Very nice Job on those Spitfire! I love them… Never thought to make the teeth with dots instead of a white line. That really puts a good perspective on it. Well done sir!
And I never thought to make them with a white line - that would probably look pretty cool. It just goes to show that we all have very different approaches coming in. That’s why I like these forums, because you get to learn new things from other people.
Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it!
Wow, that’s very impressive! I’m glad to hear that Chad is still painting. It’s always a pleasure to see his work. Nice pieces Paul.
Spitfire, what do you mean by hand cutting the decals, because I thought you have to cut them out any way, and then separate the paper from the decal?
Obviously, I haven’t used this other decal company.
Is all picoarmor decals like that, and what is different about them?
Can you explain? :-)
Thanks,John
Yeah! Basically there are two kinds of decals, or at least two kinds of decals that I have worked with. All decals that I am working with are on transfer paper, so the decal loosens from the backing paper when it gets wet. These decals can be printed in one of two ways.
(1) The decal is printed such that each decal is individually divided, so if I cut out a sheet that has 5 flags on it, I can dip it in water, and then decide to slide off only 1 of the flags separate from the others. This is the type of decals that I-94 uses. I still have to cut the decals off of the sheet so that I don’t dip the entire sheet into the water at once, but I can take decals off one by one.
(2) All of the decals are printed on a single sheet of transfer paper, with no divisions between them. So, if I dip the decal sheet in water, the whole sheet will come off in one go, rather than being able to choose which ones I will take off. Those ones are like a temporary tattoo. (Does anyone want 15 Japanese flags on their arm? Weird tattoo :P ) So, to use individual decals, I need to cut them off of the sheet and into the shape that I want them. Thankfully I have been able to just cut the Chinese roundels into squares rather than circles; the edges are transparent, so as long as it doesn’t extend over the wing, it looks like a circle. The implication of this kind of decal is basically that I can’t do application in quick assembly line fashion, because I have to cut out each individual decal rather than do them in sets of 2, 3, or 4. So it just takes a good bit longer. This kind of decal is used by Picoarmor.
Side note: shoutout to Picoarmor! They have amazing customer service. I had a problem with their online ordering process (ended up being a server glitch), but they responded very promptly to my email, put me in touch with their webmaster, and followed up with me to make sure that everything was good. They also let me know that they had packaged and shipped my decals. Awesome customer experience.
Wow, you’re getting serious about this! Pretty neat. Enjoy your college experience :)
Those are Sweet! Bet it makes setting up the board even more fun! :)
Thanks Barney! As a painter, I can say that setting up the board very well might be my favorite part of the game. I don’t have many people to play with, so I have set it up before just to see all of the painted pieces and have fun with the game board.
Wow, very creative camouflage schemes! Those are a lot of planes :O
I have posted pictures of the P40s that I painted for John; the photos are in the sections for the Chinese and the Americans. They feature the Flying Tigers and American P40s in various schemes in which they would have been seen during the war. Here is an image of them all; for a slightly closer look, check out the original posts at the front of this thread!
I received the Chinese decals, which means that I can go ahead and put those on the infantry and artillery to have those for you guys soon. I am going on vacation next week, so I will not be working then, but I will resume afterwards. The Chinese decals need to be hand-cut, which is painstaking work, but it’ll get done eventually.
Excellent work - it sounds like we all love these pieces! You do wooden decks very well on those battleships.
Good call on the Tiger Camo - I like the look of it. The Stukas are my favorite (just in general).
Haha the man cave has been taken over by enemy forces! Uh oh.
Are you painting the wooden decks straight onto the primer, or is that a base coat of light gray that’s on top of the primer, and then the wooden decks?
@Albert:
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.
I like your choice of colors - they complement each other well and look pretty realistic from what I can tell. (The photo is very very big, so it would help if you could resize them in the future.) Nice work!
Wow, those are amazing! Why haven’t we thought of this before… thanks for sharing EBard!
Nice work John! I hope you enjoyed painting them.
I’ll echo John Brown on those tanks. Very nice! Thanks for sharing your work with us.
Thank you Spitfire38, you have quite a few awesome pieces yourself. I am not using anything fancy, just the normal model brushes from 3 down to size 5/0
I do find that when it comes down to the really fine stuff i have to sometimes trim hairs off the brush, yes, i do go through a few.
Of course a steady hand is a real advantage and patience too, both are things i struggle with. :oops:
Ah, so you trim hairs off of the brush. I have considered doing that; I’ll try it out.
Yep, patience and a steady hand are very important! Unfortunately they can’t be purchased at your local crafts store.
Uffff, those look so nice. Very stellar work.
May I ask what brush/tool you use to do the detail work on your aircraft? (a photo would be appreciated too :) I am always looking for ways to improve my process. Your aircraft are some of my favorite I’ve ever seen.
I’ll be waiting with anticipation!
Those subs look really nice! I really like your house rule and pieces.
I do use a primer. After reading some other posts on painting I realized I may not have properly washed the pieces before priming. I have also learned that different plastics react to the paint in different ways. Which makes sense since all my infantry pieces are custom sets I bought. I don’t seem to have trouble with any of the OOB vehicles I painted. Nobody seems to handle them roughly or too much but at least one person spills a box of pieces every game night. My turn was last month. Haha that’s good.
Yeah, it is probably the plastic bonding with the paint. A soapy wash and scrub beforehand and a primer is your best bet.
