Wednesday, 29 September 2021

First German Platoon


For this first platoon, I used all new figures and tried to follow the clean painting style and colour choices on the excellent Crac des Chevaliers blog.

I'm pleased with the result and it is certainly an improvement on my earlier WW2 Germans, painted with lots of dry brushing and with a far too blue field grey, but inevitably it falls a bit short of what I was aiming for. Not quite as clean as I wanted and the varnish has gone satin - not sufficiently mat varnish really is my Achilles heel! 

These took quite a long time. A combination of  trying to follow somebody else’s methods and a strictly defined colour scheme with much less space for making it up as you go compared with my Romans or Italian Wars collection. Ah well - practice makes perfect.


One issue from using a single base for a section, including the LMG team is that you can’t really use prone figures firing a bipod MG42 mixed with upright figures. It looks ok with advancing figures, as below, but I’m not 100% convinced by the standing firing figures. 


I especially pity the loader here, being used as a rest for the MG42. Really hope he has some good ear plugs!





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6 comments:

  1. Chevalier de la Terre29 September 2021 at 21:16

    Fine work on these! They came out really well, and there are some great Peter Pig figures in their ranges too.

    AK Interactive Ultra Matt varnish...

    CdlT

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    Replies
    1. Nathan30 September 2021 at 19:54

      Thank you.

      I have some of the AK varnish but haven’t seriously used it yet it seems very thin. Do you use a thicker ‘protection’ layer first or the AK on its own and do you brush it on or use an air brush?

      Delete
    2. Chevalier de la Terre1 October 2021 at 21:40

      It is very thin, and yes, I do use a stronger gloss varnish underneath.

      I use Vallejo Premium Airbrush Colour 064 Gloss followed by a matt varnish, all applied by airbrush. You can brush paint as well, I just vastly prefer varnishing by airbrush as the results are generally better. The Vallejo Premium Matt 062 is also very, very good, but will only "matt down" properly over a gloss coat. Applied on it's own, it tends to have a slight sheen for some reason.

      The AK and MiG/Ammo Ultra Matt varnishes are very, very matt, but they do need a stronger coat underneath for real protection on gaming miniatures. And preferably don't handle for 24hrs after varnishing as it will be weak until dry properly.

      Varnishing is still a pain in the backside in my experience

      CdlT

      Delete
    3. Nathan8 October 2021 at 16:52

      Thanks very much for the further info. Varnishing certainly is a pain - my last batch (same bottle of Windsor and Newton varnish as before) is perfectly mat but with some white patches of excess silica! I’ll have to give the two layer and airbrush approach a go.

      Delete
  2. Vexillia30 September 2021 at 08:20

    Try these to help a satin varnish:

    [1] Add talc to Vallejo - https://blog.vexillia.me.uk/2014/05/painting-tips-5c-matting-acrylics-with.html

    [2] Improve the varnish - https://blog.vexillia.me.uk/2008/05/painting-tips-1-humbrol-mattcote.html

    [3] Varnish recovery - https://blog.vexillia.me.uk/2013/04/varnish-recovery-technique.html

    [4] Varnishing myths - https://blog.vexillia.me.uk/2014/01/recent-article-unvarnished-truth_15.html

    Remember that varnishing result depends on the state of the underlying paint layers. Plus Vallejo reds, greens and blues are prone to dry satin when matt varnished (and it's not due to the varnish used).

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    Replies
    1. Nathan30 September 2021 at 19:49

      Hi Martin. I already use your talc matting technique. In this case I suspect I’d let the (improved) varnish settle out a bit and not mixed it back in well enough.

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