So another post for my expanding EW German list. Now this time I’m doing my least favourite unit type – gun teams. The reason I dislike painting them is mainly due to the mixture of armour painting (the gun) and infantry – both are done separately and I use different techniques.
This is the first time I’ll be doing an infantry unit for an army, and that brings its own importance as it’ll set the tone for all infantry ensuring they look coherent. So coming up with basing and paint scheme is a tough one, especially as I want it relatively quick. I used to do test models when I started but these days I trust my experience- I’ve painted enough infantry to have a decent idea what I’ll get!
So let’s start with what I did to get the infantry here, having cleaned the models (and still missed a billion lines) I gave them a black undercoat- I leave this for about 24 hours to ensure its properly dry! I also try to ensure I get all the undersides painted too, as even if I then don’t get any other paint there, black is a good shadow! I also clipped some of there bases so I could play about with their posing more later.
With that I then applied some Vallejo air dark grey blue, I chose this as it was pretty grey, but had enough blue to echo the panzers. To this mix I added some Vallejo game colour wolf grey (did this twice) applying it in a zenithal method, before finally adding a little white to the mixture for the last highlight.
Now I would normally next do the faces – but I won’t – details why later! So next I tackled the wooden parts such as rifles, I returned to my old favourite flat earth, but highlighted with USA tan earth.
Next I did the helmets (and tin), for this I used Russian uniform with medium sea grey added, I always like aesthetically a contrast between uniform and headgear as they’re the two most noticeable parts of an infantry figure.
In a break from my normal infantry rules I opted to do all the infantry gear various colours, normally I use a very small palette- but when I did my Germans for the Pak40’s back in January I really felt they were bland. Also by doing different bits indifferent colours you get lots of small stages which I find more rewarding and less daunting when doing the project.
I went with US field drab for the bread bag and added a little khaki for the highlight, after this I went for the canteen in flat brown with a little yellow ochre for the highlight. I continued to avoid using metallic paints so used neutral grey with white added to highlight, before using green grey for the webbing, and some pouches, again with medium sea grey as a highlight.
With that done I broke out the Vallejo air washes – now these work very very differentiate to the GW ones I’ve used mainly in the past, they need (in my opinion) a layer of varnish first to help flow, they also I think affect the colour more than GW washes. Anyway I mixed some of the blue into the grey wash – in retrospect this is the one bit I’d alter in future – needs more blue! After that it’s the flesh with a wash over it (a GW one this time).
With the infantry done it’s now the bases and guns. These are key in my plan to tie it into the rest of the army. The guns I did exactly as the tanks, but kept the modulation on these just on one side to help the barrel stand out. I only painted the tyres a different colour (same grey as the panhard tyres), before painting enamel rust streaks and adding the mix of brick dust and thinners.
The bases were a great little bit of fun. I cut up some thin Plasticard with the cobbles on, and then base coated everything black. I then painted in the same modulated way the cobbles. After that I put any infantry in the tabs I could and then applied Vallejo black pumice over the base, it looked very shiny, but with a little grey dry rushing after it dried (and Matt varnish) it improved. With that done I put the remaining infantry (on the cobbles) on the bases.
Next up was adding the bricks which I ordered from here, they add great scatter to the base, I think now though I may go back and add some ammo crates other junk to bases too. Then it was just excessive amounts of brick dust!
So there you have the smoke launchers – pretty happy I think.