Posts made by Spitfire38

Hi all - I’ve been on the forums for many years but haven’t been that active lately. I’m from the Southeast but currently live in the Washington DC area. I got started with Axis and Allies because I loved strategy games, but painting and customizing became my hobby and main way of engaging with the A&A community. You don’t have to wrangle your dad or any friends to play with you, which makes it easier!

I’m always happy to offer painting tips or fawn over your pieces that you’ve painted yourself. Here’s some of my past work and here’s a painting tutorial I put together in the early days when I was much more active on the forums.

@coedewa What specific questions about camo do you have?

Here is a process I provided earlier in the thread re: a German woodland camo for armor. I’ll reiterate that you want to go light to dark when applying colors.

The woodland camo is a 3 step process. First of all, I painted a dark khaki color, based off of a photograph or drawing. Then I painted a burnt sienna brown in stripes and an occasional “splotch”, to simulate the camo. Then I painted a dark forest green overlapping the brown, making sure to cover most of the piece. There are many different kinds of camo, but as a general rule, it looks better when it overlaps, when it’s not a predictable pattern (you don’t want parallel stripes running along the length of the piece :-)), and when you cover the entire piece, then paint details over it. This makes it look more authentic in my opinion.

@coedewa said in -A Painting Tutorial and Resource for A&A Global-:

So I am just getting ready to start my painting journey, will be my first attempt at painting mini’s. I have a question that I haven’t seen answered yet. What is peoples opinion on the best (easiest) units to start with and faction. I’m thinking maybe planes seem like they could possibly be the easiest.

Thanks

Hi Coedewa - congratulations on starting with miniatures painting! It’s been a hobby that’s given me much satisfaction, many hours of solitude, and a community with other hobby painters. While I haven’t been online for a while there’s a good group of customizers that will be a huge help to you as you begin painting.

I would say the easiest type of unit to begin with is aircraft, followed by ships. They have the most flat surfaces, don’t require a lot of different colors, and allow you to get the basic techniques of brush strokes, paint viscosity (how thick or thin do you want it?) and priming under your belt. Infantry and ground forces can be straightforward, but they are expected to look a little bit more worn and dirty, which takes practice.

Even more important than unit type in determining the difficulty level is the scheme that you decide to go with. A camouflaged fighter plane is much more difficult than a steel gray Panzer V. When choosing a faction, I would recommend beginning with a set of units you know will be straightforward. Tanks, for example, can be pretty basic for all factions. German armor had a nice steel gray, or the OOB Shermans can be a nice army green. Aircraft can also be simple. American fighter planes could be olive drab or a deep naval blue, while the Japanese Zeros are just a white! Once you feel good about the basics, branch out into ships with a two-tone camo scheme, or try a Japanese jungle camo. It’s trial by error. If you hate what you did, soak the pieces in mineral spirits to get the paint off and start over, or buy more pieces from Historical Board Gaming. Or, just move on to a new faction and by the time you finish painting the whole set, you may just find that those first pieces are ready for a makeover. That’s the situation I’m in, and I haven’t even finished my whole set.

I hope this helps!

@DMcLaren said in Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces:

It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the forums and seen your customized work DMcLaren. Just now coming back to it… wow! What kinds of paints are you using that you can get such crisp lines? Are you thinning the paint at all to give yourself more definition on your lines? It looks amazing!

Ah yes, the expensive stuff. :) Well, it looks wonderful! Thanks for sharing your work with the community.

Hi FastHeinz,

What brand of acrylics are you using? Your colors are so flat and the coats are so smooth. It looks like high end stuff. If it’s not something like Vallejo, did you thin it down and do lots of coats?

Nice work!

Wow, sounds like a neat series! Thanks for the tip. Can you post a link here when he puts up the first episode?

Hi John, and all others looking in on John’s set.

Thank you for the kind words - it’s been a pleasure to work with you and make your creative visions into realities! After so many pieces, it is hard to not finish the project myself. But I’m most happy that you were inspired to paint your own and have found enjoyment in it. It’s a wonderful hobby to share, so I’m glad I could provide some guidance in any way possible. I look forward to some partnerships (or playtime!) in the future, perhaps!

For anyone who corresponds with or works for John, I can tell you that he is exceedingly patient, encouraging, and reliable. I’m sure you’ve seen this from his presence on this site. My activity over the last few years has died down, but it is great to see the community still strong!

Best wishes with your set, JB!

I’m loving the armbands!

@Andy6049:

R DiStefano - How is picoarmor on shipping?  They have many, but not all, of the decals on my list and I may try to buy some from them.

I’ve also used PicoArmor - shipping is fairly cheap if I remember correctly, and it arrives within 2-3 weeks.

@Andy6049:

Another question that I forgot to ask the first time was about weathering.  I understand that inkwashes and dry-brushing “weathers” pieces, helps to bring out detail, and adds a little more realistic feel to the pieces.  However, I know almost nothing about inkwashes except for a general concept.  I assume that black is the primary inkwash color.  So…

Are there certain inks I should look at or stay away from since I am using enamel paint?

Does anyone have any advice for a first time “inkwasher”?  (i.e. don’t do that or you will destroy everything kind of stuff)

Hey Andy - it’s good to have another customizer in the community! Welcome.

I’m in the same boat as EBard - I use acrylic paints and ink washes. I’m not sure how enamels interact with an ink wash, but I can’t imagine it’s any different than an acrylic as long as you let your enamel dry. My tips for ink washing are:

• An ink wash darkens your pieces, so go a shade lighter on your base coat to compensate. You don’t want to put a lot of detail into a piece and then lose it all because the whole piece looks too dark.

• Brown is my color of choice for infantry and certain ground vehicles, while I use black for ships, some ground vehicles, and some infantry. Brown simulates dirt a little bit better, and looks more natural on skin colors. Whichever color you choose, I suggest that you be consistent across the whole batch of pieces. Some brown washed tanks and some black washed tanks of the same scheme might look off.

• If you need to take some ink wash off, just dry your brush and dab the area where the wash pooled. It’ll soak it right back up into the brush. If it’s starting to dry, or that method doesn’t work, a really wet brush can usually make the ink wet again and allow you to wipe it or lift it off with a brush or tissue.

• Lastly, I find that you can double the effect of your ink wash by doing a highlight color over top of it. The ink wash creates the shadows, and the highlight creates, well, the highlights on the raised edges. If an ink wash takes your piece from Level 3 to Level 5, highlights will take it to Level 8!

Happy painting!

Those look great! I’d have to agree with LHoffman - the desert scheme is really crisp. Best of luck with your other pieces in the coming weeks.

Sorry, I don’t have much experience with pewter pieces. Perhaps someone else here can direct you to a resource that would be helpful!

Hi - are the GHQ pieces metal? If so, I’m not sure that I have any tips for you. Plastic is a fairly easy fix with some boiling water and tweezers.

I love that Finnish infantryman. Nice work.

Thanks for the photos John! They look great all lined up in formation.

I’ll add my vote for a master sticky thread. It would be helpful for first time visitors as well - a one-stop-shop if you will, to get acquainted with the various resources and projects available to them in the Customizations forum.

I just went over to Facebook and checked them out. Looks great! May I ask why you decided on three smokestacks instead of two? I like the ridged roofs - it adds some “visual texture.”

It works with acrylics! Good to hear. Thanks for the link.

At what point in the painting process did you airbrush? (i.e. after base coat? After an ink wash? At the very end, after all the detailing?)

Love that dust on the tracks. I’ve never made the jump to buying an airbrush - which model did you use? And which paints?

Congratulations on completing such a major project! Wonderful work.