Painting Update

I've been having a break from painting the last few weeks. I just haven't been in the mood and there's been no need to get models painted as I have painted armies for most of the systems I play. But I decided to get the paint brushes out again this week and start on some of the terrain I'd bought.

I bought a load of Kerr & King desert terrain a while ago and I'd painted some test pieces to sort out the best colour scheme but I never got around to painting the models. So in between rain showers I got out my white primer spray to give them a good base coat. Next up was picking out the brick detail in red and I decided to paint the garden tiles the same colour. After that came a bit of brown for the doors and windows and a brown wash over the white 'soil' area in the garden. Once that had all dried out the models were given a good coating of Army Painter 'Strong' tone dip and left to dry for 24 hours. Once they'd dried I gave them a quick dry brush white to pick out the detail and finished off with a spray of matt varnish. All that was left was to add grass flock at the base of the walls and some more flock and tufts to represent the plants in the garden.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. The dip effect isn't as brown as I'd hoped and the plants are a bit too dark, making them hard to pick out against the soil. I'm going to try a brighter flock on the next ones and maybe a dry brush yellow to give them some highlights. But at least they're painted now.

The back garden with the 'invisible' plants

The red isn't as bright as this in real life.

A des. res. with roof terrace

The separate walls came out quite nicely

I also got round to painting my objectives. This one is from Kerr & King as well and was part of their desert village deal. It was painted the same way except I used the Dark tone dip which is more of a black than a brown.

I was also inspired by this great article from the WWPD web site about making your own objectives. I was particularly taken with the idea of using a photo as an objective and adding terrain around it so I thought I'd give it a go. I decided to keep it simple and go with a Soviet star. I found one I liked on Google and printed it out on normal paper. I cut it to size and stuck it on to a spare large base with paper glue. After the glue had dried I gave it a light spray of matt varnish to seal it and then I brushed on couple of coats of gloss varnish to help protect it. Next I brushed on PVA around the star and dipped it in a mix of sand and cat litter. Once that had dried I gave it a wash of Coat D'Arms Mid Brown and a dry brush white to pick out the details followed by some green flock and it was done.

I must say I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was quick and simple to do and I may do some more for my German and U.S. forces.