has fully loaded web gear, complete with frags, side arm ammo pouch and a 1st aid pouch, and an overstuffed ruck with canteens and smoke grenades strung all over it. He also has a butt pack, a trench knife on his boot and 1911 in a shoulder holster, a captured AK47 mag pouch for his weapon, then there's his McGuire extraction rig. There's still more I could have added, but I think I got the point that he was going somewhere very remote across well enough.

 As for oils, like any technique, it takes practice. Though, I also think that certain people are geared towards certain techniques over others, so whatever works is the going rule. I've found that getting the level of results out of acrylics that I get with oils is just beyond me. I understand how it's supposed to work, but I can't seem to make it work. I had the same problem with enamels. Once I found oils, my painting entered a whole new realm. But that's me. Like I say, whatever works.

 Great work, keep on plugging.

Myself, I started with acrylics, basically because they were super cheap which was the determining factor when I was in college, married, a kid, and another on the way about 15 years ago.  I could score a bottle for about 50 cents in the arts and crafts store, plus they could be thinned with water.  Its the blending which gives me the most problems, I never could tell when enough was enough, so often I would over blend.  My father, whom is a big believer in oils, just shakes his head at me (he wanted me to go airwing also but I chose grunts, will I always disappoint ).  On these I used a new technique which may be why the shadows dont look as strong.  Normally I layer up with a series of glazes, however, this time I tried highlighting then laying shadows feathering them together.  Maybe its because the colors are so subdued I didnt catch there not being enough transition.

Yeah, glazing is the way to go with acrylics. Your pics are a little blurry too, so that might also be the issue regarding the contrast. I take that into consideration.

 I believe Shep Paine used printers ink in college for the same reasons you use acrylics. That's the one thing about oils, not cheap. Bill Horan uses enamels in the same way you use acrylics and gets phenomonal results, but again, I never got the hang of it. I do use Vellejo for my base coats though. Great paints that brush on very smoothly.

 I have actually been messing around with acrylics a bit more lately, since I got back from the Chicago show, where Doug Cohen had several of his latest breath taking pieces on display. I also ran into an old club mate of mine, who sculpts figures for VLS. He's been an oils man as long as I've known him (worked at my local hobby shop from the early 1980s until he left town to work for VLS in 1999), and he's now almost exculsively using acrylics. I actually got somewhere this last attempt, but it's still not competition quality. I'll keep chip away at it and someday, maybe I'll get the hang of it.

Yeah upgrading my photo studio (non-existent at this point) is next on my list of to-do's.  I need a camera stand, a better light source than the lamp I use to work with, and a back board of some type.  Have to wait for more cash. 

My father has tried using the acrylics before and given up.  I believe it is due to the tedious process of building up several layers to achieve the color you want rather than seeing immediate results through blending.  Oils just take forever to dry (god forbid you accidently stick a finger someplace you dont want it) and I can still here mom cursing as her oven was sequestered to assist in the drying process of a Grenadier Guard or Royal Scott Grey.   I have discovered that nothing beats an oil wash however and I tend to stick to those exclusively.  Now, I believe you have motivated me to give a go with oils again just for the heck of it.  Wish me luck.

Hehe, good luck.

 Here's a tip that might help. Use the paint sparingly. If your basecoat is close to the oils you'll be painting over it, you shouldn't have a bleed through problem with disimilar colors. I get a little paint on my brush and then spread it over as wide a surface as possible (within the bounds you wish to apply that particular color). This leaves a nice, thin layer of paint that not only will dry over night (sometimes sooner, depending on the color), but will have no brush strokes and leave a nice, almost airbrushed looking sheen. I find that blending is easier too.

Some people use a crock pot to heat cure the paint too, but I'd be careful there.

Wolfp,

They look good, except the leather worn by the SS and Army was black. MP 40 pouches are either canvas or greenish color. Some Luftwaffe equipment was brown.

I agree with plastikjunky.  Your work is excellent!  My only other quibble is I would have varied the color a bit between figures, for some variety, and given at least a couple of them the greyer trousers, which were becoming more common from mid-1944 on.  Can't recall the name of the color, it was a dull, medium grey with almost no green to it, and just a slight tinge of blue.

Brumbles wrote:

I agree with plastikjunky.  Your work is excellent!  My only other quibble is I would have varied the color a bit between figures, for some variety, and given at least a couple of them the greyer trousers, which were becoming more common from mid-1944 on.  Can't recall the name of the color, it was a dull, medium grey with almost no green to it, and just a slight tinge of blue.

plastikjunky and Brumbles, thanks for the heads up.  All the plates I have in books show black web gear but I  have a couple of how-to books that showed SS with brown web gear.  I figured that with a logistic system during time of war, its you get what you get and be happy with it.  This is why I tell my wife the expense for the research materials is worth it, so you dont overlook the obvious.  Will be an easy enough change to make though.  Brumbles, I know what you mean, they look a little on the uniform side.  As this is my first foray into this size, I limited my palet to keep things simple.  Appreciate the positive comments and critique.  Chao.   

Wow those figure look good .If i can say one thing that is my flaw in modeling is i cant paint figures.

plymonkey wrote:

Yeah, glazing is the way to go with acrylics. Your pics are a little blurry too, so that might also be the issue regarding the contrast. I take that into consideration.

Can someone explain what "glazing" is?  I haven't painted figures in a while, used to use enamels, but would like to use acrylics since I already use them to paint models.  So maybe it would help if I learned glazing.  Thanks.

It's a method of layering that involves thinned layers of graduated tones, from dark to light. It can be as simple as a base, med. shadow, med. highlight, deep shadow, high highlight, or can involve even more complex ranges of your tonal range. It's a way to work around, and use to your advantage the fast drying times of both enamels and acrylics. Think of a hill, surrounded on either side by valleys, built up with the graduated tones, with the base on the bottom and the extreme on the top for the hills and the valleys filled in with the graduated shadow tones..

 I assume you're using Tamiya acrylics? I would avise against them for figures. Not brush friendly. Vellejo are designed specifically for brush painting figures and come in a good range of colors. They brush on very smoothly and dry with little or no brush strokes. I use them for base coats for my oils, but they are superb for final coat finishes on figures in their own right. All of the master figure painters in the "acrylics camp" use them.

plymonkey wrote:

Vellejo are designed specifically for brush painting figures and come in a good range of colors. They brush on very smoothly and dry with little or no brush strokes. I use them for base coats for my oils, but they are superb for final coat finishes on figures in their own right. All of the master figure painters in the "acrylics camp" use them.

 

Thanks Plymonkey.  what Vellejo colors do you recommend for skin tone?  in the past when I used enamels I had no problem using them to paint the uniform, but using a skin color enamel for the face and hands never came out well for me.

oh, and what do you use to thin Vellejo paints?  (or do you need to thin for brush painting?!)

Honestly, I don't know what a good skin tone would be for Vellejo, since I do all of my skin tones in oils, but Vellejo does have a "skin" color, as well as a dark and light skin color, and they are a good start. They are mixed to look more like a natural skin pink, rather than the tan pink of many other flesh colors. I use the skin tone as a base coat, but that's as far as I go with acryilic. It's all oils from there. You'll probably want to use some Saddle Brown and black for shadows, I imagine. I'll see if I can dig up some good formulas from some how to articles in Historical Miniature magazine for you.

 For enamels, I used Humbrol 94 with a touch of red and a touch of black, and then lightened it out with white. You can also mix straight black and white, yellow it out with straight yellow, and then add a touch of red. Takes some monkeying around to get the ratios, and it's been so long since I've had to mix flesh base tone from scratch like that to tell you exactly what to do, but it works nicely in a pinch. Go easy on the red though because a little goes a long way with enamels.

I don't know if it's my eyes or not, but the folds on the figure on the most right looks to be at a lighter shade than the bulges, especially on the right arm sleave.

other than that I like the way the faces are finished.

Hmm, great work. Definitely something I have to look at next time I paint some Germans.

Very nice, i built these guys last year and i did find them a little busy. If i did the kit again i might leave off some of the gear and maybe swap heads with some aftermarket ones for some variety. Excellent result for 1st time in 1/35. 

archangel571 wrote:

I don't know if it's my eyes or not, but the folds on the figure on the most right looks to be at a lighter shade than the bulges, especially on the right arm sleave. other than that I like the way the faces are finished.

Nope, not your eyes at all...its the crappy lighting system I have for taking pictures.  Someday I will get around to plunking down the buckshish for some filters and decent lighting.