Hey guys and gals. I bought the Dragon 1/35 Gen.2 Hohenstaufen Div. set and I'm finally painting it. My plan is to have this guy looking in the distance while a part of destroyed tank rests behind him. You may recognize the pose from that famous picture of a German soldier kneeling in front of a farmhouse during operation Barbarossa. I was thinking of recreating that but, alas, wrong time period. He's painted with acrylics, Games Workshop for most, Vallejo for the splinter, and Humbrol for the pea dot.
You can see my work area now. I have a big bottle of distilled water, paints, my horrible brushes, etc. My best brush (the one with the closeup) is around 4 years old but I still like it. I did by a recent one (the Vallejo sable) but I find it too small for most stuff. The others are mixing brushes. In case your wondering, I handle my miniatures with my fingers, but if someone can tell me a better way please do. You can see my reference pictures printed out. These are just pictures of my miniature taken in hard light. It's great for me because I can always see what needs to be shaded and highlighted.







I started out by priming the figure with my airbrush, because I can't afford any primer right now You have probably noticed the gaps on the arms but I can't find my green stuff to fill it. After priming, I applied a base coat for the flesh of "Tanned Flash" mixed with "Flesh Wash" and a bit of water.



Next I detailed the shadows with an application of "Flesh Wash".



Now I applied a basecoat/minor highlight of "Tanned Flesh". Total time up to this point is around 3 songs excluding drying time. I use "songs" because I listen to the radio while working, and I use it to keep track of time.



Next I added a bit of "Dwarf Flesh" to the tanned flesh and built up some highlights.



After a few more coats of increasingly "Dwarf Flesh"-y highlights, I used a "Dwarf Flesh" and "Elf Flesh" mix to keep highlighting, finishing with a straight "Elf Flesh" highlight. Total time: 10 songs, or around 40 minutes.
If anyone knows how to paint eyes, eyebrows, and five '0 clock shadow I'd love to hear it. And please, please don't hold back on criticisms because I'd love to hear any, especially now rather than later.







Cheers!

great work on that figure, but what is up with that clean and tidy work area???

lol, just funning ya
pls

Hahaha, yeah I'm working on it. Being messy is harder than it seems

Looking good, hell of a nose on that guy. Looks like he could smell a Sheman at a 1000 yards. Watch out for the mould line on the Panzerfaust. looking forward to seeing the camo smock. Great start love the pose.

Oh thanks for pointing out the mold line. I'll get that taken care of. And I have to agree with you, he has a HUGE nose.

Humongous nose guy says, "Check for the seam on the top of my left hand above the panzerfaust too. I can smell it from here."

Nice work on the paint layers for the face.
All too often, I get to about mid-way where you are, get disheartened and give up.

Gives me hope someday I will paint a figure that does not turn out like a Romero Zombie.

Mike

nice work,
but check the figure again for more seam lines... right shoe, right arm, ...

keep it up!

Koen

That is great work on the flesh as it looked way to dark at the start, but now looks very realistic.

Very nice work on the flesh indeed. Looking forward to see more.

Thanks guys. I have a doctor's appointment in a few minutes for my wrist, but it got me out of school at lunch so I'll have most of the after noon off to start on the splinter and pea dot camo.

Kieran...that looks really great.I've used some Games Workshop paints on my model railroad stuff and really like it. I'm bookmarking your thread to use as a tutorial as i start to learn to paint figures. Unfortunately I don't have an airbrush but was wondering what paint you used to prime the figure.
I'm looking forward to more updates on your progress.

Cheers
Gene

Hey. I used "German Grey" (Tamiya) lightened with a bit of Tamiya white paint. But a real primer from a can would be much better and much more permanent. I'm honoured that you'd bookmark my thread to learn from it! I've just started painting recently too so that's a huge compliment.

- - - WARNING! BIG UPDATE! - - -
I have a lot of pictures that I've taken showing the work on the splinter camouflage. I used these paints: "Scorched Brown" (GW) , Vallajo Panzer Aces: Splinter base + unknown name humbrol, splinter brown blotches, splinter green blotches + Splinter stips (for green blotches, the basic blotches is too bright) and "Black Ink" (GW) for shadows. For highlights I either used the base colour or added some khaki/beige to lighten.

Base colour



Blotches


Defining blotches with fine brush + Green blotches






Strips (They'll be redone later with a darker colour because they were covered by washes and highlighting.



Shading Wash



Highlights Done






I think it's looking OK, but the addition of the raindrops will help a lot. I'm going to take a break and play a bit of Left 4 Dead, but I'll start work on the pea-dot pants after that. Please criticize all you want. And if anyone has a good link for painting 1/35 splinter camo, please tell me.

impressive figure =]
i use games workshop paints but i never know the best way how to
create the right skin tone i know now =]
keep it up mate the camo looks great!

-Mini Update-
I wasn't happy with the splinter camo. Too cartoony, and too bright. So I mixed up a wash with "Ultramarines Blue" and "Black Ink" to tone the camo. I then re-did the lines in a way that made them incredibly thin, and took 5 min. If anyone wants to know how just ask. The figure appears blue-er than normal because I took it outside in quite blue light.






The raindrops are quite small but you can see them if you look carefully.

SS units had different smocks than Heer units. It should be one of the pea patterns instead of splinter. The SS did use the splinter smocks - they just had a different arrangement for the sleeves.

I do like the your use of the GameWorkshop paints - I starting using them @ 2 years ago and they are nice - just about every color imaginable and tghey brush well.

Nice work on your figure.

Chris

I've long since given up on trying to be historically accurate. I find that I can either focus on the painting, or focus on the accuracy but not both. Maybe it will come with time.

Great job Kieran, you can always use a drop of superglu or cyanoacrylate to attach the figure to something more steady like one of your tamiya bottles so then you don't need to put your fingers over the figure...it works quite well...
About the 5oclock shades, I don't see any oils on your table but if interested you can always try a dot of Van Dyk Brown over the mentioned area and then diffuse it with some turpentine or other solvent until a thin coat resembling a shadow appears...=)..

Always forgot about this link, 100% sure you will find the camos youre looking there....all the info in french but shouldn't be a problem for you:

http://startrek.comoganardineroconlaweb.com/images/ayuda/Uniformes_Militares_Referencias_byJaat.pdf

Will follow your work...

Mirko

Thanks for the link. It looks incredible! I have another update now. I finished the pea dot camo on the pants. Not sure if it's completely done yet but oh well. And while typing this I just remembered that I have to highlight it. I used some humbrol paints for it. The pictures somewhat speak for themselves.

Kieran... i see that you also are makeing use of what appears to be Testors Model master paints?

Yeah. I used those three for the pea dot camo. I wish I could start again After reading that pdf, I've done so many things wrong. At least the accessories will be right.

Nice thread, great SBS.
I've done some splinter camo and am curious as to specifically how you did the small line (last step of the splinter). I ended up using a sharpened toothpick dipped in the paint.
How did you do yours?

your figure is coming on great mate !
how are you going to paint the wood stain on the rifle?

i can just make out the rain marks and they look superb mate =]

you doing a diorama ? or a vignette?

I used a size "4/0" brush, and I acted like my fingers were a hinge and I moved up and down the model in a rhythm, only allowing the brush to touch for a split second. By varying the distance of the brush to the model you can influence the size of the lines. Horrible explanation, I know. I'll try to make a video.

And yes, I'm going to do wood stain on the rifle, if I can. I'm planning on making a vignette with him kneeling under the shade of a tree (already built) and with some tank wreckage behind him.
The tree, of course, will be painted.

intereasting idea mate =]


that sounds completcated but i get the jist of the wood stains lol

the tree is coming on great=]

Fab camo ... rain streaks work really well,

Looking forward to more

Jerry