More painted pieces for consideration

@leebear

That’ll do it - and after you have used your playing pieces for a while, you’ll see if you need to spray a new layer of matt varnish.

2-3 layers - each layer thinly sprayed - and dry 24 hours between each layer.

You units will last a lifetime:+1:

@the-captain

They are classic 1/72 scale.

That is really impressive! Very nice

@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.

i just started painting mine.  Use spray paint.  Use Krylon grey or white primer.  After it primed spray it with the color you want as the base gray, green, earth, etc.  Then add the finishing touches the cockpit, nose, tail colors, etc.  The spray paint gives you a nice even coat.  Go light and fast over the piece about 6 inches away .  if you go slow you’ll put on to much paint.  no good you lose detail.  If you really want a sharp looking piece add decals.

look at some of my pieces on combat miniatures face book site.

Jeff Cam.

@GeneralHandGrenade:

I was just going to fork over my roundels SS. Feel free to send a well equipped, well fed army capable of stemming the onslaught of fascism and imperialism at the dawn of the nuclear age.

Attack !!!

Smitty I sent you a PM

I do sell pieces cheaper than HBG plus I do have the 3 x 6  anniversary map also that I may part with.

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.

So very true. When I first started painting my aircraft I had to include decal roundels for the players to distinguish the pieces from one another. My naval units are painted mostly with a color scheme for playability except for the capital ships like the Carriers and popular Battleships. All of them have a decal or flag to show which nation they belong too. I actually replaced the OOB British Cruisers because I thought they looked too close in size with the destroyers. I ended up replacing with some ships I found on Shapeways. The biggest problem I had with naval units is that they can exist in the same seazone with enemy pieces unlike land territories. Because of this I decided to keep the subs, destroyers, cruisers and non unique battleships following a color scheme. There are so many colors in the spectrum though we should be able to come up with a solution that will make them look more historical yet keep the pattern or color scheme for the nation. I really would love to paint all the ships historically and maybe I will revisit them again someday. Every time I go back and repaint my pieces I seem to get better at it. Or at least I think I do, hehe.

Yeah, it was really hard to get them the way I wanted them to look. I am glad I decided to go with painting the symbols because it’s more gratifying then slapping a sticker on the pieces……in my opinion.