My War Memoirs

Now this is something completely different!  I have never painted anything from modern warfare (historicals), and certainly nothing at this small scale!

Memoir 44 is a game that Rich and I have played a few times.  It is a lot of fun, especially since it has all kinds of very cool miniatures.  We thought it would be fun to paint up the figures, starting with some tanks.

Rich painted the early war Panzers, while I tackled some late war Tiger Tanks.

I started out by mixing some khaki paint in with the Badger gray primer in preparation of painting some late war Tiger tanks.

Primer is on!

You can see the primer mix, as well as the khaki and tan that I wanted to incorporate onto the vehicle!  My 'palette' gives you a bit of an idea of how small these tanks are.  I think they are less than half the size of a Flames of War Tiger.

I mixed a cavalry red with the olive drab to create the rust colored stripes.

Working my way through the tanks.

I used a beat up liner brush for this part, since it would give me a nice random application across each of the surfaces.

I did the same for the green color.

Now it's time to add some darks.  The Secret Weapon Baby Poop is more of a yellow, while the Sewer water has a greenish tint.  The Brown liner paint is for the deepest darks, and for adding in with the other washes.

It makes a difference right away. As always, these glazes were applied very carefully, not slopped on.  I was mixing in each color on various sections of the tank, so that some parts were 'warmer', and others were 'cooler'.

Getting there.  Again, the Brown liner is thicker than the two washes, which creates a very different property.  It also gives it more of a smokey feel, which is great for deep wheel wells, and even scorched areas such as the muzzle tips.

Almost there!

With the majority of the shading done, it was time to do some freehand!!

I started with the white, so that the darker red and black colors would go over the top.

Here's a few images of the freehand under way.  Keep in mind, these buggers are tiny!  Definitely needed my magnifier light :-)

Next up, a post with some finished images!

Different Sisters, new primer

Here's something from a miniature Company called Svarog Miniatures.  

This is a set of four different Sisters of Battle possibilities... be they Inquisitors, Canonesses, Sister Superiors, etc.

They are resin kits that also come with sculpted bases specifically designed for each miniature.

The kits did have a few pieces, but it seemed to be pretty easy to get all of that together.

Also, not lots of crazy mould lines in impossible places, which was great!  That could have been possible with the relatively complex nature of the poses.

They come individually boxed like this:

This one was my personal favorite.  I am looking forward to painting all of them (in my green Sisters of the Raven scheme) and adding them to various squads.

Since all of the GW flamer Sisters are exactly the same, it is very nice to have this one.  However, I think I will be using it as a Heavy Flamer to add to Retributors, Dominions, etc.

This one is an unusual pose, but it could make a very interesting Mistress to lead a batch of Repentia.  I have tons of those, and this would be a nice change from the ancient metal version!

More flaming death!

The scale of these gals works just fine with the existing Sisters.  When these are painted, I will be sure to have side by side images with GW Sisters.

Here's a link:

http://www.svarogminiatures.com/

This is also a new product for me... from Badger.  This is their new primer set.  I had heard many good things about it, and I think it is a winner.

I primed the above resin miniatures by brushing on the gray (have I mentioned once or twice or a thousand times how I love gray primer?!)  Those miniatures were straight from the package... no soaking, no washing.  The primer stuck right away, and was very solid.

I was even able to water it down in some places to get a little more control in very detailed or less robust parts.

Practice Practice Practice

Once again, I think you will recognize all the elements here... tartan, tats, and even hair color :-)

All part of the campaign to get the color scheme of the Highland Guard and Sisters rendered to muscle memory as much as possible. That really paid off when I had to start painting one of the squads at 2 am the morning of the tournament!!!

This is heavy, but is slices pretty good

A classic Reaper mini, which was obviously another practice figure for the Highland Guard.  I did a number of these, testing out the tartan pattern, which you will recognize.

I also tested out the tattoo patterns as well!

Seeing double

There are a host of different weapon options that come with the RAV 6 x 6.  I have a few of them here, starting with the Hydra option as well as the classic multilaser Chimera.

There is also a heavy flamer option (which you will see later) as well as the Plasma cannon.

The weapons themselves are metal.  I have pinned mine, but magnetizing is also possible.

I all, I think there are ten different options, including heavy bolter, demolisher cannon, etc.

The Victoria Miniatures Highland Guard standing around them are perfectly GW sized, so the scale works well also!

When you hear these pipes, you get a wee bit of plasma to the face!

These are a few of my Favorite Things

Here are some very fun views of Justin's fantastic tanks, and Victoria's equally fantastic Highland Guard.

I hope you guys are not getting too tired of seeing these, because I have not even seen these kinds of views myself!

I used this as a Hydra in my army.  Believe it or not, it actually shot down the one (and only) flyer that I saw in the tournament!  It sent a Valkyrie crashing down into some treasonous Guard!

I can't emphasize enough just how nice it was to be painting these.  I had a blast!

I will show you a few posts in the future where I have added stowage to the RAV turret, and made an area for the sitting Highland Guard to hang out.  These are really fun!  I will be using them to show that the tank is occupied or not.

As a note... you don't have to weather your vehicles as intensely as these.  I was using them for the Weathering and Battle Damage videos, so I had to do a bit more than I usually would.  Lots of Justin's powders were used, but not only for weathering.

Each of the Highland Guard you see had many subtle layers of powder on them.  I used some of the 'regular' colored powders to add extra depth to midtones, to lighten shadow areas, and to soften other edges.

I have been doing more and more of that technique!

The next post will feature more of these, and some of the additional weapons that are available!

Thanks once more to Secret Weapon and Victoria

Fly Girls

Ah... this is much easier now with the internet actually working!

The Seraphim, as promised.  Well, most of them at least.  These are the non-GW Archangels from VOID (now Urban Warfare).  Obviously, a bit of conversion with the Blood Angel wings...

I really love the Archangels.  The figures date back to 2003 or earlier, but they were very dynamic for their time, and still are all these years later.  A testament to Kev White and his genius!

I used some of the Secret Weapon ruined columns on the bases for the more active of the ladies.  Not only did it look neat, but it was also a nice little counterweight to the wings.

I will snap some individual shots of these so you can get a better idea of the details.

These gals are completely out of production now.  You have seen me paint one of them before, in Space Wolves colors.  They are almost more appropriate, since it really looks like they are wearing power armor!

The way the wings are constructed meant I could not do as much of the text based freehand like the others.  If I had more time, I was going to do lots of knotwork patterns on the sections... which I think I will do anyway! :-)

So, I will continue to get you images of the individual minis and squads where I can, while interspersing some other stuff.  There are several new miniature companies who have placed stuff on my very crowded desk to paint...