Amazing work! I've been away from the forums for a couple of months. Seems I've really been missing out on some good stuff here in the armor forums. 

Cheers ManCityFan.

I know what you mean, it's all going a bit 'spursy' for us as well. The Wycombe game nearly gave me several heart attacks!

Hello all.

It's been a while since I last updated this thread, unfortunately 1/1 life has got in the way of 1/35 updates recently!

I'm calling this one done now, although I still plan to put it on some sort of base and the aerials will be added at that point due to me being so ham-fisted that I'll keep breaking them off.

At the end I decided to put a pistol holster in the standing infantryman’s hand as if he was offfering it to the driver, it's since been pointed out that he looks like he's taking a 'selfie'.

Should this be posted in the 'Diorama' section when it's on it's base or left in the 'Armour' section? I'm confused!

Anyway, on to the pics, apologies as usual for using a rubbish phone to take them...

Cheers Tojo. I thought I couldn't do faces either, I just kept redoing them until I was at a point that I could live with them.

They're not perfect, and I'm not entirely satisfied with them, they'll do for now though!

Really looking good,mines coming down the home stretch,pics by the weekend.

Your figures look real good,I can't do faces for sure.

Thanks Bish/Gamera

The rust wash for the tracks was extremely  thin and only shows if you look very hard between the links, what you can see is mostly dust. The high points on the tracks were rubbed over with a finger wetted in Vallejo Metalcolor steel (this shows up best if you enlarge the second to last pic) but they still need some work, I'll probably use a silver pencil or some Xtracolour oily steel enamel to brighten up some of the edges.

I really need to take some better pics as they are pretty rubbish! At the moment I'm using my phone camera indoors, but I'll try and take some outside next week. Honestly, it looks a lot better 'in the flesh'.

How did I miss this? Great work there, looking forward to seeing her and the figures finished. 

I just assumed it was supposed to be mud/dirt on the tracks instead of rust though. 

Looking nice, i like the dusting effects on the top. The tracks area bit to rusty for my taste and should have bare steel especially where thge road wheels run.

Look forwardto seeing your figures.

After a brief lull in the action I'm back, work is getting in the way of this project at the moment!

Sprayed the kit tracks with Xtracolour enamel as I thought that it would hold better on the flexible track better than acrylic, I used X504 Exhaust as this gives a nice dull bare metal colour. I thinned it with Lidl own brand paint thinner which worked a treat and dried really quickly. Not bad for 2 quid a tin. After drying the tracks were given a wash of Lifecolor rust (can't remember which one from the 'rust set' it was), then I applied some Vallejo metalcolor steel to the tracks with my finger. This was the first time I've used this paint and I was very impressed, definitely going to buy more of it.

I was recommended to use Alclad II Klear Kote Flat so on it went with my old Neo AB, I've got a new(ish) Iwata but I still like to use the Neo for general stuff like this. I left it for about two hours wondering when it was going to go nice and matt, a quick poke with my finger proved that it was now dry but still shiny? Buggerbuggerbugger, I forgot to shake the bottle before using it!

Another go over with the freshly shaken Klear Kote and all was well, nice stuff to use apart from some strings of dried clear shooting out of the AB but I think the air pressure may have been too high.

My next step was to give it a good dusting with ground up pastel chalks. I like to overdo this slightly as subsequent handling will wear it off and leave the dust in places where it will natuarally gather. I also put some dirt on top of the suspension units as I've seen this in a lot of photo's, the dirt was made from two pinches of compost from a window box, two pinches of sand from the grand-kids sand pit, and some of the pastel dust to colour it. I stuck it on by wetting the areas where I wanted it with the Alclad flat.

I put some of the dirt mix on the wheels but it didn’t look right so I had a go at it with a toothpick, it looked better without it.

This is where I am at the moment, still some final touches to do such as the antenna (anyone know if it's 1 or 2, and what length?).

Now on to have another bash at the figures, watch this space!

Nice work.I like the tools and the nice subtle weathering. Figures are coming along really well.

A little bit of progress this week, I've been trying to work in daylight rather than artificial but it's difficult at this time of year!

Base coated the hatch pads and tools, lashed up one though by painting it a metal colour when it should be wood.

Used the oil dot technique on the hull and turret but kept the effect as subtle as I could, I don't like the 'stripy' effect that you can sometimes get. Also I didn't think that a Normandy Sherman would look as battered as one that had survived a few months under battle conditions, it'll probably get a good coating of dust though.

Left side before

Right side after

So subtle that you can hardly see it! I like this as you don't notice it, but would know if it wasn't there.

A bit more done to the 'lads' inbetween the Sherman work. The uniforms have been shaded and highlighted, just the boots/gaiters and the berets to do now. I still have to paint some insignia on the infantry, they will be from the Essex regiment as their headquarters were about 5 miles from where I live and they were fighting around Tilly sur Seulles, which ties in nicely with the Lancers tank. This has been a sharp learing curve for me but I'm detremined to do more figures in the future.

Thanks for looking (and the comments).

Shoot straight from the bottle,clean up with lacquer thinner.

Yep. When I get to that exact same point, I have to push just a little farther. Just keep going, and remember, its a SLOW process. You really can't rush it and short cuts will leave you dissatisfied every time.

"Not nearly as bad as you think"

You're probably right mate, they just need tweaking a bit.

Tojo, I'll get some Alclad and give it a go. What do you thin it with for airbrushing?

Yes indeed,very nice work on the faces and eyes.For a dead flat finish on them,may I recommend the Alclad Clear Flat,really good stuff.

They are looking pretty good, actually! Not nearly as bad as you think. Not at all.

But if all else fails there is one other method you could try. The chromatic method is easy to use.

Paint your main color. Spray the lightened main color from directly above, and the darkened main color directly from below.

I like to add a dark wash first for the deepest shadows.

Only works with an airbrush though. Same concept as modulation for armored vhicles. The only problem you would have at this point is masking off all of the flesh tones first.

Did a bit more painting on the figures, again I'm not that happy with it! When I look at some of the great figure painting on here I feel that mine look a little rough, I'll keep plugging away though.

Over a base coat of RLM02 I applied some US Olive Drab (I think) where the shadows should be.

Then I darkened the base RLM02 with the US Drab and tried to blend the shadows. One of the problems that I had was that the Vallejo dried a lot darker than it was when brushed on wet.

by

by

Lastly I brushed on some neat RLM02 as highlights. Not sure about them at the moment, I may have a rethink and try again, maybe I should try more cider this time!

Looking good!

Terry

That detail on the road wheels just pops out in that photo. Beautiful addition.

Cider can have that effect.

Looking good,nice job on the road wheel.s Thats often overlooked but the rubber doesn't stay nice and smooth for long.

The figurers are coming along just great, The eyes are looking much better. Can't wait to see the hole piece come togather.

Robert

Really nice work on the tank and the figures.

TigerII; Thanks for the feedback. I alway set my decals on wet Klear, you have to work fairly quickly but I never get any silvering.

M.Brindos; after looking at the video Bish kindly posted the link to I had another bash at the eyes this evening and it seemed to go fairly well, maybe the two bottles of strong (8.5%) cider didn't help last time!

Eyes looking a bit better now.

After the eyes were done I brush painted the tyres on the roadwheels with Lifecolor Tire (Tyre), I really like using Lifecolor paint as it flows so well. I had previously roughed up the edges of the roadwheels by running them over a 60 grit sanding disc to make them look used, this made them a bit difficult to paint as I had to 'scrub' the paint in to get it in to the indentations.

The problem most people (including me) have with the eyes, is that they forget the upper and lower eyelids.

That leaves too much of the eyeball exposed, which leads to the Marty Feldman look.

You need a very tiny brush and a steady hand to get it right.

You're not the only one who ends up reprinting the eyes a dozen times before they look good lol.

the tank however, looks great so far. Very we'll done!  :D

Nice work on the tank color. I especially like the decals, they really went down nicely. The figures are coming along nicely.

I've repainted the eyes about half a dozen times as I'm not happy with them, this was always an issue when painting figures before. Thanks for the video link Bish, I'll have one more go at them because of that.

Last night the Sherman got a coat of Vallejo matt clear.

The two infantry figures also had a base coat of Vallejo British Uniform.

I like what you are doing with those figures faces. They look a lot better than mine. The only thing i would pick up is the eyes. Check out this video one of the otehr guys posted a while back. It really helped me get away from that Marty Feldman look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIzxQP2XxlY

Right, I think that I've sorted out my Flickr issues now, so I can update my build.

Well, back to the spare room last night with two bottles of Henry Weston's finest to have another bash at the figures.

I used these colours first to lay down some basic shading.

These look like a bit of a mess at the moment but I'm hoping that it'll come good at the end. Quite a lot of my modelling is based on hope!

Some lighter coats applied over the top, I mostly used Flat Flesh and Light Flesh for this.

I used a plastic egg box to mix the paint which worked out quite well, I had 1 segment with water (for washing the brush), and another with Createx AB cleaner (for thinner).

I think that I'm done with the faces now. They're not perfect but I was after a grimy look rather than freshly scrubbed parade ground squaddie's. I may touch them up a bit after the uniforms have been painted, but I don't think that they're too bad for a first attempt in a long while.