John Brown's Painted G1940 Set - by Spitfire38

Part 4: Starting the ships, adding decals to the tanks, skin tones on the soldiers

Today spent some time adding paint to the sprayed ships, including painting the water jettisons on the subs black (this was very tricky and ended up looking a little sloppy). Advice for painting the jettisons: toothpicks are not small enough! If you do use toothpicks, you’ll have to dab a dot of black for each tiny jettison.

The battleships were a bit easier, and painting the decks, bridge, and smoke stacks were all done in silver. I plan on adding the final grey coat last after the deck and stacks/bridge dry. I experimented with how to add the national emblem, and will probably opt for a white background with a red dot on the bow of the ship. In the future I may do that with the rear end of the ship.

I painted the tranny smoke stacks silver and added a white background for the emblem on the destroyers. All in all, the Japanese navy is coming along nicely.

The armor is pretty much done. I added a white flag to the front side of the armor and will be adding the red dots later. For the aircraft, I’ll be adding a red band around the rear part of the plane. I was debating between sky blue and red and may alternate just for some variety.

The soldiers got some skin! And I just want to say that adding the paint alone brings out the contours of their facial features in an excellent manner on their own. I may add a touch of black to certain areas of the face but that will be a last step. The next step will be panting their uniforms, rifles, and helmets.

After all this is done, I will be spray painting the japanese bombers white, the aircraft carrier black, and then will add the details to those. The Japanese are about 55% done all in all and I’m pleased with the results so far even if they do look a bit amateurish. Stay tuned.

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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.

I have seen lots of people here use acrylics and I have on occasion. Most of my paints are enamels though. I find that is stays wet longer (which is a good thing) and doesn’t clump up nearly as much on your brush. I also use enamels in my airbrush. I find that enamels are actually much easier to clean than acrylics. While acrylics are water soluble, they don’t just dissolve, especially if already dry. It involves a great deal of scrubbing and scraping. With enamels, all you need is some mineral spirits cleaner and it takes the paint right off with very little effort. Cleaning acrylic paint out of my airbrush was hell the first time I did it… never using acrylics in there again. In terms of the finish, I can only assume that enamels hold up better to bumps and scrapes than acrylic paint does.

Someone once asked if enamels, by default, have a glossy finish to them. They do not, as long as you are using flat enamels, which seem to be the standard. I use flats and they have an excellent, non-shiny finish. I feel like enamel colors are a little deeper too, on the whole, but I suppose it depends on the brand of acrylic you use. Vallejo seems to be a popular choice for acrylics. I use predominantly Model Masters (Testors) enamels. In general, I would just said to find a brand you like to work with and produces the results you like. Don’t buy super cheap paint… you will get the results you pay for.

Good luck!

Just looked over your thread again spitfire. Saw you 190’s very cool effect they do look like they may have been supporting some of rommels Afrika core in The desert! Ever thought of showcasing some of your other units spitfire? Maybe more of your air? I would love to see more of your renditons of airpower for the nations! Lhoffman has some great air he painted with just about every air unit type painted for the Germans in dark green schemes.

Regarding prices, here are some quotes that I got from two different Southern California print shops  (I had posted this also on the thread entitled Ambilzi & Grasshopper’s 1940 Global Map)

The first print shop provided the following estimates (note the $52 set up fee):

SET UP:  $52.05 ( digital color file set up, latex printer set up)

48" x 105" vinyl $142.63  print digital color 4/0 on white smooth vinyl (15oz)

48" x 105" canvas  $300.13  print digital color 4/0 on canvas

48" x 105" versa fabric  $273.88  print digital color 4/0 on versa fabric

53" x 116" vinyl  $174.63 print digital color 4/0 on white smooth vinyl (15oz)

53" x 116" canvas $368.13  print digital color 4/0 on canvas

53" x 116" versa fabric $335.88 please note: print cannot be any larger, printing on a 54" rolld

A second set of quotes from a different Southern California printing company for printing on vinyl (the type of material used for advertising banners):

48"x105" ,  white 64" Roland EcoSol Banner, solvent 6 color Roland 4sf  $230.80

53"x116",    white 64" Roland EcoSol Banner, solvent 6 color Roland 4sf  $258.78

56"x122.5",  white 64" Roland EcoSol Banner, solvent 6 color Roland 4sf  $277.42

(I might check on the AliBaba website to see what I can find for printing services in China.  Also, I’m checking on the possibility of printing on upholstery vinyl and marine vinyl).

Wicked!!!

These are amazing, keep up the great work.

@BluGerman:

today i managed to read through this year long forum thread and I have to ask what happened after November 17th 2011?.. did everybody in this forum mysteriously dissapear? or was it just discontinued? or was it moved to another forum thread or something?.. somebody please let me know because I was really excited to see Allworks whole board with his miniatures (they are awesome!)

In answer to your question- I don’t really know.  :? Allworkandnoclay is an artist who does all sorts of other work for money, not just Axis and Allies. I presume that he moved on to other work, as his Flickr account shows him doing some sculpting and what not. To be honest though, he stopped posting pics, people stopped commenting, and it sort of fell of the face of the earth. There’s some stuff on TallPaul’s page, and there are plenty of other artists with some awesome stuff if you need your daily fix of painted minis!