Hi all,

I thought I'd post up a couple of "happy snaps" of my latest project.

This the Arsenal 35 Bren Gunner. It's a great figure - very well sculpted with good anatomical proportions and accurate details. The figure comes with two optional heads, one with the Balmoral Bonnet (worn by Scottish regiments) and a head that can accept either the Mk II or Mk III helmets, which are both also provided.

Note that the "Light Weight GS Shovel" was an issue item to all infantry squads along with the "Light Weight GS Pick." The squad had a number of each of these tools to carry around with it, so the shovel depicted is NOT a tool pilfered off of some vehicle or "scrounged" elsewhere.

There's actually a very nice photo on page 22 of Martin Brayley's book, "British Web Equipment of the Two World Wars" showing a Bren Gunner with the GS shovel shoved down in his web belt and holding his left brace in the same pose as the Arsenal 35 figure. (Perhaps the sculptor's inspiration for the figure?)

I have made a couple of small changes to my figure:

I've removed the molded on unit patches so that I could paint on the regimental North Nova Scotia Highlanders title, the Canada title, and the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division patches.

I added the NNSH regimental hat badge to the Balmoral Bonnet.

I also replaced the resin Bren Gun with an injection molded gun from Riich Models (with the missing rear sight).

I documented the painting in detail with both still photos and video for the figure painting seminar that I will be presenting on Saturday, 15 Feb (next week) at the Atlanta AMPS Regional show.

So, these pics are a bit of a tease. If you want to see more, hopefully you can make it to the Atlanta AMPS show, 14-16 Feb, 2014 at the Merriott Century Center, Atlanta, GA. If you make the show, I'll be describing and illustrating the painting of this figure in SBS detail.

AMPS Atlanta::2014 Show Info











Hope to see ya in Hot-lanta!

Happy modeling!

Nice to see my old Regiment being used. Keep up the good work.

This was also the regiment my late father-in-law served in during WWII, so I try to find opportunities for suitable subjects to honor him.

Cheers!

Superb work.

amazing paint job

Nice job Mike, as usual... I look forward to seeing the wee chap in person Wednesday evening at our meeting...

Thank's for sharing your teaser pictures.

Keith....

Brilliant as usual bubba,
J

Brilliant indeed!! Wow!!!

Sorry I can't come to Atlanta!!

Cheers

Romain

Thanks for all the kind words, guys.

I really wish I knew who the sculptor was so that I can give him credit in the seminar.

Having suffered through converting and correcting a lot of plastic Commonwealth figures, it was a refreshing experience to be able to simply enjoy painting a well detailed and accurate figure. The original sculptor deserves kudos for his art.

@ Romain: Oh, you can't make it to Atlanta?! But Austria's just around the corner...

One of these days, when I hit the lottery, I'm gonna buy all my friends plane tickets so we can get together at some great modeling show. You're on my list, Romain!

'Til then... cheers!

Mike my friend, I may well accept your generous offer....given that I'll live long enough to see you win the lottery!

Well, it's the intention that counts, doesn't it!!
So thanks a bunch m8!!!

And of course, should I win the lottery, you will get a 1st class ticket to Vienna, providing a little painting seminar!?!

Cheers

Romain

Great looking figure, I love your approach to shading and highlighting... you keep it more subtle than what the trend is today. Can you offer some pointers on painting flesh tones?




That's a seminar I'd love to attend. See you in Vienna, guys.

Mario

Thanks, Mario!

I paint using a more "classic" method than is popular today. Today, most guys use acrylics and a glazing technique.

I use artist oils, blended wet-on-wet. I do apply the oils over acrylic undercoats, but the color coats you see on the figure are all oils.

I use flat white for a primer, and then completely undercoat the figure, to include the details, with acrylics that are close to the desired final colors. The undercoating allows me to use very thin coats of the oil colors without blending through to the primer. Keeping the oil color coats as thin as possible is one of the keys to using oils on miniatures.

The oil paints are very "rich" and blending uniform colors is really quite easy. The working time with the oils allows for nice and subtle transitions between shadows, mid-tones, and highlights.

In regards to the flesh tones, I mix a basic flesh using Titanium White, Yellow Ocher and Burnt Sienna. These are mixed at a ratio of about 4:2:1 respectively.

I use Burnt Umber for the shadows and more white to the basic flesh for the highlights. A touch of Burnt Sienna is added for the warm and sunburned areas.

A touch of Alizarin Crimson is blended into the basic flesh for the lower lip which then gets a touch of white for a highlight.

I use a "whiff" of Payne's Gray blended in along the jaw line, chin and mustache areas for the 5 o'clock shadow look.

I use a general blending technique for flesh tones that was first (AFAIK) pioneered by Mark Bannerman and which is described in detail in his Osprey book, "Modelling Panzer Crewmen of the Herr."

This technique starts with a wash of the Burnt Umber on the flesh areas. The thinners are allowed to dry out, and then the basic flesh tone is blocked in on all the high points.

This is then blended with the Burnt Umber to establish the dark shadows, shadows and transition to the mid-tone flesh color. The umber oil paint will still be wet enough to blend even after the thinners have evaporated.

More of the basic flesh is added to the high points and blended with the shadow transitions to "purify" the mid-tone areas.

Highlights are added by adding white directly onto the highlight areas and blending it directly into the mid-tone (basic) flash color.

Burnt Sienna is added directly onto the areas where warmer skin tones are desired and again blended directly into the flesh tones already on the face.

The lower lip is painted and highlighted separately.

Any 5 o'clock shadow areas are done the same way by adding the Payne's Gray directly onto the face and blending it in to the existing flesh colors.

The main "innovation" of this "Bannerman" technique is that it keeps the amount of actual oil paint that has to be applied to the figure to the smallest amount possible. So, the shadows, highlights, warm tones, etc, are blended directly on the figure and not mixed on the pallet and then applied.

The general flesh tone can be varied easily by changing the ratios of the basic three colors. Also, I use lighter or darker acrylic undercoats on the flesh areas to add some variety between figures.

The whites of the eyes are either Payne's Gray or Indigo mixed with white and the pupils are usually Ivory Black.

Hair is usually a blend of Raw Umber, Yellow Ocher, and Ivory Black. For lighter brown or blond hair I just use Raw Umber and Yellow Ocher. (You can get creative and add a touch of blue to the shadows for really light blond hair if you're careful not to get too green.)

Of course, with just a little internet research, you can find literally dozens of oil paint flesh mixes and variations for different ethnic skin tones.

These are just my "cave man" color mixes, but they work for me.

I have a number of build blogs here, all with figures painted using these techniques:

Armorama::Canadian Firefly with NNSH Figures

Armorama::StuG IV Early to Late Conversion with WH Figures in Winter Camouflage

Armorama::Italian Ariete Figures North Africa

Armorama::Universal Carrier Mk.I with Crew

I think there are a lot of photos in these blogs that show the level of acrylic undercoating and some SBS photos on the oil paint blending. The Italian figure blog has a SBS showing an alternate method to block in the dark shadows using a oil wash (similar to the technique used for the face and hands).

Anyways, if you have any specific questions, I'll be happy to try to answer them.

Happy modeling!

And thank you for the "in depth" explanation of your technique. Perhaps you would be interested in making a short SBS article on painting figures? We have had some really nice articles published on Armorama and I think your would be a great addition to the features section. Besides, now that I had a good look at your build logs, I see people often ask the same question regarding flash painting... perhaps it would be easier to give link to the article instead of explaining the same thing over and over again. What do you think?

Thanks for reminding me of the Bannerman technique. I was looking for this particular technique for the last couple of days but could not remember which modeler actually did it... and now you mentioned Bannerman, quite a coincidence, eh?

Thanks again for the explanation... I used to work on large scale figures, but have several 1/35 scale subjects that I also wanted to use oils on.

Cheers,
Mario

@ Mario: I'll give some thought to the idea of a SBS here on Armorama. There doesn't seem to be much interest in painting with oils here.

@ ALCON: Unfortunately, the Atlanta AMPS show has been canceled because of the bad weather (snow and ice). This was a really disappointing turn of events, but the Atlanta crew certainly made the right call in the interest of travel safety and likely low show turn out vs. costs.

Hopefully they'll get the show reorganized for next year.

in the mean time, I'll up-date this thread once I've finished basing the figure.

See ya in Fredericksburg, VA for the AMPS International Show, 3-5 April, 2014!

AMPS::2014 International Convention

Happy modeling!

Yeah, I guess we're just old dinosaurs using old techniques. But I'll take oils over acrylics any day...

If you decide to do the SBS please let me know. And sorry for going off topic.

Mario

Amen to that!!

Greetings from an old dinosaur!!

Romain

@ Mario: Oh, no worries about on or off topic. It's all good - Just modeling stuff, if you know what I mean.

Who knows, though, if you and I (and Romain!) wait long enough, someone is liable to launch a new product line of "Oil Paints for Figure Modelers" with pre-mixed, cool uniform colors like Field Gray, Olive Drab, Service Brown, etc (each with its own matching pre-mixed shadow and highlight colors).

They'll have their own proprietary thinner (a "specially refined" small, very expensive bottle of mineral spirits) that's formulated to work just with their line of oil paints.

There will be a flesh tone set with a "Basic Flesh" color, a "Flesh Shadow Brown", and a "Flesh Highlighting White" that you can buy in a three-tube set. There will be an "expander pack" that you can buy with "Sun Burned Highlight," "Lip Red" and "5 O'clock Shadow" colors.

Everything that was old will be new again! And we will all be tres avant garde and instant celebrities in the modeling world!

Hmmm... what do you think? "Mario & Mike's Master Class Figure Oils" for the discriminating modeler!

Yeah! I like that title!! Sounds great...and so does the "evolution" in oils!

Hej, we are allowed to dream, aren't we!!!

Cheers

Roar...from the dinosoar!

Tres avant garde, eh? LOL

It would be cool seeing the big comeback of oils... I sincerely hope so, as most of today's acrylic painters crave for high contrast which I personally don't like.

Oils can take a long time to dry, and require mixing several colors to get optimal tones for figure painting... I think people nowadays want quick solutions in almost every aspect of life, even in modeling: pre-mixed "correct" tones, shades and highlights, plus color mediums which dry super-fast.




It would be an instant success. If only I had some sense for business...

Roar from Mario

Personally I don't think Acrylics will ever match the vibrant colors achievable with oils or even enamels. I can always tell right away.
I am still regretting spending all that money on all those squeeze bottles of acrylics. I only feel compelled to still use them because I did spend all that cash!!! LOL
J

I'm inclined to agree 100% with Jerry, especially so as I'm an old enamels/oils dino, but I've seen figures painted in acrylics that dropped my jaw!!

When someone is real good, the results don't depend that much on the kind of paint IMHO.

But, up with oils and enamels anyway!!! The one and only real choice!!!

Cheers

Ro(ar)main

There's certainly no arguing with success.

Acrylic painters like Calvin Tan, Taesung Harms or Man-Jin Kim have phenomenal talent and skill.

Just look at some of the winners of the Golden Demon or the Dragon Slayer awards to see some real works of miniature art - almost 100% painted with acrylics.

But then you have guys with just as much talent using hobby enamels, like Bill Horan and Phil Hyslop.

Heck, look at some of Keiichi Aoki's work! Talk about freakin' incredible work! He uses tempera paints, of all things. But you can't argue with his results - just drool over them.

FWIW, I agree with Mario's assessment that too many guys just want the easy solution, pre-mixed and sold in boxed sets. Unfortunately, the talent and skill to use a water based acrylic glazing technique to create subtle shadow and highlight transitions is not something that can be purchased with any currency except time and effort.

This, I think, is the origin of the current "high contrast" shading style. It's not so much deliberate as it is the accidental result of clumsy and hurried attempts at glazing.

Too many guys simply don't have the patience or desire to spend the time to learn the proper technique and practice with it until they're really good. So, they resort to boxed sets of 5 pre-mixed colors with a dark shadow, a shadow, a mid-tone, a highlight and a supper highlight. They figure they can just apply these like layers of cake frosting and get results like a master.

Sooner or later, this lazy approach becomes its own "style" or "fad," and we wind up with everyone thinking and doing the same thing and calling it wonderful. (Everybody says "wow, great figure" because they don't want to criticize someone else for painting just like they do themselves - so instant acceptance of poor work as the new "style.") In the end, we wind up with the "high contrast" appearance that's so prevalent. It's abstract vice realistic.

I spent several years in the late '90s through about '02 teaching myself acrylic glazing. (Don't ask why, it's a long story!) However, after all of that time and effort, I found that going back to oils allowed me to actually paint faster and with results that were more certain.

The "fast food" acrylic glazing technique with a graduated series of different shades of the same basic color is fast and gives acceptable results when you're painting armies of war gaming miniatures. You can simply set up your colors and paint a dozen to two of figures assembly-line fashion. By the time you get the end of the row, the paint's dry and you can start again with the next color. Very fast, better than monotone finishes, but the results are generally only mediocre.

(I call it the "fast food" technique because it's like comparing fast food to culinary art. You ever stand at the counter and watch the guy slap together those MacDonald's hamburgers? Plop-plop, squirt-squirt, wrap-wrap, all done! It might fill you up, but it's not haute cuisine.)

All of these acrylic figure lines of paints also have their origins with table-top war gamers who wanted a fast method to paint upwards of hundreds of figures. Fine scale modelers are pretty much an afterthought market for these products.

If you want to paint an "epic" figure with this acrylic glazing technique, you have to spend a lot of time, and you have to have a VERY good touch with the brush. You have to be willing to layer the glazes on, perhaps using as many as 12-15 layers to build up a subtle shading transition with good opacity where you want it. It's not fast if you want high quality.

I did learn a lot about hand brushing with acrylic paints during my brief affair with them, and I now really love water based acrylics for undercoating figures and hand painting details on my AFV models.

So, Jerry, don't be discouraged that you might seem to have "over invested" in acrylics. They are very useful and do brush beautifully if you thin them properly and use the right kind of brushes.

I wouldn't trade my Citadel/Games Workshop or Vallejo water based acrylics paints for anything now. I've actually given away all of my Testors Model Master and other enamels. From now on, for me, it's acrylics all the way for brush painting details.

But for figure painting - artist oils. There's simply no substitute.

Beautiful and smooth work.

Thanks for the kind words, Rick!

It's nice to see you back and active once again on Armorama.

Happy modeling1