British Paratrooper "Red Devils" Arnhem 1944

Sorry for the lack of blogging recently, I've been painting but just not the stuff that tends to interest my followers. However with games just around the corner maybe just maybe more of a mix of subjects. However I will soon be starting to post about my next diorama this being a 1/32 scale Tiger I that I have mentioned before. 

Still not wargame related really is this FeR miniatures 1/16th resin bust. It's just 4cm tall between top of the beret and bottom of the Denison jacket. Total height including the plinth is 7cm so quite a small chap.

The quality of the casting is superb, loads of detail and a joy to work with. The only drawback really is the cost, set against the price of full size busts it seems rather pricy but has the advantage of not taking up too much room.

I mostly used Andrea paint sets which are lovely paints. I feel I am finally getting the hang of the flesh set and feel this time I got what I was trying to achieve, lets see how that pans out over the next few larger projects shall we.

This fellow has landed on my Etsy page which so far has not attracted much in the way of hits though I now have 13 items listed so I hope to increase the traffic. Recently sold a bunch of stuff on ebay and they have decided to hold the funds for a month due to not having sold anything for awhile. Bought plenty though, another excuse to hold onto funds it seems to me.

 

Fallschrimjager Bust

 

This Fallschrimjager bust is from Mitches Military Models and is a new release. He has not been added to the website as yet so if interested you may have to contact him via the contact me button. It's a one piece casting which makes it a lot easier to work with than many a bust.

I also added a decal to the helmet that is designed with Action Men in mind. This being a 1/10 bust it's the same scale so perfect. The distinctive Splinter camouflage smock was a challenge but helped along by using the Andrea Color set for this camourflarge.

 Still struggling to get leather right, still a long way to go before I am really happy with it. The texture to the helmet makes it look more metal and I used oils to grime it up a little.

Technically by the time this camo was available the crest had stopped being put on the helmets. I claim artists licence and run for the hills. I have a second one of these busts so may paint it up in the earlier uniform variant. 

Young Miniatures WWII Commando SOLD

The first stage is a basic acrylic covering, the colours do not need to be super accurate and this is especially the case with the flesh. In this case I have used Iraqi Sand as per a painting tutorial. Over the grey undercoat and surrounded with so much green he looks a bit Kermit. 

Next up will be adding the oils and blending between the different shades. I have painted up a test on a spare head so have a good understanding of how it will progress.

I was quite happy with how the leather strap on the helmet worked out. Far less with the balaclava though this would look better once varnished.

In the end I switched back to acrylic after painting the skin, helmet and uniform as I was not happy with the colours I used for the webbing and backpack.

Bust is by Young Miniatures, these tend to be very well sculptured and great detail. This in fact is probably one of the lesser detailed models but still has bags of detail.

The plinth is from Model Display Products here in the UK. Quite a simple design so sits in the background. For my WWII larger busts I will keep with these if they look right.

It was the backpack that really broke me. Just could not get the colours I wanted from the oils but in the end happy with the mix of mediums.

Quite happy how the oils worked out on the tunic, it's given some nice texture making the fabric a bit more realistic. Took an age to dry though.

As usual the last bit was the worry. Adding a bit of camo grease to be more like the box art! Still got a long way to go before I get to an acceptable level but I am enjoying the ride.

FeR Miniatures Red Army Junior Lieutenant Barbarossa, 1941 SOLD

I had a couple of these beautiful mini busts from FeR Miniatures for my birthday. This one is much the easier one of the two to paint so I went for this one first. As you can see it's not complex with not a great many things to paint. Both my 1/16 mini busts are single piece castings and looking at the others available I suspect all of them are. All paints used are Vallejo Model Color .

Started with the eyes then flesh from there. The look on the face is despair, most Junior offices would be staring death in the face in the first months of the German invasion. Either from the wasteful attacks or for their failing to attain impossible missions. As such I went with a pale skin tone, this also seems to be backed up by accounts I have read. 

I was going to leave it at that as I had no confidence and little idea on how to do the hair effect. It would end up being almost the last stage I finished so was really worried I would mess it up.

The uniform and hat base colour was Vallejo 70879 Green Brown but I added different yellows to the base colour to give slightly different start colours and then added more of each yellow for each new layer. The tunic received about eight stages whilst the hat received about half as many.

The base normally gets added at the end but in this case it was added pre priming so no risk of damaging the finished piece! Yes I own that T-Shirt.

Lesson for the future will be to sand down the resin base as it's a bit bumpy. Too late for the British Para as he is already attached to his base. Piano wire instead of the usual thicker wood or brass rod that I use for the bigger Busts.

Really happy with how the buzz cut hair came off. I mixed 70.841 Andrea Blue and 70.815 Basic Skintone very very thin so more a glaze. Probably a lot thinner than someone with more confidence as I had to add several washes of this over before I was happy with the look. Then sealed with further washes of watered down Skintone. This was suggested to me by someone on the Facebook Bust@ group. Anyone wanting to get into bust painting should join here as it's a great group and in the six months or so I have been a member it's all been very positive. Some of the work is jaw dropping, so much better than I can hope to get.

Another view of the hair. One thing I think I am learning from this one is to actually work with a far thinner consistency paint and layer it up rather than go for more colour changes. This should give a smoother finish. That being said the images you see are blown up way above actual size.

The other big jump for me was working on leather. Having watched a few tutorials I had a bash. I was surprised in just how many other colours you use away from the final colour planned. I started with 70.871 Leather Brown but then dabs of various red browns along the edges and folds straight out of the bottle. Then a watered down 70.877 Goldbrown for around the belt holes and more on the edges and places it would rub. A thin wash of 70.836 London Grey followed by a few washes of other darker browns and finally a mix of very thin wash of Goldbrown and touched up thicker wash of the Goldbrown. The Lieutenant pips, backing of the star both 70.801 Brass and buttons and belt buckle the brass mixed with a bit of black to dull off the shine and make look different to the polished brass.

The only question is do I keep him or sell him on to pay for more hobby stuff. As you can see he is not at all large. In fact when I got him I was a fair bit disappointed as for the price of two of these you can get a larger bust. However they have grown on me but for now I will be working on a couple of the larger ones I have in hand.

Next Up

The next bust I plan to paint is British Commando WWII by Young Miniatures based in Korea. This is a far less complex figure than the Polish Lancer or even the German soldier I finished recently. I am trying a few different things, first I have high and low lighted the bust by spraying a light primer from above and darker primer from below though I think I really need to use stronger contrasting shades.

The other change is quite major, I will base cote it watered down acrylic and then over paint in oils attempting to a more subtle shading through blending. Being new to oils this is going to be interesting. I have already started work on a spare face and been reasonably happy with the result. This will be far more time consuming but I hope for far better results.