75th Anniversary of 1942 (World at War)

Herr Marseille is already looking good, Tony.  Good work.

Great looking paintwork on the Stuka, Dan.  Colors are really sharp.  I like the effect you achieved with the light blue.

Eric:  the weathering techniques look excellent!  Nice work!

That Stuka is looking huge, and well done. I think you made the right decision, Thanks for the insight on Dot filters Eric, I've used them on armor but never considered them for aircraft. I might try them on some upcoming builds for the Midway and Coral Sea GBs. I just use W&N Oils, I have to use whats available and I have too many to ditch them for another brand now. I haven't seen the brands you mention here in Australia yet.

I've blocked in the basic colours on the Marseille figure. One of the photos I found of him showed a slightly lighter tunic than pants, so I've lightedned the base colour for the tunic, although it's hard to see in this photo. It's just Humbrol enamels so far, with Vallejo for the flesh and Tamiya acrylic as a bas for the leather bits.

Cheers

Tony

Eric that cat is looking really nice! Thanks for the rundown on using the oils, I've been wanting to try that on one of my builds. I apologize if you already mentioned it but what did you use for the Blue Grey topside paint?

Looking real good Dan.

A 1/18th scale Stuka, o my. I may need some bigger shelves.

 

My apologies for being away from the group build, great work everyone.

 

 

 

Painting the Ju87 has been slow the past weeks, after priming I pre-shaded with Tamiya X-1 Black. It turned out to be a mistake on the bottom, the RLM 04 and RLM 65 are very light colors. I airbrushed on four coats of RLM 04 and it was not enough, so I decided to re-paint the bottom white.

22 by Daniel Smith, on Flickr

 

Using Model Master Enamel Flat White #1768 FS 37875 I re-painted the bottom and area on the fuselage for the yellow band.

 

21 by Daniel Smith, on Flickr

 

Next up is Model Master Enamel Yellow RLM 04 #2072. Then after letting that cure for a full day I masked over it with Tamiya tape.

23 by Daniel Smith, on Flickr

25 by Daniel Smith, on Flickr

 

I then airbrushed on Model Master Enamel Light Blue RLM 65 #2078, two coats where applied. Both the Yellow and Light Blue were thin straight out of the bottle, only needed one or two drops of thinner.

 

After letting the RLM 65 cure, it'll be time to start the top colors. First up will be RLM 70.

 

26 by Daniel Smith, on Flickr

For a even bigger Ju87 Stuka, I here Trumpeter is coming out with a 1/18 scale version.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm following Doog's step by step weathering of a 1/32 Tamiya Corsair - he's one of the best aircraft modelers (in my view) working. (You can check out "Doog's Models" at https://doogsmodels.com and get on his very interesting mailing list. The site has splendid material. His YT videos are very good too.)

 

This step is an oil dot filter. This is another fading technique - if I was just trying to change colors I would use filters & washes on a tank. But we want fade. (Doog heavily chipped his Corsair. He's right historically because some of the most famous Navy and Marine Corsair squadrons flew out of Munda Point which was a rolled coral strip - think landing on sand paper. Henderson field was dirt on Marston -correct spelling - or Marsden - more common - matting. I see little signs of Wildcat chipping, but they are all seriously faded.)

 

I used Wilder Oils which dry extremely fast. (Gamblin "FastDry Matte Oils" dry just as fast but I didn't have one of the colors I wanted.) I used white, black, buff and light blue. At least half the dots are white. Doog uses what he calls "Invisible White" from Windsor Newton. What he's referring to is a mixing white with zinc instead of titanium as the pigment. Zinc white is a mixing color and has very low opacity and would work very well for this. But I don't have it in oils, so I simply used a lot less titanium white. And less is more for dot filters. Doog recommends - correctly I think - applying the dots with a tootpick. Then grind the colors in with a round brush. You can use a second brush with mineral spirits on it (I use Gamblin's Gamsol solvent - the most benign solvent I've ever used and perfect for this kind of stuff) to take colors off if you've got too much blue or black on there. The effect is pretty subtle. The pic below shows a segment with the dots applied: note the wing to the left of the dots has been given the oils, rest of the plane to the right of the dots hasn't. You can see, I think, that the filtered section is distinctly lighter and has a different tonality variation.

 

dot1 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

The next two pics are of the upper surface after the dot filter has been applied. The detail shows the intricate segments of lighter (more faded) surface appearing randomly. The difference in hue between the metal and fabric has also been reduced which is fine.

 

Dotdet by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

dot2 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

Now we need some proper grime and panel lines wash. Doog uses enamels. I will be relying on my trusty Iwata Com.Art acrylics. We'll see.

 

Eric

 

Thanks for the insights, both Tony and Eric.  Bought a book on acrylic-paint figure painting.  Used to use Testors MM, but wanted to get away from the enamel-base stuff.

I'll look into Golden paint.

Squadron has yet another phony sale on (good selection, but rotten prices usually). They're featuring Mini-Art & Eduard. Mini-Art has several figures - among them three German aces of WWI (including Goering: actually a very striking figure in youth). I don't know if there is a conspiracy against Yankees in the genre, but Eddie Rickenbacker really looked the part of the movie star/fighter ace. (Also had the highest kill/sortie ratio in WWI and maybe WWII - if the kills were real.)

I don't do figures, but if I did, I'd think about my "go-to" Golden paints. They have Fluid Colors (very like Vallejo Model Color) and High Flow (like Model Air) - except Golden's are superior. Both of these paints are really made for hand painting despite High Flow's use for airbrushes or inks. Golden Fluids are 100% polymer agent: High Flows have drying retarders and levelers in them which is why tip dry almost never happens. The two are completely compatible for mixing. (High Flows are thinner so they have a higher pigment load which is good for us, but maybe not for an artist.) If you want to use acrylics like enamels or even oils, you'd want some kind of medium that will lengthen the dry time. They do have drying retarder which works. (Vallejo Model Color has the same medium. Vallejo is an art house first, model paint second: check their web site. So they've many of the same brews.) I'd look at a clear glazing medium - or maybe even a black or burnt umber flat glaze (both very translucent). You can get a lot of working time and a glaze lets you do all kinds of mixing or painting tricks, like changing the tranlucenscy of a small portion of what you're working on. (I used a matte black glaze over rust when I did my burned-out Panzer: that worked very well.) Golden also has a medium called Airbrush Extender that does much the same thing. YouTube has a zillion videos from Golden or Liquitex on these items. You might want to check them out. You'd have to do some mixing, but their mixing colors are amazing and you can come up with shades and hues that you'd never find commercially ready. There's a channel on YouTube that could be of great value. "Will Kemp Art School" is loaded with short videos on color mixing and all kinds of color manipulation for the acrylic artist: glazes, color mixing, pigment stretching, use of about one million various mediums (a 7minute shot on mixing "flesh tone" colors is the longest of the group). Painting flesh tones or clothes has got to dwarf any problems encountered painting an airplane or a tank. Kemp is keen on things like foliage, still lifes, beach/ocean: you get the idea.

Eric 

Hi CMK,

Thats a complex question. 

I tend to mix and match a bit.

I used to use oils exclusively, I really like using them but the long drying time was the downside. 

I bought the Vallejo face painting set. I've found the paints to be excellent, although the technique for painting with these acrylics is quite different. I also have used the Andrea colours red set and blue set, which are quite similar, and the AK Interactive Waffen SS Spring/Summer set, similar again. These are all really nice paints.

I can use these paints in specific instances. However I understand that Bill Horan uses Humbrol enamels, and I love his work, so I often use them too. It's good because I have a large range of them. It's an amazingly resilient paint. I've even tinted them with oil paint, which works well too.

If I want to represent leather or wood, I usually undercoat with Tamiya acrylic, then stain it with oil paint. You can get a decent woodgrain if you get nearly all the oil paint off an hour later, or leaving a bit more paint on, a pleasing slight sheen to leather boots and straps.

For the British MP I did in the Weekend Madness GB, it's mainly Humbrols. the face is Vallejo, the leather bits done as per the technique above.

Maybe it comes down to how I feel on the day a bit too, lol.

Cheers

Tony

Tony:  what brand/type of paint do you usually use for figure painting?  I've been collecting Vallejo for when I can get around to some 1/72 pilots, but haven't tried them yet.

Joe Hudson from both the Forums and FSM magazine uses them a lot.

I think all of this is good background for the figure, and I'm glad we're interested enough to write all of this down. In the end I'll paint what I'm given, and hopefully can make it look something like him. Having invested some time is looking at photos last night, I don't think the box art is that close to his facial characteristics, but I'll do my best. Then again, I also noticed that the name on the box is Hans-Joachim Marselli , so maybe they were suggesting that you could make it look like Marseille, but they weren't, for some reason. I will say that its as well sculpted as any figure I've attempted so far, I bought it 2nd hand many years ago, and I'm guessing that someone made a copy of it before I got it, because there were a couple of little pieces of what looked to be plasticine, or maybe you know it as modelling clay, on it. I'm down to trying to work out what would be the best base colour for his uniform. It's raining cats and dogs here today, so there might be some progress if all goes as planned. Cheers Tony

Stik One of the Vietnam vets I interviewed told me that you could tell if someone was from the rural South - they liked Army food. My father told me that almost everybody wolfed it down during WWII - odd that the war was actually good news for many Americans: the Depression was the nightmare. In Europe, it was reversed - the "Depression" was just a little poorer than normal and the war was like hell coming to earth. Eric

You're a sculptor - you work with ideals just like Plato told you to. We don't really think that ancient Greeks actually look as portrayed in the extant statues (mostly Roman copies sadly, but no doubt accurate) - it's the way they should have looked. Nobody looked like Michaelangelo's David either. Not even LeBron looks like Michaelangelo's David - his hands are too small. (Naturally I was very close when I was 20. Not.) So if the gent is a little better muscled in resin than the extreme fit string-bean that he probably was, this is art. He was also one of a pretty significant number of WWII aces that died in some kind of mishap/accident.

Thanks for the good information, it helps me to understand this figure. I've haven't got far enough to start looking up pohotos of him myself as yet, thats probably for the weekend.

Without any reference to accuracy, the Marseille figure is by far the 'wiriest' of any of the 54mm figures that I've painted. Most of them are historical, from Waterloo and ancient or medieval times. Maybe they are all being sculpted and molded to modern standards, I'm really not sure, hence my comment about his appearance.

Cheers

Tony

There are many common tales of US GI’s being better clothed and being better fed upon joining the military than at any point prior in their lives. This was a residual effect of the Great Depression for many Americans. My mother used to tell me how her mother had signed papers that falsified her brothers age so that he could join he National Guard in the late 30’s at age 16. This was not uncommon. It was the “Arsenal of Democracy” and WWII that turned  economy around and gave rise to the higher standard of living for he rest of the century in the USA.

Thats one thing that makes me chuckle about most re enactors. Typically they are older and overweight. Those they try to portray were usually much younger and almost always far more lean.

Marsailles was very lean - that's very clear from all of his pics. (He had movie star looks and Goebbels cameramen always highlighted such figures. We did too - probably everyone knew who Richard Bong was.) If you've ever seen a real ME-109 you can see that as an advantage - the cockpit was designed for midgets. Diet and physical training has changed a lot since the 1920s-early 40s. People are taller, stronger and heavier across the board. Some are getting more protein when young (Japanese adults are about 4" taller today than 75 years ago). I don't know that Americans and Euros are much if any taller (Russians were pretty wiry - many were on the border of malnutrition during the Stalin years) than now but check the size of athletes in the different eras. Someone like LeBron James simply didn't exist in 1940. Even in boys choirs, (being a Bach nut, I actually have done reading on the subject) young boys have their voices "break" earlier now - sometimes as early as age 12. It was several months later in the early 20th century and maybe two years in Bach's sign. That's a sure sign of stronger and bigger people at a very early age. There's a famous picture of three RAF pilots - three of the "few" from the BoB - they're all gaunt, obviously exhausted and weigh about 120 lbs. From the boxart of your kit, I'd say the figure is, if anything, representing someone too heavy.

Coming along very smartly, Tony.  It's been a while since I've done a figure, so I'm looking forward to viewing your progress.

In the stash, I've got Coree's Memphis Belle crew from the '90's film, that I haven't gotten around to yet.  Your build will be a good tutorial.

Thanks Bish.

I've got him together. In the last photo you can see the use of filler underneath the coat and around the bottom of his trouser legs. There's also filler around his sleeves, where the arms are joined. I like to use Tamiya filler, then clean it up with a Q-tip dipped in their Lacquer thinner for applications like . I've since washed it in soapy water to remove any mold release agent, and primed it with Tamiya aerosol fine white primer, then work got in the way so no photos of this yet.

Cheers

Tony

Looking forwardto seeing this one Tony.

This is my starting point for the Marseille figure. You get a torso, a head, two arms, two legs, some casting blocks and a huuuge base. I think the base is out of proportion and dwarves the figure so I may cut it down or not use it.

The figure itself is described on the box as 54mm, which is 1/32, but the figure itself looks to be 1/35, and looks small against 54mm figures. 

Edit: I think the figure is tall enough, but has a very light frame. I guess people do have that build, not sure about Marseille.

It does look well molded though with a couple of bubbles that will need some filler.

The kit was buried very deep in my stash, and had been in a box in the cupboard in the garage since the very early 2000s. It took me quite a while to find it.

Cheers

Tony

 

Welcome to the GB, mawright20.  Good to have you join up.  Nice choice, too.  I've updated the front page with your build.  Thanks!

That is a very effective technique, Eric.  It duplicates the effect in the b&w photo exceptionally well.

I'll take care of that, Tony.  Thanks for another contribution.

I'm loving your F4F Eric. CMK - I'd like to change my subject for this GB please. I have a Coree Productions 1/32 figure of Hans-Joachim Marseille, who dominated the skies of North Africa in 1942. I'll take the opportunity to squeeze in another figure. The F2A Buffalo will have to wait a bit longer, but it's off the plan now. Cheers Tony

Bish: I use very little commercial weathering stuff, although now that Wilder and Vallejo are coming out with acrylic stuff I'll get some. My collection of AK enamel bottles sits unused - I really have gotten used to water based acrylic modeling. I still use oils thinned with stuff called Gamsol (made by the bigtime US art house producer Gamblin) and it has almost no smell. So I've spent hundred on Tamiya/Gunze/AK products I won't use. But its worth it to me. (I don't have a proper spray booth so if I use anything strong, the smell lingers, which doesn't make me popular.) Aside from that although I admire Mig and Wilder for filling a market and making some money (and their products do contain some chemical boosters that make them slightly more effective), there's a kind of satisfaction of using home-brew. Ten years ago every wash or filter or mud treatment was home brew and people did ok. People like Greenwald deserve thanks for figuring out the value of pigments from chalk and use of colored pencils. (I don't use home brew paint thinner - that's a very bad idea with Golden or Vallejo paints.) If you make your own stuff you have to understand what its for. So my acrylic filter is a color mix of High Flows thinned to about 30% paint with Airbrush Extender. Doog, who's certainly a better modeler, would use a thinned filter of Gunze and Mr. Levelling Thinner. Indeed, I doubt Doog would approve of doing black basing with water based paints because the solvent based types are better at "painting small". Doog also encourages people to take chances, so I'm betting that I can use his techniques with water based paints. We'll see.  

Maw: best of luck on the Flying Pencil. It's a very cool airplane and one of the "new" Airfix kits. I haven't bought that one - I figure I should try to actually make one of the four I already own. (And they've just come out with a very cool Walrus in 1/48.) Hope you can figure out what ails you pics because its a kit on my "maybe" list.

Eric

Eric,   Nice work on the Wildcat. I'm a fan of Beaufighters. Adding an Airfix kit Dornier 17 to this GB. Any advice is welcome.  Mike

 

Eric, really nice job there and thanks for the little tut. Theres a guy at the model club i belong to that uses salt for fading, has done some great work on black schemes, but nice to see how its done.

Those acrylic filters, are they just home made useing normal paint or ready made ones.

Moving along. Just did some salt fading. Some people use salt for chipping but I think other methods better for that. However, it makes for an interesting fade. You wet the model and cover it with salt. Mist it with a highly thinned gray acrylic filter. Let dry. Wash off salt. Repeat process with a another mist of a brownish filter. You're not trying to change the color – just add in an extra variable. Meanwhile the salt is keeping the mist off some parts of the surface – adding another variable. The salt also creates a kind of a salty white filter all of its own. The result is not dramatic but you can tell it. The detail picture shows the irregular surface colors and even texture. These pics are all taken at night. The two faded examples are still distinctly blue-gray – it's a little more blue than the color you see under the salt on the first pic. I get better ones down the road.

 

salt1 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

salt2 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

saltdet by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

 

Check the pic of this Wildcat flying near Guadalcanal. You can see the surface is very irregular in color and shading, with control surfaces a little lighter. What you don't see is a lot of chipping. Try to think of this in color and maybe it helps explain what I'm up to.

 

f4fair by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 Time for some oils I guess.

 Eric

Fine work, Eric.  It's looking very good.