Tonight we paint!

This is it. Tomorrow is the big event I've been getting ready for, and naturally I still have painting to do. I did forget to bring a larger drybrush, so I bought one from the War Store in the vendors' hall. I'm ready to roll!

I did get in a game as a warm up, against a fellow named Jim and his French Tank Company. I now see why French Tank Companies are such a pain in the ass - most of my anti-tank is AT6, and almost all of his tanks had either 3 or 4 armor, and those that didn't had 6 armor! Mind you, my Bunkerflaks were FEARSOME, so much so that he hid his Char-Bs behind hills rather than face them. But the rest of the match was a chess match of pre-positioning, since the only thing that could move and still do any kind of decent shooting were my own tanks with their mere 3 shots for the whole platoon (when moving) of AT6 junk. It was a great game, though, and a much needed warm-up.

So that's enough jabbering - tomorrow we face the foe, but tonight we PAINT!

On my way

Here we are! There are stil some details left to do, and the transports and Buflas aren't completed, but the army is otherwise done. To be fair, the static grass isn't on in these pictures, but it is now. I must thank my wonderful wife, Laura, who was an ENORMOUS help, basing half the army and gluing on all the static grass. This way I was able to still attend family events during the holiday AND be ready to travel this morning. She is so wonderful! I'll miss her dearly while I'm gone.


I got the shoulder tabs and collar tabs done, and while often just a blot of paint, the effect is great. I'm going to work a little more on the NCOs rank insignia, and MAY try to get the collar piping done on them, but the collars are often slightly undefined or just plain hard to reach.


The basing material worked pretty well, though it isn't as durable as I'd like. I had one model fall out of the basing material, and it remains a little crumbly. I'm not sure if this is just a fact of life with concrete patch or if it is a problem of adding the paint to the mixture. We cut wedges into most of the bases to give the patch something more to grip onto, so hopefully that helps avoid any problems with models falling out. I did bring super glue just in case.


As always, I still have some work to do. It wouldn't be a tournament if I wasn't painting up until the starting gun! Next steps, in priority order:

- Transports and Buflas to basic level
- Detailing on vehicles, including shoulder and collar tabs for the drivers
- Highlighting helmets and tunics
- Enlisted rank insignia

Crunch day 2.0

Here we go - all infantry done to a basic standard, all vehicles drybrushed to a basic standard, vehicle crew still need work, guns need some drybrushing, and everything but one platoon needs to be based.

Today turns out to be more open than originally thought (I went to the 8 am mass instead of the longer 10 am), so I'm setting a deadline of 5 pm for basing. Basing will be easier than I originally thought, since the complete lack of texture means I really only need the concrete patch to be even with the bases of the infantry, though I'd like them to be painted a color close to the dried basing material. In the mean time I'll get as much detail done on the infantry as possible. Once that is done and they are based, I'll finish the vehicles.

Crunch day

Today will make or break me. I've got obligations all day long, but one I basically just have to be available at a place, so I can paint while I'm there. This does mean I have to leave my full painting station, but if I can carry a little with me I can get stuff done.

So my plan is to get my infantry as complete as possible. If I can get detailing done, great. I am currently with all of my non-based infantry (all but the one platoon I already had completed) at the tunics and pants base painted. Since tomorrow I'll have more time, but I need my bases to dry for about 24 hours, I'm going to see if I can base my infantry tomorrow morning, then put static grass on them on the 4th. While the base material is drying tomorrow, I'll finish my vehicles.

My goals in order:

- Metal and wood on the guns
- All skin
- Canteens and bread bags
- Wash (this is the trickiest - I'm not sure what I'll do while waiting for this to dry)
- Webbing and suspenders painted black (where I had to paint over it), plus cleaning up boots
- Collars and tabs painted green
- Collar and tab details (rank insignia, Waffenfarbe, collar stripes)
- Highlight tunics
- Highlight helmets
- Highlight skin
- Helmet decals (very low chance of getting here, and lowest historical priority)

I'll be ecstatic if I get through the collar details, and most of the rest can be handled once they're on their bases and I'm in Pennsylvania.

Basing

I tried my basing experiment tonight, and it went pretty well, though it certainly wasn't the silver bullet I was looking for. I still think it will save me a lot of time in the long run.

I had heard that concrete patch was some pretty good stuff, so I tried that out. I used the unmixed, dry stuff, since I wanted to add house paint I had left over from some terrain I had been working on. I used the recommended mix of 4 parts powder to 1 part liquid, in this case half water and half brown paint. This mixed with the grey patch and created a very nice, smooth slurry in a medium brown color.

I put the concrete patch on the plastic bases and then placed the figures into the patch. I used my sculpting tool to slightly cover the bases from the patch on the base, or if there wasn't enough I got more from the bucket. I usually put too much on, which meant I was cleaning it up with my fingers as it went over the edges of the base.

In the end it took me about 40 minutes to base 9 stands, which wasn't bad, particularly if you consider I won't need to paint these and I didn't have to glue them all down first. There is very little texture - I really prefer the Vallejo pumice putty for that, but it dried pretty quickly and I'll be covering the bases with grass anyway. So all in all, not bad, and I'll see what paint I have that matches the base color and start painting the bases of the models in that color.