Combat Painting Studios

This time around I went with a  more washed out faded look an  Arizona/New Mexico  desert motiff  I guess.  I love working on these as the detail is beyond magnificent and the models are truly miniature works of art. I have never painted a better or more professionaly done model.  I primed gray this time around. I do it on certain models but not on all.  I use black on others. When the models have deep crevices, I try and use black. Once primed, I get out dark brown and fill in the missed spots.  I have been using more and more Reaper triads.  They are truly a blessing.  If you have not tried them,  you are missing out.  They are very consistent. You need to be artistic when painting military colors as their range isn’t specifically labelled for that.  In the pipeline,  I have WW2 Russians, Sci-fi soldier types, Fantasy,  Old West and more… Stay tuned….

Some Foundry figures I got 3 years ago.

Review: The new American West range by Brigade Games is a hit for sure! Ever since I got to Texas I have found myself painting Old West almost weekly. When I take my daily walks, I spend most of it staring at the terrain and visualizing which colors/techniques/hobby materials would portray the landscape most realistically.  I paint a lot of  wild west now.  When I got the opportunity to grab a new range of banditos,  I jumped at it. You  can never get enough banditos in an old west game. They are like zombies and work in hordes! These models come in packs of five.  They have a bandito horde deal available as well.  They are true 28mm nicely sculpted with little flash and not much in the way of mold lines. The details are raised on all the equipment making the painting easy.  These are not the super sized hands (big knuckle guys). They are much more petite and in scale but without the  slash and burn style of finger sculpting.  The weapons are also in scale and detail on the weapons seems precise. I am not an expert but they look like German bolt action rifles.  I painted pack  BG-AWE021 $15  I received 5 models in the pack so the troops are $3.00  each. Fair price for a well designed figure. But like I stated earlier, if you buy the bulk horde deal they are cheaper. These troops go well with Knuckleduster, Bluemoon  and Foundry cowboys.

Painting: I cleaned these, gave ‘em a bath, primed grey and stuck them onto water bottle caps for easy handling while painting. I went outside my comfort zone with the light blue I used on the shirt. It isn’t really the way I go. Decided to brighten things up a bit. Some of what you see is done in multiple shades. 4-5-6. Some smaller items have 2-3.  I used Reaper paints a little Foundry, Coat D’ Arms and Vallejo.  To seal the models I used Micro Gloss sealer. It isn’t too expensive and easy to get on the net. It lasts a few hundred figures. I hand applied it for better coverage. Finally, I sprayed them with Testor’s Dull Coat to eliminate the shine.  The basing is done on GF9 bases. These are very cool and you get them by the box load. I applied the pumice gel painted with a craft store brand paint which I used for basing and finally dry-brushed two lighter shades and added flock, and some grass tufts here and there.  These will go up on my EBay page later today.

Today is the last day of 2011. It has been a good year I must say. We are all healthy, I started working again, my baseball camps have grown and my painting remains steady!   I plan to write more than I did last year. I think I started focusing too much on pictures of painted miniatures and not allowing for people to get to know me through the writing.

It has been a while since I have painted 28mm WW2.  Lately I have found myself doing a small job for a top player in the miniatures hobby.  He sent me these 8 Artizan WW2 Germans in Greatcoats.  I painted these using a Coat d’Arms color Green Grey. This is one of the best WW2 I have found. They also produce Field Grey which I use as well.  I alternate those two between uniforms and equipment.  The helmets are blue gray. For the skin tones, I used Rosy flesh by Reaper.

Reaper paints are excellent in that they are very consistent. They have a triad system similar to Foundry only  it is cheaper and colors are not so closely Aligned that you have 8 light blues. That is one problem I found in the Foundry line of paints. reaper has  an amazing line of paint which is inexpensive and accessible.  Free shipping form a variety of sources as well. I highly recommend these.

I will be doing lots of painting this year but I will focus more on quality than quantity. My quantity days are behind me. I will continue to experiment with techniques and colors as that is the most satisfying feeling for me to test out different styles and methods of painting these models up. It is light but then again, these guys are small and need to be bright. I later sealed  and flocked them. This is my last post of the year. I wish everyone a great 2012 and I will continue posting if God allows it.

Regards,

combatpainter

This is some of my most recent and exciting acquisitions.   The sacks were layered. It is more of a clean look while the drums were layered but then washed which gives more of a sloppy look a but more realistic vs  cartooney. I like both. I  added a little static grass here and there. These are resin and work best with 20mm figures. Although. in a pinch, can be used for 15mm. I primed these gray before painting. I have found that gray primer covers without obscuring detail as much as black paint. Both systems work.