About Me

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London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).

Monday 24 September 2012

WIP: Dux's Painting Prize - Paras #3 (lots of pics)

It was still pishing down this morning, but as there was little or no wind I took the risk of opening my windows to provide the ventilation I need to do spraying. Luckily no rain got in and Dux's Paras and Andy's dragoons got the matt spray they needed.

I popped along to the club this evening to hand Andy's dragoons over - once he's based them I'll try to get some pics of the fully finished article. It was another busy night at the club, with 9 games going on, plus myself and another member lurking. I stayed a bit longer than I'd originally intended because I got caught up in watching a couple of the games.

Still, I'm back home now, Mad Max 2 on in the background as I type, have photographed the Paras in their matt state and resized the files for posting here.

Enough of the blurb, here are JPEGs:

















As I was resizing the pics I did spot a couple of areas that are still slightly glossy, so I'll give the figures another burst tomorrow. I also spotted that I didn't do the helmet straps properly - I forgot that the strap splits around the ear so I'll need to do the rear parts - no sweat.

I've learnt a couple of things doing this:
The pre-shading wash needs to be darker (and probably more concentrated)
Thinning the paints down gives some really nice shading effects - this is particularly evidenced by the webbing, which got a single coat of thinned paint
I need to be a bit more careful about mopping up excess Klear/ink
This technique works well for 28mm and 54mm, but 15mm figures would probably be too fiddly for it to work properly, although it might work well for Middle Eastern and Oriental types and on things like cloaks.

I've really enjoyed painting these for Dux. They are very nice, detailed sculpts which were easy to work on (my only negative comment was the amount of flash on these figures, but they may have been old stock - Warlord Games appear to have changed the description of the pack from "British Paras" to the more accurate "British Airborne").

I've avoided WW2 for myself so far, but would be tempted by these figures to make that leap at some point. Yes, yet another period and army to go on my "to do" list.

16 comments:

  1. They have really turned out bloody lovely Tamsin!

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    1. Woohoo! They'll be winging their way to you in a day or two. Don't forget to send me pics of them properly based :)

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  3. Great job on these Tamisin. You should be proud of these guys! I used ink for the first time and got it right on one of my horses. I was trying to do a grey horse and I ruined the figure completely. I'm having a heck of a time with these 15mm's.

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    1. I am proud of what I've managed with these Anne.
      The trick with grey horses is to use the black ink quite dilute and with a smaller brush than you would normally do the ink wash with, going over the horse with a very light touch with not too much ink/wash on the brush.

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  4. Looking even better with the Matte coat. You have done great work.

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  5. Excellent work, Tamsin.

    He's a lucky Dux! :-D

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  6. Great painting Tamsin, they look excellent! The matt varnish has topped them off.

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  7. Fantastic job. They look excellent.
    Cheers

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  8. Very nice Ma'am - he's a very lucky Dux!
    Looking forward to seeing them in the flesh soon :-)

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  9. Nicely done Tamsin they look really good.

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  10. Good work! Al you need now is a Pegasus Bridge ;)

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  11. Tamsin, these are super! The DPM material is a real pain to get just right, but you've done these terrifically. Awesome stuff.

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