AAA50th painted minis

@cavestone I also use vallejo paints. The key question here is are you brush painting, or using an airbrush, or both?

The Vallejo paints have a “Model Air” line that comes pre-thinned. You can buy a thinning product (from them) to add to the “Model Color” series paints, which are the exact same thing, just more concentrated and thicker.

If you’ve never used an airbrush, its a bit finicky–it requires regular cleaning and a without a good brush and compressor the paint will flow very inconsistently. The process will be very frustrating unless you use the pre-thinned paints because the brush can only blow paint that is within a certain set of thickness parameters that are difficult to achieve, especially if you are trying to mix the air in the brush’s reserve or in small quantities. That’s why having copies of both Model Air and Model Color is fine by me–unlike Warhammer 40K I’m using primarily earthy colors, greens, dunkelgelb and dunkelgrau… other AFV and camoflage colors and so i don’t need a collection of primary or bright colors.

But I recommend it. The airbrush creates a sublime, beautiful layer and slight mix variations can be used to create shadows, grades, etc. Then you go back over with your brush, adding highlights, lines, details. Then, back over again with a drybrushing…then back to the airbrush to blast Flory Wash all over it.

Can’t see your photos, you can’t post photos until you have a certain post count. I wouldn’t use water to thin paints, they are water soluble but the mix and viscosity is all wrong (though water is obv. cheap and easy to clean up)

As for oil-based paints, these require thinner to clean up, they are much more difficult to drybrush with and are not used for airbrushing. The days of the old testors paints is long behind us–even apple barrel paints are easier to work with and cheaper. The early painting methods were much more about glomming thick layers of paint onto lead miniatures and the modern approach with water based paint and a series of different techniques creates much better results.

HBG Kaga with the Standard of Admiral of IJN on its Deck

kaga 2.jpg
kaga 1.jpg

Thanks John, ill update this thread once more later when I finish those other troops… Oh I also replaced the some of the Japanese artillery with some from HBG, after which, I kinda liked the OOB ones better lol.

@BJCard:

@Swedo:

Thank you, im not happy with the US star, i hate doing stars, they always look crooked. Tobad my russian carriers will probably never see action :(

You could just houserule a Russian carrier starting in the Baltic- hey, it is your house, your rules!

Awesome!

Awesome!  Ready-for-the-desert scheme, sweet.

@Tall:

Guys,

––Here is an “in-process” pic of one of the U.S. Navy APD Fast Transports. These are the famous
“Green Dragon’s” that were re-built from WW-1 ‘four-piper’ Destroyers into Fast Transports to assist the Marine Raiders in their endeavors. The paint scheme utilises “Allworkandnoclay’s” talent to the max. The units are from Shapeways and have had their depth-charge racks removed so as to have the 48-star U.S. Flag applied to their stern decks. More on these six ships as they progress. Enjoy!
––Unless I’m mistaken these are the first highly detailed, painted and decalled SHIPS that the
WarMachine has done so far.

Tall Paul Â

That is definitely a cool looking transport. :-D

@Albert:

@Spitfire38:

I have looked at I-94’s decals and thought about it… the only ones I have trouble with are the Russian stars. I enjoy hand painting the insignia and I feel like it makes it look more uniform when it’s all paint, but like you said, it would definitely save some time  :lol:

Well you could save some effort there as Moscow ordered upper wing stars to be painted out on the eve of the German invasion……plain green was also changed to green with a black disruptive camo pattern   http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/index.html

I didn’t know that they painted over the top-wing stars. Thanks for sharing! If I were to paint them again, I’d probably leave them on or use decals, just for easy recognition on the game board, but I like knowing what was historically accurate.

“painted playing pieces” are just that, decals are way out of scale, not the emblem the plastic of the decal itself is too nasty on minis this size. These paint jobs are amazing!