A little side trip to WW2 in 1/35

Base coats and ugly

Much better

Needing to paint a person rather than scenery I painted up another of my 1/35 Tamiya German 37mm AT gun crew member.  I even got to use my helmet decals (which I forgot to do on the first guy) which after some weathering looks quite good.  When applying decals I’ve learnt that it really pays to do a coat of gloss varnish first.  Also using decal softener helps a lot.  Once the decal is dry I applied a coat of matt varnish before continuing on with the painting.  It’s also quite easy to paint a figure when you know what you are doing, rather than spending hours experimenting (and failing).

Pretty helmet decal

My wall section continues to give me grief.  I did another dry fix an found the wall was off just a bit too much.  The short side wasn’t quite square to the back wall so I had to rip it off and sand the side down.  This was of course after undercoating the whole thing of course.  Really over this wall.

I’ve been thinking about the ground cover and the large cobblestones I was going to have under the fountain.  I’ve decided I don’t like the cobblestones as they look too big and rough.  So instead I thinking I’m going to go with the paving styrene sheet I used for the 54mm Samuari wall.  I then had a very frustrating few hours trying to get a paint scheme that worked.  Finally managed to get one based around VMC Golden Brown, VMC Khaki Grey, VMC Charred Brown and glazes with of VMA Burnt Umber and VMA Mahogany.  I found I need the brown/red glazes to tie the colour of the ground back to the red bricks I will have on the wall.  Also a number of glazes adds a bit of volume and depth as the styrene sheet pattern is quite flat.

Paving in action

So the wall is currently drying after another glue up, tomorrow to be puttied and sanded.  I’ve cut out the paving sheet to size and will undercoat that next.  I also need to start some water effects trials for the fountain.  I’m not happy with the slow progress rate but with everything taking 2-3 trials first it is what it is.