Hey guys, I am currently in the middle of my third dio ever, and while the base has turned out absolutely fabulous and my tank is right on the money, I'm having problems with the figures. I'm using the Dragon Models 1/35 scale Panzer Crew survivors, Kursk 1943, and for the life of me, I cant get the lines thin enough on thier uniform piping!

I researched the uniforms, have gobs of color copies to go by, mixed red and white together till I got the right shade of that pinkish red, but it always looks like a huge line across their shoulders!

Does anyone have a trick to fine lines they'd care to share? I've tried the tip of a safety pin, but the paint wonth stay on it. Also, how do you shade black uniforms anyway?

Thanks, sorry for the stupid questions

Not a stupid question at all!

I would suggest painting the pink line, then go back on each side with the color of the uniform jacket and straighten/narrow it down. Keep doing this until it is thin enough and that you are happy with it.

Steve

There is no such thing as a stupid question.

Painting thin lines - No 5/0 high quality brush, thin paint and a steady hand. I use a holdinding hands device to hold the model and support one hand with the other to do the painting, oh and lots of practice before hand.

As for shading black uniforms - i dn't know, but am interested in the answer as well. Have you looked on historicus forma for answers?

HTH

Andy

I missed the shading blackpart.

Its not as hard as you may think, do it like this:

Paint the base color of the black garment in an off black color. You can get it off black by adding skintone or blue to the black. Now that you have a very dark gray that looks kind of black but not quite you can add more black to the base color mix, hence get darker shades and get shadows painted on black! Add highlights with more skintone/blue to the base mix. Just make sure you keep the garment black looking so it dont simply look gray.

HTH

Anders

Thanks for the shading tip.

Andy

Thanks Fellas, you've been a great help!

I find that the easiest way to do it is to paint the epaulette in the Waffenfarbe colour and then paint the black of the epaulette in with a sharpened cocktail stick afterwards. I know it sounds a bit backwards but you can get the piping really thin that way. I know it's a bit unconventional but I find it works really well.

Hi Steve. Thin lines need paint that is slightly thinner than normal. I have no great tricks either, other than having another brush and turps (I use Humbrol enamels) ready to wipe away any mistakes and also re-defining (thinning) the lines, firstly with the base colour again and black washes.
When painting blacks, a great tip I got from a friend was to use flesh as a mixer. The figure below is painted in 90% black and flesh .... more flesh for the highlights and pure black only for the sahdows. I used a light grey colour for the highest highlights.