ADV Mujahideen 1/35 figure part 2

This week I pretty much finished off the Mujahideen figure.

ADV Mujahideen, sans mine and AK-47

For the green pouches I shaded down with some VMC Red and VMC Red/Violet.  I highlighted by adding more Indian Yellow to the base mix, then some JS Light Yellow and white.  The small pouch toggles were painted white.

For the hat I used VMC Khaki highlighted with JS Light Yellow and white, shaded with VMA Armour brown and VMC Dark Sea Blue under the rim of the hat.

On the jacket I had a few attempts.  I found my dark brown kept going to light purple during the highlights.  I was trying to highlight in yellow/white and this wasn’t working.  In the end I went back to using VGC Beastial Brown and Leather Brown and the final highlights in a warm white.  I stippled the top of the shoulders with a warm white/white mixture.  Shading by adding in Dark Sea Blue and black.

Figure on base

The clothes were a bit of a trial.  I was trying to use JS raw sienna as the shade and that was making a flesh colour (not unexpected as warm white + raw sienna are the base of most flesh mixtures).  Then I remembered that on Adokul the Monk I had used VMC Smoke as the shade colour for his linen cloth.  Hate it when I forget how to paint a colour that I worked out previously.  Once I switched to the Smoke things went a lot better.  Highlights in white.  I also make sure I mixed in some flow aid into the mixture to try and stop the white paint from getting lumpy.

For the base I liked the cover art that had the rocks in an off white/blue colour.  Makes the ground work look nice and barren as you would expect the mountain areas to be.  The figure was glued to the base with two part epoxy with a small rod drilled into the wooden base and the resin base of the figure to give support.

Last to do is the anti-tank mine and AK-47 which are half done.  Need to finish them off now that they are glued on.

Worm bust part 2 and Mujahideen 1/35 figure

The worm bust

Over the last week or so I’ve been working on finishing the worm bust.  The areas that I worked on were the eyes, robe and collar and green skin area (esp the neck).

For the eyes I wanted to bring out the faceted shape of the eye (modelled from a cheap plastic bead).  I highlighted the edges quite strongly but that didn’t really get the effect I was after.  I then added in some streaks radiating from the pupil and added some darker adjacent lines to help with the look.  I made the inner eye a triple colour, being purple, inner white, black pupil.

For the cloth area I added some light blue on the shoulders and back to give a few points of contrasting colour and to add some details to the figure.  I used a base of VMC Prussian Blue and highlighted with white and shaded with VMC Dark Sea Blue and orange.  For the collar I made a crisscross pattern and then filled in the lower triangles.  The yellow areas were then highlighted with JS Light Yellow and white.

For the green skin area the neck needed a lot of work.  It was a uniform dark area so I went back and repainted with the base colour and then was more selective on the shading.  On all the small ridges and muscle areas that I had sculpted on the neck, these were highlighted up like the top of the head but not to the same level.  I also redid some of the top of the head adding in some more contrasts to break up the large areas on similar colour.

After that the under base was painted a very dark maroon/purple and the figure was glued into the wooden base.

So that was the first figure that I designed (well, made up on the fly), sculpted, cast and painted.  Not sure how many I will do but really glad that I did one and it worked out ok.

ADV Mujahideen 1/35 figure

Awhile back I purchased some 1/35 figures off eBay.  One was a Mujahideen from the 1980s by ADV.  Really liked the natural pose of the figure and the flow of the clothing.  Also I have not painted non-caucasian skin much (read almost never) so this was a good reason to try to see if my colour mixing skills had improved.

Well the have, but not much wrt to skin tones.  I have always struggled with skin tones.  Hence why I didn’t try non-caucasian skin.  My first attempt used the below mix

JS Raw Sienna
JS White
JS Yellow Oxide
AP Black
spot of VMC Red

This colour struggled, being too grey/purple and the highlights too pale.  Wasn’t happy by the time I had painted the skin areas.

Looking in my skin colour recipe book (yes, why didn’t I look there first?) I used the mix of

JS Burnt Sienna
JS Yellow Oxide
AP Black
JS White

But this just gave me purple/grey which is a sign of too many complementary colours in the mix.  Of course I had painted all the skin areas and shaded/highlighted before I stepped back and went “nope”.  I think the AP black is on the purple side slightly.

So I revised and tried

JS Burnt Sienna
JS Indian Yellow
JS Black
JS White

This gave me a great looking dark skin.

Shades - Burnt Sienna, Black, Red, VMA Armour Brown
Highlights - Indian Yellow, White, Red, Light yellow

Again I went and painted away and the skin looked good.  However it was too dark (almost African).  So I went back, made what was previously the first highlight colour the base colour and repainted the skin for a third time.  This time I think I’m in the ball park.  I also started blocking out the rest of the figure with the base coats.

AK-47 and anti-tank mine

Dress of the area is very plain, with tops and pants the same colour.  The clothes are Raw Sienna plus white, the ammo pouches are JS green oxide plus Indian yellow.  The hat is tan and the jacket a mix of Burnt Sienna and black.  For the clothes I made the pants a slightly darker base to avoid the two pieces of clothing blending together.

The base will just be the rock base that he came with.  No fancy 3 month dioramas this year.  Well maybe one but that will be later on and the Reaper Bones figure “Spirit of the forest” may be getting the fancy base treatment.

Slacking off and a model show

Pretty much just slacked off this week.  I finished off the second Terminator board so those are now done.  I tried to do some of a WW2 German AT crew figure I have but didn’t really do much.  Some weeks the painters block sets in hard.  There is the desire to do some painting but when you sit down there just isn’t any energy.  Then the regret of not painting hits and you start to wonder why you bother.

I rallied late in the weekend and managed to finish off an undead troll from Dungeon Saga.  For the second one I will do some more pre-highlights on the top of the figure as this one was a bit too uniform in tone.  However the two tone AP wash (Strong Tone, then Dark Tone) worked out pretty well for quickie paint job.

Inanis

Inanis got some more water effect coats, getting there.

Also made up the base for my Banshee bust.

On Friday night I found out that the IPMA show was on over the weekend.  This is in Wollongong but only takes me approx 45mins to get there.  Pretty much the same time as to get to Parramatta where the Sydney model show is normally on and I don’t have to fight city traffic and parking.  So the wife and kids all came for the drive and we did a few tourist things in Wollongong afterward.  The bring and buy was excellent and I purchased a few things.

- Building $15

A vacuum form building.  Even better two spures of the building accessories.  This includes lamps, fences, light posts, etc.  Diorama gold.

Accessories

- German mounted infantry - $5

Germans on horses, why not

- 1/24 68 Shelby Cobra - $5

Missing all the clear parts (i.e. windows, lights).  I’ve never made a car kit and always wanted to.  However the $40 for a new one was more that I was willing to do for a “just because” feeling.  However at $5, bargain.  Plus if I totally muck it up no money lost.  I’m thinking now of a diorama of a car being worked on in a garage (to cover for the lack of windows), rust effects, oil stains, etc.  I already have a 75mm figures from the set of railway figures I purchased for the kids to paint.  He wasn’t quite good enough for a standalone figure but in a diorama he should be fine.  Another bucket list item underway.

1/35 Tamiya German and starting the Halo Fleet battles human captain

1/35 German AT gun crew by Tamia

This week I knocked off one of the 1/35 German figures from the Tamiya 37mm AT gun set. This was the figure carrying the 37mm rounds to the AT gun.  I found it really hard to get  his face right.  I was using the Cimmerian King flesh mix I developed instead of the usually ‘orange’ standard flesh colours but found it kept going very purple on me.  Also the face was a bit uneven (it is a 40 year old figure) and I had to redo one eye over 5 times.  Found the Cimmerian king face so much easier to do even though it’s the same size.  The figure just needs the rifle added to the back which will need a bit of putty work to join the gaps.

Hmm, messy face

I redid the eyes on my Amy Johnson bust as I thought there was too much white in the eyes.  That didn’t take long and I’m a bit happier with them now.  I also redid some of the Cimmerian King’s eye work as after a week I was able to spot a few things that looked off.  Pre Cancon jitters I suspect.

Trying out some of the blue range

I have a number of blues but most are too purple (a lot of the VGC range) or too bright.  Maybe I'm just keyed into Ming blue?  To get around this I got some VMC Prussian Blue for my Halo Fleet battles human captain bust.  Traditional I know, but he is a human in the navy so he should be in blue :)  I’m going to be using the following blues on him

VGC Night Blue
VMC Prussian Blue
VMC Flat Blue
VMC Sky Blue

However I need to work out his hair colour first.  The bust is of an older man so I’m thinking black with grey.  But I’m not sure on that and need to have that sorted before I start going full ahead with the various blues.

Think I’ll go watch some more Ben Komets videos and let that bubble away for awhile.  If you haven’t already the Patreon channel Ben Komets (https://www.patreon.com/ben_komets/) has is well worth the investment.  The only downside is realising how fast and good he paints.

No dust on you...

I picked up a nice way to keep dust of figures underway.  A 2L drink bottle bottom upside down is a quick and easy way to get a dust shield.  Think I got that from Mike Blank somewhere along the line.

Microballons at lasts

Lastly The Combat Company now stock the AK range of diorama materials.  Finally found some microballons for the next snow scene!

Christmas, New year, 54mm Cimmerian King (aka Conan) done and some Dungeon Saga

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year.  I had a week off but that was for the kids (and shopping) so not much getting done there compared to the previous week off when I did all the work on Conan.

54mm Cimmerian King (aka Conan)

So first up I finished off my 54mm Cimmerian King figure by Andrea.  The last bit was fiddling on the base.  Everything was glued down with two part epoxy or PVA glue for the lighter items.  I added in a blood spattered dirk and broken spear to the base and made a banner from green stuff.

Best flesh I have ever done

The banner was done by rolling out very thin green stuff and then crumpling it into the desired shape and letting it dry.  Once dry I painted in a light purple to add some colour to the base (otherwise a very dull brown) and to catch the eye.  Finally I touched up the black edging and called him done.

Dungeon Saga Salamander

For a break between big jobs I did another Dungeon Saga hero figure, the fire breathing Salamander.  I tried out some Jo Sonja’s paints for the first time (they were cheap during a boxing day sale).  Very nice colours and they cover quite well.  However when they say matte paint, they really mean it.  I tried a bright orange for the skin and it was very orange, and the flattest finish I have seen.  More so than matt varnish.  So when other people have mentioned that the Vallejo paints are slightly satin in finish, I now see what they mean.  Like many things related to painting, it’s all relative.

Dungeon Saga zombie

Finished off three zombies from Dungeon Saga in the quick and dirty method.  Shouldn’t have gone with a brown for the pants and it blends too much.  Never mind, these guys die off pretty quick :)

1/35 Tamiya German 37mm AT crew

Next up in the “in between figures” will be another 1/35 German from the Tamiya 37mm AT gun set.  Really need to have a go at more 1/35 WW2 figures but just not enough time.  2017 will be the year of the Tamiya tank diorama (which I’m sure I will curse like the Violinist) I think.

500 pages!!

On Christmas Eve I found out that The Combat Company (just down the road from me) had the new FAQ Dioramas from AK in stock.  500 pages of diorama love :)  Always best to buy the Xmas presents you want.

Halo Fleet battles bust

Finally also at The Combat Company they had the “2016 Halo Fleet Battles Tournament” box on sale.  So for under $20 I picked up the set as it had two 1/10 (?) size busts in it (as prizes I assume).  I’ve assembled both and prepared them by undercoating them black and then doing white highlights to suggest shadow placements.  I’ll probably do the human figure first.

Halo Fleet battles bust

Four weeks to Cancon and I’ll probably take the Cimmerian King, the Amy Johnson bust and the Violinist diorama down to enter in the painting competition.  I was going to take the old Ral Partha (mini) Death Dealer but I don’t think he is up to scratch.  I love the figure but the others I’ve done more recently are better.  Maybe I’ll be able to do the 75mm version for next year.

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.

A bit of Tamiya, Dungeon saga and 54mm Nocturna violinist

A productive week this time round with a few little side projects all going off together.

Now that Death Dealer is done I took some better shots of him front and rear in the light box.  Glad is he done and I didn’t make a total hash of him.

Death Dealer

Death Dealer

Tamiya 1/35 German AT gun crew

I’ve had the old Tamiya 1/35 German 37mm AT gun with 4 man crew sitting around for a year or so.  I did the base coats of the figures but didn’t really like the colours.  A year later I had another go, changed all the base colours a bit and things started working.  This is the first figure of the four.  I’m using him as a way to get use to painting larger scale figures again after all the 28mm figures I’ve been doing.  In a later post I’ll put up the colour scheme I used.  I have a number of 1/35 figures in the cupboard but always get dragged away by the nicer 54mm figures I have.  I seem to purchase the old Tamiya kits out of a sense of doing pilgrimage of the classic kits (I’ve done the Africa Korps Panzer II already).  However given my interest in figures over vehicles, and the time to do a tank it’s going to be slow going on the 1/35 side.

75mm man

I purchased a number of cheap ($2 each) 75mm figures for my kids awhile back.  This one figure caught my eye much like blue man did.  I had to sculpt in some hair for him (using milliput) but he is still just a bit too rough.  I really like the pose, but the figure isn’t up to a standard that I could enter him into competition so he goes into the “for the fun of it” pile in the cupboard.

Dungeon Saga Valandor

Between working on my German I started the Valandor figure from Dungeon Saga.  My son loves him so I’m doing a quick job on him.  He is a multi part figure that has been already glued together so you can’t get at a number of areas of the figure other than just mushing the brush around.  Lots of blue and armour there.  I had to replace his spear as the original was a bendy wendy.  I used a 1.5mm wire rod for the shaft and glued the original end and tip back on with super glue.

Rough set up, figure in the blank area

Finally I started on a diorama I hope will be ready for Cancon.  The scene is a violinist (figure from Nocturna) playing next to a fountain with an audience of a couple of dogs.  There will be a cat on the fountain and behind the fence a small garden.  The violinist I will be going for will be very run down/drab and in a little bit a tragic sort of figure, who is only able to play at an out of the way corner of the city with only old dogs as company.  Even the cat will have it’s back turned to him.  Going to be a hard slog to do all the elements involved.  So far I’ve prepped the figure and under coated the animals and the violinist.  Not sure if I’ll use the paving for the ground or go for a dirty/grass area instead.

Nocturna Violinist

Next week will be a lot of experiments on elements for the diorama.  I need to trial painting the pots, the brick wall that will be behind the fountain and the fence.  Need to get some reference shots of dogs/cats and look at the pseudo Venetian costumes for the violinist.

Cancon 2015

Packed and ready to go

Once again I made the journey to Cancon and like last year took the whole family and made a little holiday of it.  I entered both my 54mm Knight and Samurai that I have been working on during last year.  Didn’t win any prizes, but the judge that I talked to last year remembered my 54mm El Torres figure and was very encouraging in his feedback.  Always nice to be told that what you did this year was marked improvement from last year.

Still need to work on my blending and still need more light into the top of the figures.  The fact I made sure everything on the Samurai base was off square (i.e. the wall,road,etc weren’t in parallel to the sides) was noticed as was the effort spent on the wall.  Got some good tips for shading yellow (use crimson for the darkest shades) and some general painting tips.

Lady on a bench

My daughter entered her “lady on a bench” figure and was awarded a certificate and got a Cancon dice (something all the junior entries get which I consider to be an excellent idea).  She was well proud and had a big smile for some time.










The second hand stall was a bit of a let down.  I estimate there were over 100-150 people lined up so by the time I got in wasn’t much that I wanted.  Note there were plenty of bargains to be had, just nothing that I was after.  So given that I don’t really buy 28mm figures anymore the swag bag was pretty light on.

- Burfitt Tools drilling jig - $25

A special holder for odd shaped items (e.g. roundish things) for drilling.  Just liked it and not a thing you can easily find.

- Burfitt Tools tweezers - $10 each

Some very nice fine tweezers to replace the $2 store ones I have currently.  Time to make some more trees one leaf at a time.

- Field Tool Shop 1/35 - $5

Second hand store purchase.  At $5 happy for that to go into the spares box.

- Soviet tank crew, winter 1943-45 - $5

Second hand store purchase.  No real need or use, just felt I had to buy at least two items from the bring and buy.

- General Stanislaw 1/35 - $5

I very nice 1/35 resin figure from Scribor miniatures.  Great pose and a good face so purchase just for painting.

- 6 Secret Weapon pigments - $12

These were on sale at $2 each.  So grabbed some lesser used colours just because I could.

- Victorian fence - $15

From The Combat Company store.  They never seem to have these in stock when I visit so I grabbed one.  Very nicely the kids each got a glow in the dark d20 as well.

- 3 Reaper Bones figures - $15

Two for the daughter to paint, one that the wife liked and wants me to paint for her.

That was it.  The problem with only painting a handful of figures a year is that I don’t really need to stock up on figures or supplies like I use to.  I’ve got more 1/35 scale bits than I will ever get through, lots of 54mm stuff and still all the old 28mm Ral Partha figures in case I get bored.  And Dungeon Saga if I get really keen.  A bit sad that the days of mass purchasing are over, well at least until the kids get into some new army game :)

MOAB and Sy-Co conventions 2014

Once again I made the annual pilgrimage to MOAB and the Bring-and-Buy store.  I never get that much as I don’t play Warhammer or 40K which is probably 75% of the content.  However I’m always on the lookout for old Ral Partha figures, boardgames from the 1970’s that no one plays (but I have fond childhood memories of always wanting) and hopefully some special thing (like getting 30 back issues of WGI from Cancon on year at $2 each - yeah!).  So below is the swag from the Bring-and-Buy.

Academy German tank crew at $3

More 1/35 figures are always good practice, and this included 40 odd American and German jerry cans which someone had added to box - score!

Hail Caesar at $40

I managed to avoid collecting Fields of Glory (which I never would have played, just wanted a copy) but couldn’t resist Hail Caesar.  All those battle reports in WGI were definitely a factor.

Pegaso Models St John Order Knight at $40

This was the special item.  I’ve been wanting to get a large scale, good quality figure as part of my painting journey.  I keep looking at ordering one online (from Pegaso, Scale75, etc) but keep putting it off thinking I’m not ready, etc, etc.  However I was hoping that there would be something like this at MOAB this year and there was.  The god of lead dollies was kind to me this year.

I had to resist strongly a box of 28mm Warlord Romans at $20 and various Germanic war bard figures.  Still have that little voice telling me I need to have a large historic army (or two) before I die.  Buying Hail Caesar was an effort to get that voice to quiet down.  But 200 28mm Romans would look so good…

After enduring the smell of the Bring-and-Buy I made some retail purchases to get the swag bag up to size.

7 norman infantry (Conquest Games) at $9

I wanted a Norman war band for Saga but I’ve put that on hold for awhile.  However these two loose sprues (5 figure normal sprue and 2 figure command sprue) is enough to make up most of the 8 figure Flemish mercenary unit from Saga.

Vallejo air colour - basic colours at $50

16 air colour paints, what’s not to like

Vallejo Black surface primer at $19



That night I went out to The Combat Company for their Sy-Co convention and big kids night.  Had fun, played Zombicide, chatted about painting with Luke from The Sound of Machines, etc.  I went in the 20 minute speed painting contest which was great.  Wet on wet blending whether you like it or not.  Tried my hand at the dice rolling game but lucked out.  While there I picked up something from the specials bin.

Degra Miniatures - 54mm El Torres at $9.50

A really interest looking large scale figure which at that price was an easy purchase.  Another adventure into non 28mm scale figures.

So a good, long day in what is usually the second biggest figure shopping day for me after Cancon.  New rules, new paints and some great new figures.