Very nice Trevor how did you find the photo etched AA shields to work with?

Trevor, I Love it! What could I say more than congrats on a unique build!
Thank you for sharing this one with us.

Phil.

The shields were a bit of a niggle. E.T. gave no measurements for the distance between each plate and the turret roof. Used beads from Michael's to be the spacers. AS for the deck not too much of a problem. One of the reasons why I built the hull and deck separately. Then joining them,to keep my mitts from knocking them off. Saw some line drawings from A.J. Press and Walter J. Spielberger also some documents on the proposal. I am a bit of a Panther nut.

Thank you for the information Trevor

The completed models that are here are spectacular and has given me a few ideas in how to improve my finishing skills. Off to do a Jagdtiger for the TigerII campaign and another panther for the anti-air campaign. Never enough panthers built. Thanks for the compliments.

Do we need to place a photo of our completed kit in a gallery of some sort? As what we need to do at aeroscale.

Yes Trevor there is a specific gallery for the completed models, a link to this gallery is near the start of this thread.

This campaign is Epic!

Here is a link for you Trevor Panther Gallery

Thank You everyone for your supportive comments above! I can't tell you enough how much fun it has been to do a piece of armor once more!

Here is a bit of an update.

Since the Panther is more or less finished I've started the figures. I still have a few details left on the tank such as periscopes, finetuning chains etc, as well as some other tid bits. Here are some shots of the Panther at it's current stage. Note the right side have no weathering as far as mud etc goes yet.













And as promised here are some more detailed SBS pictures of the figures. Since there will be three figures for the tank I will focus on different things on each one, with special emphazis on the last figure, which is a full figure. The other two are half figures that will partially be inside the tank, as such won't require much painting.

To start off with we have our sleeping beauty. It is a Warriors figure from one of their half track figure sets, with a new Hornet head, and re sculpted hood as well as hair added with Magic Sculpt. Initially I was going to sculpt all the figures from scratch but decided to use some of the excellent figures already on the market.





As always the first thing that I painted was the face



On this particular figure I will show a small SBS on how the Autumn Oak Leaf pattern was painted. All painted with acrylics, both from Vallejo and Reaper Miniatures.

The base coat was painted, highlighted and shaded.



The darker spots were added next. Just the base color with some black added to the mix.



Now the orange spots were added inside the darker areas. As you may note there is more areas covered with the spots now then originally plotted with the darker gray areas. One of the most common errors of painting camo patterns tends to be the pattern is too scattered and not quite 'thick' enough, so more orange was added to avoid this.



The entire figure was given a very light wash or 'filter' to bring everything together and mute everything down a tad. Probably shouldnt have painted everything to vivid to start with, but live and learn! I will make the next one a bit better. Also, not that I only used three colors for the pattern. In the real thing I think there is like six. In 35th scale it is not necessary to add all colors as it would probably look too busy and not quite right, as such I chosoe the simplified version. However, if the figure was larger scale it would be necessary to add all the proper colors.



And here are some shots of our sleeping beauty in his final resting place. BTW, What color should the arms with the rollers of the "hatch spring" be? White or yellow?









Next up is the tank commander, this time I will focus on the face as well as painting a white winter jacket.

Anders fantastic attention to detail on the Panther. Please can you go into more detail ref painting the figures with as much detail as you wish to relay, and that figure looks great as towards the end of the war the German military was under attack constantly and getting some sleep was an adhock affair at best. I will have to see if I can find this figure set.

Thanks Darren! The fun is in the details!!

I'll try to explain the process a bit more. I am not very good about doing sbs's on painting as for me it is more of an 'artistic' and go with the flow type of activity, whereas with sculpting it is very technical and broken down into logical steps which is easier to convey via a photo SBS.

I will try my best though, but it should be noted my use of colors etc is very sporadic, if I have a color on the workbench I tend to use it rather then looking for a specific color in the paint rack. This makes for a lot of mixing by eye and not any ratios etc. As such it will be hard to describe all the colors used.

Ok, so now onto the tank commander. The figure is the excellent Alpine offering with a hornet head and a new hat from one of the figures I did for Helo Miniatures while back. I had to resculpt the neck so I could put the head in the direction needed to communicate with the coming infantry soldier on the deck of the Panther.

After the figure was primed the first thing I did was painting the eyes.

First the eye whites are painted with a light skin color. Then the upper and lower eye lids are blocked in with a reddish/brown/black mix. I am only concerned with the edge that meets the eyeball. The other sides will be trimmed down once the flesh has been base coated. Once the eye is mor or less in place, the eye ball is added. I went for black eyes this time as I want him to look somber and pretty 'nackered', having been fighting for a long sustained time without much break, further telling the story of the over exhausted driver.

Here is a picture sequence of the eyes







Once the eyes were done the flesh mix was put together. Here you can see the colors used.




The whole head was then basecoated with this mix, in about 3-4 layers to make sure the paint isnt caked on there.



The highlights has been started. The highlights are made up by using the base mix and adding Vallejo Basic Skintone to the mix in higher and higher ratios. The first picture represents perhaps 3-4 highlights that has been done on a fairly general level. With that I mean the face has been highlighted as a whole, rather then specific areas. I will talk a bit more about this when doing the jacket as it is a little more obvious. Basically I like to create an 'atmospheric' highlight first, focusing on the general shape of the item being painted, then I will go in and do specific highlights and shadows.




Here the highlights are more or less finished. It is always a game of contrast and effects when painting, as such though the initial highlights are done, I almost always go back and tweak them here and there throughout the shading process. At this stage it looks quite the mess, but I am used to it looking bad at this point so I have stopped worrying about it.




Now is where you can see a real change and realize how important the shadows and 'effects' are when painting a face. Reds and browns and blacks were used to shade the face in very thin layers, with the paint very translucent, basically tinting the layers underneath. This is the key to shadows, keep the paint wet! Also, a bit of a 5 O'Clock shadow has been added though kept it to a minimum on the cheeks. The stubble kind of adds to the tired, non kept vision of the figure I had in mind when painting it. The nose and cheeks have also received some red to add a bit of life.



And here is the more or less finished face, with hair and the hat painted. The eye brows are very important as they help show the expression of a face. Here they have been painted in a drooping fashion, again, reinforcing our idea of a tired soldier who has been at it just a little too long.






Next up will be the white jacket!

Anders that's an amazing work on your Panther !
Your figures look great, extra thanks for the small tutorial !

Congrats on that build !! Terrific job !!!!

@Darren

I'm currently finishing 2 other builds, I hope to still have time to tackle a Third Panther for this Campaign... I still have 3 Panthers in stash, a BergePanther from ICM, a Panther II from Dragon and a Beobachtungspanzer Panther from ICM too.. I'll leave one for the next Panther Campaign

I hope to get as much fun out of the KT Campaign too...

Anders thank you for the SBS.

John I await with interest.

Hey is it too late to get in? I have a Hasegawa Ausf F in 72nd scale but I need some instructions. Does anybody have some they could scan???

Kerry as long as you sign up and complete by the finish date it is fine with me. I cannot help with the instructions but someone should be able to help.

@Panther64 (Kerry ):you find instruction for your Panther F on http://henk.fox3000.com.

Cool! Thanks gents!!!

Thanks Anders for sharing this masterfully executed knowledge.
Phil.

Fantastic SBS Anders - as well as a splendid Panther!

Gary

Holy hell, that is some detailing.
I have neither the patience or steadiness to attempt that!

Thanks guys! I appreciate the feedback and I am really glad that you are enjoying the process. I hope it is of some use. I know it is not super detailed but hopefully it will at least help some!

The commander is done. It's a bit rough around the edges but each one of the figures so far were completed in an evening. They are not quite up to par with single figures, but I'm reasonably happy with how they came out so far.

The trick to painting white (or black or red as well) is to start with an off color, in this case a darkish dirty white. There are numerous ways to mix this up, I just used some of the colors I had on the bench to make the base mix for our commander. You can control the tone of the white by either using warm tones (browns, reds, tans) or by using cool tones (greens, blacks, blues). This is especially useful if you have to paint two different articles of clothing the same color on the same figure, for example a white winter parka and white trousers. You don't want to make the whole figure look the same so by varying the base color and the 'temperature' (warm/cold tones) you will add contrast, realism and interest to your figure. Again, I can't stress enough about the base color, this is essential and if the base color doesnt work, the paint job won't work. Just experiment with various colors. Just make sure you mix enough of this base color that it will last for the entire article of clothing, this will ensure that you will keep harmony through out the painting process. If you always use the same base color, and simply add lighter colors and darker colors to it, you will have a hard time loosing color harmony.

Here is a picture of the colors used for the base mix, as well as what the final mix looked like.





Now I will go back to what I was talking about with the face, how I approach the painting in two stages, general highlighting, and then more specific ones. It is very obvious in the following sequenze of pictures. In the middle you see the base coated jacket, and on each side of it you can clearly see the effect of this general, or atmospheric highlightsing and shading. What I did was simply add white to the base mix and painted all areas that would receive the most light, as well as the darker sides darker. The key here is to not really worry too much about the folds, just look at the entire jacket as one big fold, highlight the top, make the bottom darker. Now in this step, it is essential to remember the position the figure will be in once finished, as this will affect the light pattern on the figure. In this case I went for 'over head' lightning, meaning the light source is just about ontop of the figure. You can also use direct lighting from various angles, which is quite cool if done right. The pictures on left and right will serve as the basecoat for starting to paint the actual folds.



The highlighting continues, when painting whites, not a whole lot of shadows will be necessary, especially if you start out with a darker base coat. The key is to keep the contrast up, but at the same time it needs to still look white. These inprogress pictures are pretty bright, and the figure is not quite as bright in person, but it helps to show the points I am trying to make.



Here the jacket is finished, the outlining really helps to make it look a lot better, as well as a few shadows also help to make it 'pop'. Note how the hands are a different color then the face, a more paler, colder look. Also note the wedding ring, a nice touch by Taesung!





And here we have the figure glued to the turrent in his office. A small amount of putty was used under the left arm to make a good fit. I have noticed a couple of issues with the figure in these pictures, and I will correct them, such as the skull on the cap and a bit more shading on the left under arm. I am happy with how the face came out with the long stare as he is receiving news from his infantry counterpart. Looks like bad news to me, or perhaps the same old same old.



The following pictures are a bit better representation of what the figure looks like in person, probably still abit 'duller' and not quite so bright but I think it is a better representation.

PSSSHHEEEEEWW! And WWOWEEE!
What more could I say? It as been twoo week trying to find a good free figure painting tutorial... And you deliver this to me Feel's like christmas. Thank you Anders.

Philippe.

Anders -

I certainly expected your figures to be World Class, and I am not disappointed. Thank you for sharing so much on how you are painting them.

As well, your Panther is stellar - I certainly hope you will have this on display at the Tulsa and/or Dallas show in 2013.

Great work!

Phillipe & Kyle,

I am thrilled you found this little sbs useful!! It makes it all worth while, and thanks for taking the time to respond.

The finished thing should be at Dallas as well as Tulsa, I'm not used to traveling with larger things such as armor so we will see how it all plays out. It will be in Dallas for sure though, which btw will be march 14-16th 2013, and we will have another workshop with Julio Cabos which should be awesome.

Thanks again guys. I've started the second guy and will share progress soon. Though I'm not sure that it will be much of a SBS as he will be wearing autumn oakleaf as well as probably white trousers, both of which I've covere and don't want to bore everyone. If the trousers end up a different color I might do something on them.