New tutorial: Painting vehicles using washes

Just in time for Canada Day, I have published a new tutorial about painting vehicles using a white primer and various washes.

As with the other painting and basing tutorials I have done, these are mostly designed to provide new gamers with some quick-and-easy ways to get troops on their table.

1/76-scale Matilda II

The first of the BEF troops for my Memoir '40 game is finished. This is an old Airfix 1/76-scale kit. I think this actually a later model than would have seen service in France but whatcanyado?

I did this in a two-tone wash. Meh. The decals help a lot--nice that they didn't shatter as soon as they hit the water. I endsd up using the Australian decals rather than the North African set, as the Aussie decals seem to work better with the green colour. Plus the tank was named "brassiere".

Up next: Likely back to infantry. I have a few French guys primed and a bunch of Zvezda units to build.

1/72-scale Char B and FT-17

These are the first of the French troops for my France 1940 Memoir game. These are an old Matchbox kit (so 1/76-scale). I'm not super-keen on the FT-17 paint job and will likely add a second colour in a bit--painted them to illustrate a later post).

I have two more kits like this to get enough French tanks for all of the scenarios in the campaign book. These were reasonably easy kits but the instructions are all in Chinese so I am working just from the exploding diagrams. I expect the next two bunches should go a bit easier!

Up next: Not sure--likely an article on painting armour using stains and a white base. Then onto some more troops and guns while I put together a larger order for reinforcements.

1/72 37mm ATG

Here is the last of the German guns for Memoir '44 (for now). This is a $5 Zvezda 37mm ATG.

Nice model--I always find the angle of the shield to be a bit fiddly. Great crew figures.

Up next: A Char B1 and an FT 17 are underway.

1/72 75mm infantry gun

Another of the Memoir 44 guns. This is again a $5 Zvezda model for their Art of Tactics game. This time it is a 75mm infantry gun.

I see the figures are vastly more shiny than the model so I will try to hit them with some paint-on dull coat. I may have also gotten carried away with the dust.

Up next: A 37mm ATG and then perhaps onto some French tanks by Canada Day.

1/72-scale 105mm howitzer

Continuing with the Memoir 44 units, today I finished off a 105mm howitzer for the bad guys.

This is a $5 Zvedza kit and is quite nice to put together. I love the base they include which allows you to easily sink the legs into the "soil".

If I had a complaint, it would be that the range of elevation on the gun was quite restricted for a howitzer. Perhaps this is historic, but the picture I see online suggest a bit more elevation was possible.

Up next: Some more ATGs--I am quite liking the freedom to use different models to represent the abstract "gun" in Memoir.

1/72-scale Flak 36

My autumn 2014 project is going to be some 1/72-scale WW2, focused on France 1940 so I can play the Memoir 44 campaigns in the first (now out-of-print) Memoir campaign book. As I wait for some French to arrive, Dave picked me up a Zvezda 88mm ATGs.

This was a lovely kit to assemble and I'm looking forward to the second one. It took about 30 minutes to build (mostly waiting for the glue to tack-up before putting on the next piece). I sprayed, dry brushed and then dusted.

I'm not sure the colour is perfect--I was going for weathered Panzer Grey rather than a factory finish. I spent a fair bit of time applying rust washes and I see these largely disappeared under the magic dip.

One of my thoughts is assembling forces is that each unit would comprise a dioramic base with extra (individually-based) foot soldiers accompanying it to allow for casualty removal. I think this will look nice and also reduces the amount of kit I need to build.

A second thought was that the units didn't have to perfectly match (since Memoir is pretty abstract). So I tried to paint these guys up as a Luftwaffe unit (with blue-ish uniforms) while the next unit will have more traditional greenish infantry uniforms.

I may have overdone the highlighting as blue turned distinctly towards grey (it has been awhile since I've done any WW2 modelling). The kit also helpfully came with a few decals, including in the one I applied to the barrel.

The Zvezda infantry and guns offer a nice diorama base for units so I picked up a few more locally and have three guns sitting on the back deck built and sprayed.  These include a 37mm ATG and a pair of different howitzers.

Up next: Likely some more German guns and then perhaps some infantry and tanks.