British in Africa
Just recently, if you look on the Flames of War site, you will see that they have published a DAK and 8thArmy painting guide which is quite good I must say. No complaints here. Shows you step by step how to proceed. With this, I was inspire to dust off an 8thArmy platoon withlorries and put it into a picture. I have noticed that picture are one of my best critics. Although, I have accepted that I am not perfect and I will always find fault with my painting because that is the way I am, I have also gotten close to what I deem acceptable in terms of picture and painting quality. Mind you, only acceptable because I have a long way to go. I would say I will be at my peak in about 10 years. I hope, Lol…Anyway, here is a picture of my 8thArmy and I have noticed that the more I paint the set, I think this is my third time now, I get more familiar withthe figures, uniforms, equipment and sculpt in general which makes my painting faster and more detailed. I have been painting desert war for about 4 to 5 years now I would say. That doesn’t mean these are quick and easy. With every new model that I place on my painting table, I discover that I need to learn it to really make it the way I would like to see it. Also, most of my painting has been focused on 28mm, these are 15mm and that is a whole different mind set. When I tackle a 15 as opposed to a 28mm, I immediately go to lighten the colors a bit. Not really afraid with the choice. I feel that you want the 15mm to really jump out at you. So if it is a light uniform I make it two or three shades lighter. Here is a picture of the 8th Army, heroes of the desert war in North Afrika. Camera is your best friend. I had some early lighting issues but after manipulating two lamps to keep shades to a minimum I was able to produce something which I liked enough to publish. When I first captured the 8th Army, I noticed some aspects of the models I wanted to tweak. On of which was that I needed to add a lighter highlight to the ground and touch up the grass tufts by adding some orange and yellow. I also, look at the figures and touched up anything that I had lit go like a small spot on a shoe and so on. This sometimes happenswhen you have attached the models to the base at the end when they are painted already. I have done this but I have found that if I try to paint them this way I have trouble getting the brush to certain places. Then I went to basing individually which is really the best but this is very time consuming. It is fine for a figure or two but painting 30-40 figures it will really slow you down. I have recently been gluing to sticks. It works. I out between 3 and 4 on a stick depending on how much detail is on the uniform. Well, here is the picture. Enjoy!
Battlefront's 8th Army
Great post. I’ve been looking for this exact information for a while now. Bookmarked!