Inspired to do some figures (WIP)

Not a bad start. Looks like you have a really steady hand on the eagle pins.

Get some shading between the fingers; burnt sienna is good for this. Also, place a thinned layer of very dark gray, almost black, along the tops of the boots where the pants are tucked in. It looks like you have some of the pants color on the boots. Paint the inside of the cuffs a darker shade of the sleeve.

It looks like your using an out of the bottle flesh color. Most of these are pretty poor in depicting human skin. Mixing burnt sienna and white will give you a pleasing shade. Also, vallejo's beige red is a nice base caucasian flesh color.

It looks like the second guy has some very dark five o'clock shadow? If so, that's okay, but consider the age of many of the soldiers you're representing, late teens and early twenties for privates and corporals. At that age, many men have not developed a heavy beard yet.

Is there still a seam line on the first guy's right shoulder or is that the light?

...considering that these are some of the old Tamiya figs they are pretty decent...eyes in this scale are best depicted as you chose, avoiding trying to paint in the whites of the eyes (some advice I could take myself)...my philosophy in fig painting is to create the illusion that certain things exist, not to necessarily try to replicate everything you think you should see...

...great potential...take some of the advice in this thread and invest in a nice resin fig and I'll bet your work will be even better than you expect...try using some oils for the flesh, and avoid using straight silver for insignia, buttons, etc...

Thanks for the advice guy's I will look into getting some oils and maybe a couple of resin figures, but I do have a rather large pile of kits to get through!!

Can any of you reccomend a good make of oils please?

As for the uniform eagles I used a cocktail stick with a sharpened point and a small amount of white paint, or should that be an off white or Ivory white colour?

As for the belt buckles I'm going to give them a wash of the tunic colour with some light scratches.

Yes there still some areas that need to be cleaned up!!

Since you're just starting out, might I suggest the Andrea and Vallejo line of acrylics. They are designed specifically for figures. As acrylics, they dry faster than oils and are easier to clean up. Shelf life is unknown to me. I've had some bottles since 1999 and the paint is still excellent. Vallejo's range of colors is at least as extenssive and the typical oil range and Andrea just introduced a new set of colors. Both have starter sets, and Vallejo's have several dedicated to WW II figures.

The only drawback is there are few LHS that carry these lines, but several on-line dealers carry them.

If you do go with oils, always choose artist quality rather than student.You'll have finer pigments.

Vassar-13 wrote:

The second guy looks like he's in pain.  Don't worry about the 5 o'clock shadow I know people in my grade (11) that can grow a full beard in a week.

I'd be in pain too if i had a piece of metal up my butt....

pretty good work and take these people's advice they're ecellent at figures!

Great start on your figures, David. The only thing you need to do now is to apply some shadin' and/ or highlightin' to your basecoats. Otherwise your figures will look a little flat, with no definition to the colour.
As AJ, mentioned, get the best quality oils for blendin' with. Start by applyin' a tiny dot of oil paint in or on the folds of his clothin', and then with a separate, slightly oil dampened brush, blend the colour in.

Sorry, what I mean to say is to dampen the brush in the oil colour your gonna' be usin'. You need to make sure you've wiped off 95% of the oil paint. This is not totally necessary but it helps when you apply oils over an acrylic painted surface, in the first stage.

Regards, Paul.

An update for you all.

I've almost finished these two figures and thought I'd post them here to get others looking at them to see where I need to pay a bit more attention to finish them off.

I've taken the advice on using oils for the skin tones, a bit pricey but I can see why you guys use them.

Ta muchly for taking the time to look and comment.

Regards

David..

Actually those look quite good, especially for the old Tamiya figs. And your painting is very good. I'd agree with what's been pointed out so far, and I might add that your figures need a little weathering. Once you've got the shading/highlighting down, I'd add a little dirt on their boots, maybe on the lower part of the trousers, and then maybe some on their euipment.

This can be done with paint, but I prefer using artist's pastels, ground on a small piece of sandpaper and applied lightly with an old brush. I'll see if I have wny pics of what I'm talking about.