Rockets Red Glare

The bloody struggle for the Pripet Marshes continues as the German forces seek another breakthrough in the rugged terrain of the Ostfront.

Seeking to cut off and encircle vast numbers of Soviet troops following the death of Captain Albertofsky in the previous battle, fast moving elements of the Wehrmacht would be in a fight to the death over 4 sectors of the field.

Most of the German mobile units were kept in reserve, while the entire mass of the Red Hordes deployed all at once!

Somehow the cheeky Bolsheviks had captured some Opel Blitzes, and would employ a bit of Maskirovka to confuse the German forces rushing into the 'neutral' sectors.

However, it was the heavy artillery of the Red Army that struck first, making it very dangerous for the German weapon teams stationed in a few of the log buildings.  Those did not stand much chance against medium howitzer and mortar shells...

Using the confusion of the bombardment, the massed infantry units sought to cross the river and set up a hasty defense against the advancing enemy.

As this was a rapid movement column, the Germans were without the heavy armor they used in the previous skirmish.  The Panzer 38T seemed to be quite perturbed by the heavy Maxim machine gun in the lumber mill.

Soviet artillery strikes again!  When the smoke and splinters had cleared, yet another Machine Gun team had been wiped out.

Stalin's Organ would rise to a crescendo as multiple advancing squads took casualties from direct hits!

However, the stalwart and well disciplined German units would regroup, and bravely continue the advance.

At last, the hardened veterans of the Barbarossa campaign located their quarry, which was hiding in the river.

The other veteran unit shrugged off all manner of small arms fire and made their way to the most vital position on the battlefield... the newly rebuilt wooden cathedral.  There was not much left of the original church once the Flak 88 targeted it at point blank range.

If these battle hardened troops can take and hold this structure, it just might secure a victory for the Axis forces.  Stay tuned for the next episode to see if the deadly rockets of the Katyusha can stem the tide...

Terrain Time!

When I first got back into airbrushing, I especially looked forward to its use on terrain pieces!  While I assumed it would save a lot of time (which it certainly does!), I was hoping that it would allow me to do more potentially 'delicate' pieces.

By that I mean ruined buildings that had shattered bits hanging off, or piles of bricks such as these.

Getting the darker colors jammed into those areas with a brush (even with watered down paint) can lead to pieces breaking off, etc.

The Stynlrez primers are ideal for my underlayment foam buildings.  I have several tutorial articles on how my various buildings were made.  Ultimately my goal is to have an entire town:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2017/10/heading-into-town.html

This blog post takes you through the stucco process:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2017/09/time-for-stucco.html

I had a few requests to show how effective the airbrush was at creating scorch marks and other effects, so I did that in the booth as well.  In the past I used weathering powders for this, but it is nice to use something more permanent like primer.

Once I get the bulk of the piece done with the airbrush, I can go back in and pick out more details such as bricks, cracks, etc.  I can even add furniture, posters and more.

Having the ability to reach this stage so quickly will make it far easier to get this entire town painted!  I am also getting more variety in my colors, since it is do easy to dust over a grayish tone here and there, even some greens.

Drybrushing terrain tends to have a very recognizable look on camera, and having this softer tone looks a bit nicer

After a few minutes of general work, I was already picking out individual bricks with a few brushed on colors, and even working on the mortar lines between the brick layers.

As I have mentioned, these are just a few of the buildings I have set for this new terrain board.  More are being constructed, so that I have more options for layout and placement.

Also, I am working on a few buildings to create "forced perspective" in order to tie in the painted backdrops with the rest of the board.  These will be ruined buildings or 'store fronts' which will be placed right in front of the painted backdrops.

This will add one more layer of perspective, making the board appear as if it is receding into the backdrop, instead of ending abruptly.

In some ways, the intact buildings are more difficult to paint.  They will certainly require more finishing details, such as wallpaper for the walls, and so on.  I have another tutorial planned for those interior spaces, so stay tuned!

The airbrush is very handy for getting inside the buildings, particularly those that are intact!  It is very difficult to get at these interior corners with a brush... at least in a timely fashion.

I have a number of terrain tutorials, including a few different methods for making these ruined houses:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-town-in-ruins.html

Unmasking

In addition to all the Busts, there were a number of vehicle painting demos.  I tried to show how I go about using the airbrush for my regular figures as well as things such as vehicles.

One of the things I discovered a few years ago is that Blu Tac works very well as a masking material!  I was already using it to attach figures and vehicles to paint jars and other things, so I was pleased to see that it could perform this task too!

I have the King Tiger platoon box from Warlord Games, and I am trying out some of the color schemes from the Ardennes and Hungarian theatres.

The Blu Tac does not leave any residue, and it does not tear away previous layers of paint.  Really handy in multi colored schemes like this.  By working the Blu Tac a bit, the paint seems to work its way out of the compound...

I also worked on some Dunkelgrau vehicles, and then some which required green.

As most of you already know, I love to use a series of Stynlrez primer colors for the initial layers on all my vehicles.  There are 12 colors, so that means I can match just about anything I might need!

This also means that I can have a very solid base on which to add my subsequent layers.  Very important when you will be handling these all the time and rolling dice into them.

I needed some specific markings on this Char B1 Bis, so out came the Blu Tac.  Once I had the areas masked off, I could spray a few progressively lighter layers or ochre colored primer...

Take it away an Poof!  All set for more glazes, weathering, staining, etc.

I had used the same set of greens, browns and rust colors on a late war Soviet IS2.

I tried to emphasize how I have as many things on the "Priming block" as possible, because you never know when you might need that color somewhere else.  For instance, I was also priming the new Sherman Crocodile, new US Infantry figs and even a Mierce Miniatures monster!

While this camera set up worked OK to allow a few folks to see what I was doing more easily, I am definitely hoping to have a much larger arrangement for next year.  The idea is to have a large monitor behind me, so that more people can watch at once.

Given how much noise there is in the vendor hall, I am trying to see if I can have some kind of mike and speaker set up to make it easier for folks to hear me!  Also, we want to have very specific demonstration times set in advance, so that people can make a plan to be around while the madness takes place!

I will now take all these vehicles that have been primed and get back to my usual live and recorded video sessions... stay tuned.

Crown of Chrome

Time to continue the process of painting the 1/2 scale Black Heart Models bust!  As you saw in the first episode, I was using the new Badger Metalsmith color set to shade and tint a number of metal colors.

I was mixing in some additional Ghost Tint colors to achieve more dramatic dark tones and push some of the metal colors towards brass, copper, etc.

I used "regular" Stynlrez primer for the face, so that it would stand out from a texture standpoint from those metals.

And here he is, the genius behind the amazing Black Heart Models busts that everyone is so crazy for!  He developed some new rotating display cases for GenCon too.

We have already been making plans for next year, which should include a larger video monitor, so that people can see what I am doing on camera more easily.  There might even be scheduled times for specific demos, so that you can plan your dealer's room excursions around them!

After working on the main bust all day Thursday, I did some more elements on the face and the 'crown'.  This was also done with the Metalsmith paints.  Hopefully you can see some of the variety in the tones of the metals...

Time to attach those pieces, and see how they look!  You can also get a peek at some of the glowing areas, which I am working on now with my fluorescent paints.

Adding those sections created even more of a contrast with the textures of the face, which was great to see!

I will also add a touch of my fluorescent orange to the eyes, which should make them even more piercing than they already are.  As I told many people watching, the idea was to do the eyes, mouth and other details with a brush for a few reasons.

First, it was just easier to do so.  There are some things the airbrush does more efficiently, and vice versa for the traditional brush.

Second, the brush would provide that hard edged contrast that was needed to draw the viewer towards the eyes and central facial features.

There's plenty of things going on with this bust, so I need every available form of contrast.  Light vs dark, warm vs cool, muted vs saturated, and also hard vs soft edges.

I have some more posts coming of the activities in the Badger Booth, so stay tuned!

A Second Skin

We are finally back from GenCon, and the unpacking process is still under way!  This year was really interesting, and that started right off the bat when George put this massive 1/2 scale bust in front of me!

It is of his own inspiration, and he did a masterful job with it.  We thought that it would be the prefect subject to try out the new Badger Metalsmith paints as well.  Nothing like tryout out a new medium for the first time on a scale you have never attempted before... in front of a live audience no less.

I began with a neutral grey primer.  The set comes with a white and a blueish black, which allows you to get a lighter or darker look to the metal colors that you are spraying on.

At one point I even mixed a little of the black primer in with the grey to darken it.  I started to layer on some more of the Stynlrez primers on the face, since we wanted to determine if that should be non-metal tone.  The rose colored primer was sprayed over the grey in more of a dusting, so that it would almost be a purple tone.  I eventually went over that with more of the "flesh" colored primers.

I knew that I wanted some blueish glow in some interior areas, so I added the Plasma Fluid Ghost Tint to the white primer.

I didn't know exactly what kind of metal colors I wanted on the torso, so I experimented with some of the 'gold' mix.  That is, you take the metal colored primer and mix in the gold Ghost Tint (usually about 3-5 parts Ghost Tint to metallic primer).  This goes through the brush very nicely, and you get a decent, fine grain metal on the surface.

I added more dark shades of Ghost Tints (such as the Iron ore shade) and even some "regular" Ghost Tints such as brown and Oil Discharge to create darker metals.  This is usually the bugaboo for "metallic" paints... getting lighter and darker colors.

In some cases, I mixed the Plasma Fluid with the metal primer, and got a very nice blue metal!

Here I was using a lot of the darker Ghost Tints to deepen my shadow colors.  As long as you have a tiny bit of the metal primer in there, you will still have a metal sheen.

I even added some Fresh Blood Ghost Tint to make some of the cables more of a copper metal.  There is a special copper tone included in the Metalsmith set.

You can see more variety in the metals starting to emerge, and even some reflected light.  Keep in mind, this is pretty huge, so it was really vital to include that reflection, as well as some hefty shadows!  Stay tuned for part two, and more experimentation.  

Thanks again to George and Ken from Badger and Black Heart Models.  It was truly a lot of fun this year!