More BA-64's

Here are some pictures with the flash so you can at least see some detail.   You can definitely see the difference in green between models Where I had to use more of a matte varnish.

Soviet BA-64's

Wow, I just realized how awful these pictures are.  Sorry about that.  I'm not terribly happy with them anyway.  I was super happy with them until I went to varnish them.  Clearly i'm out of practice. 

Any how, i'm continued with the black lining and a lot lighter highlight.  This part turned out smoking good.  I've decided to totally do away with washes.  Even for infantry.  I'm going to use black lining, highlights and shadows.  Washes were just to inconsistent for me and never turned out dark enough in the creases but at the same time darkened to paint too much. 

You may notice the PTRD anti-tank rifles.  A few years ago, before version 3, I was thoroughly confused by the BR-64, the rule seemed weird with it being hull mounted.  I think I even went as far as to ask Phil about it.  So, apparently the used to take the turret off and just have a man sit there with the rifle.  There is one picture of it out there.  I came up with the idea of mounting a PTRD rifle guy in the BA-64.  I just cut the rifleman in half and mounted him with out the turret.

I have a few take aways after this project.  I can use less matt varnish because i'm not using a wash anymore, however I may have to end up not using a gloss varnish on my decals.  So we'll see how that works. 

I'm going back to my Soviet Strelkovy and redoing them with less black lining and more shadows and highlighting.  I can't imagine how long that will take.

I will post better pictures tomorrow, so the lining shows up better. 

Su-152

Finished some new Soviet kat killers.  I'd have to say for some plain jane green monsters they turned out really well.

I used a technical pen for the shading and went twice as light on the high light colour.  It took a lot longer but I love the result.

All my russian tanks will be going in the #SimpleGreen now.

Hetzers and Sturmovik!

Finished the Hetzers for Shawn.  And I finished a Sturmovik.
man I am way out of practice painting, working on this app for Battlefront.  But its slowly coming back to me.
































I based my Sturmovik off this picture.  And like everything else magnetized to the stand.

Red God of War

Finally finished my Soviet Artillery.  I've been playing way to much World of Tanks.  But I'm putting an end to that.  I've just been so busy its a lot easier to sit down and play a video game for an hour or so then to sit and paint.

Anyway, one thing I tried to do is paint them as fast as I could.  I didn't worry about mistakes I would just go back and fix them later.  Seemed to work OK.  Let me know if you think they are ok with out highlighting.  Guns and Tanks I will still highlight.  But with so many infantry to paint, I have to take shortcuts some where.

Can you tell?

The major change with these guys is I did no highlighting on the soldiers.  Just to many soviets, and that step takes way to long.  I've put my 57mm gun and the 76mm gun to see if there is even a difference.  Close up yes, but with so many guys on the table and in the middle of a game, no one will ever know except me.

So, I have a tournament coming August 20th, and I've done more painting today, then I have in the last 3 months combined.  Hopefully I'll have some more pic's soon.  Including my revamped Marder III m's.

Lets see how the new camera with some lighting turned out.  There are still a lot of settings I can play with.  I think with any camera you have to get used to it.  These were all taken with landscape setting.  My have to try something different.  Color is weird. 

122mm

76mm

76mm

122mm

Lamps Extra Close

Tried to add a map.

Best Gun In The Game!

Finished my 57mm Zis-2 tank Destruction Company.

I think this is the best gun in the game.  For only 200 points, AT 11, RoF of 3, and a range of 32".

I can't wait to put these babies into action.

Tried something new with my basing with these.  I tried to use these grass tufts.  I makes the grass look like its standing up.  I could never get static grass to stand up, and the latest craze seems to be these tufts of grass.  Well they are awesome.  So easy to put on. And they look great.  Just have to match the colours to your flock as best you can.  I am definitively going to try and get my hands on a tonne of this stuff.

Next I move on to my God of War Battery, and then a whole lot of Strelkovy...yikes.

I am also doing FoW demo this weekend.  I hope to draw a few new players to the game.  Thank you to Joe Krone of Battlefront for the suggestions.

Enjoy the 57mm guns.

Always Be Learning

I finished my Soviet Regimental Gun Company and my Anti-Tank Gun Company. I thought I would write this post comparing some of my old work to my new work. I believe in never doing anything unless you are always continually striving to get better. I've done a lot of trial and error of techniques over the last year, and I think things are getting a lot better, easier, and faster.

First, as embarrassing as it will be, I will show old pictures and compare then to similar units. This first picture was the first infantry I ever painted. The command team was a bit better because I discovered static grass instead of flock. I also found a different brown for the ground. You can clearly see in the back 2 I didn't even cover the figs bases. This was long before I discovered an airbrush. I was terrified to even try a wash, and I was having all kinds of trouble with aerosol primer and varnish. I actually stopped painting for a while because I was so fed up with shitty primer and varnish.

These are my Kommissar's. (* On a side note, I have no idea why we spell Commissar with a "C". From what I remember when I was trying to learn russian, it has no "C". A "K" is a "K" sound and an "S" is an "S" sound. So, I always spell it with a "K") Anyway these are my 1st try, 2nd try, and 3rd try. And the then 3 together. Big Difference. The last one is with an airbrush and wash.


These are 76mm anti-tank guns before and after I learned how to use an airbrush.


Same thing with Heavy Machine Gun.


As I said before I'm still not totally sold on the highlighting. It is a lot of extra work. You let me know what you think, of this batch of highlighting.
Edit* One thing I wanted to add, is that the down fall to all of this is that none of my army looks the same. Especially since I'm so slow at painting infantry. Hopefully i'll speed up and I can start painting separate armies.
Here are the rest of the pictures from this batch.