Saturday, June 20, 2009

Getting there...

Here it the Collina della Formica after the exterior has been base-coated using an old (expendable!) brush and half a pot of Ceramcoat's mudstone.

And again, after drybrushing and highlighting.




I shall soldier on! The interior will be a royal pain to paint but I'm anxious to get started on it.


I see that Scarab Miniatures has released some Chauchat LMG teams and a Hotchkiss MG or the French, along with some VB rifle grenadiers which is very good news.

I've also been slowly working on the garrison, experimenting with paint shades trying to find the best combination of colours for the Austro-Hungarians. I'm working on these in between working on my War of the Austrian Succession collection, so no pictures yet.

*****

A quick update:

There was a thread on mountain warfare on TMP, and someone linked to this site on how to make easy and practical mountains for wargaming. Owes a lot to theatre scenery it seems, but the idea is simply great and I can now see a way to make a suitable- and usable- backdrop to the Collina della Formica!



Saturday, June 13, 2009

Still trying to reach the summit!

In case anyone is wondering where I've been, work- along with the rest of life's constant demands- has been a canine of the feminine gender recently. As has been painting the Collina della Formica.

It is one
big model to paint, especially when the biggest thing I've painted in the last few years has been an artillery piece or two in 28mm. As a result, I ended up underestimating- by a large margin- just how long it would take me to paint this beast.

It has taken a number of tries with a various combination of paints, but I think I finally found a finish that seems to look like the rockscape as seen in various pictures of the Dolomites, and which would look equally at home on the Carso plateau.


Here is a shot from the business-side of the anthill.


This thing devours paint, brushes- and patience- like you wouldn't believe! Imagine painting a sponge with a triple-0 paintbrush...

I ended up spraying the whole thing with two (!) cans of Panzer Grey enamel spray paint from Tamiya as an undercoat. I then use Ceramcoat's mudstone to wet-brush on the main surfaces, leaving the dark grey in the crevasses. I then successively lighten the rock face with a drybrushing of sandstone and maple sugar tan by the same company. This is followed by a wash of tube acrylic raw umber. When dry, I give it a final highlighting of very pale gray (Ceramcoat's soft grey).

Basically another week or two's worth of painting to go, and I still haven't started painting the inside of the trench works yet. But I have to say I'm happy with the way it's turning out.