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101. Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung Tiger I E Tanks

  1. #1
    Causing Mischief Tinweasel's Avatar
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    Sep 2004
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    Eastpointe, MI

    Painting 101. Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung Tiger I E Tanks

    I've been working on a commission off and on since Games Day - met the guy there, referred by a fellow painter - for a squad of 5 Tiger I tanks from the Flames of War game. He actually wants them painting to a display-type standard while still suitable for tabletop use, and it's kinda nice to be able to go all-out on something for someone else in a different style of painting and modeling than what you're used to.

    I've never painted any WWII models before - the closest to these things I would say I've done would be some Battletech figures back in the day, and I'm talking when I was, like, 15 years old. I've been doing a lot of reference to get the colors and appearance right - I know the client is reassuringly saying 'just paint 'em like the back of the box,' but there's a lot of stuff that isn't visible from the single static pic on the packaging. Maybe I'm a stickler, but just like with my 40K painting I'd like stuff to be painted 'historically'- and 'realistically'-accurate if I can get it.

    There's been a lot more progress since the following pictures were taken, but I figgered I'd start at the beginning and see what people thought - or ideally I could get some feedback/suggestions on painting these tanks specifically since they're for the Flames of War game and that's a system I'm not at all familiar with - they're Michael Wittmann's unit from . Oh, and this is the first time I've used my airbrush for camo patterns!

    I did somewhat of a sunbleaching effect from top-down along the lines of what I've read about in the AFV modeling comunity (like on Armorama, for example) - I don't know if it necessarily turned out properly, but the client likes it so far, so there's that. [B]The third pic is more washed-out looking than in reality, however, even despite the intentional mixture of GW Bleached Bone into the color mix.[/B]

  2. #2
    Are you using the oil based dot bleaching? I wouldn't think that you could do the effect with acrylics since it relies on the colors being wet enough to blend. For the small scale stuff I'd really recommend you up your contrast rather dramatically. They need the highlights and shadows exaggerated even more than your 40k stuff does.

    If you are doing Whittmann's unit, here's an interesting photo of his tank:
    http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/uitbraak/wit03.jpg

  3. #3
    Causing Mischief Tinweasel's Avatar
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    Sep 2004
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    Eastpointe, MI
    Thanks for the interest and the suggestions, Vaaish!

    No, I've never heard of oil based dot bleaching. It sounds interesting, but the way I lightened the top-down aspect of the tank was just mixing in some Bleached Bone into the base color of Desert Yellow (about as close to Dunkelbrun as I'll likely get short of buying Lifecolor model paints or something) and then giving everything a light airbrush spray in a 45° halo around the top of the tank. The kill markings on the barrel of Wittmann's tank are impressive - I'm going to have to forward a link to that pic in my follow-up mail here to the client and get his opinion on something like that. I'm guessing he'll want it "like the back of the box," which was his reponse to most of the questions I've fired his way already... not a bad thing, but not historically accurate, either. *shrug*

    I started out trying to aim for high contrast, with two steps up in highlights... and then I added an extreme of shading/grunge in around the raised details all over the tank, especially into the panel lines; then I added some chipping/weathering effects with different grades of pencil; then some smoke pigment around the exhausts and the end of the gun barrel. To make a long story short, this is about where things are at now:


    I need to tidy up a few things that I obviously know about - my hack job on the one tank number decal on the turret right side and the slightly-not-as-butchered decal on the turret left side are plain. I'm just going to freehand the numeral replacements, since it was a big botch on my part and this is only the 2nd time I've ever applied decals to anything (if you count all the decals on this as one, that is). The first turret number didn't stretch too well over the raised detail, I compensated on the 2nd by cutting the decal and applying it in sections - it turned out much better looking, so I'll have to do that on the remaining tanks.

    As to reestablishing more distinct highlighting, I'll leave that to the client's discretion. It'd have to wait until I'm at a similar point of painting for the sake of timeliness, since I really don't want to keep pouring in work on this one tank when I've got 4 more to start when I'm done assembling and gluing them. Anything else that maybe needs "fixing" on this tank (and pre-emptively on the others)?

  4. #4
    It's harder than I remembered to find links on it, but here are a couple on the oil dot fading technique:
    http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?...id=2069&page=4

    http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?...47&ord=&page=2 (this one is down toward the bottom of the page but shows pretty well what this does)

    http://modelarmour.com/index.php?opt...ures&Itemid=59

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