Flames of War with Micro-Armor

[paloalto]

In other words, what size brush do you use to paint the hands and faces?? Or do you paint the whole area flesh, then cover it over when you do the tunic or blouse?

[Extra Crispy]

Well not that I'd hold mine up as worthy of emulation but here's how I do it.

1.) Prime black.

2.) Paint the base uniform. Try to leave a few shadows black just to help the 3-D effect.

3.) Paint the flesh. I use a tanner, sunny skin (Vallejo 845 IIRC).

4.) Paint the helmet (I use a brighter color than I would for, say 15mm)

5.) Paint the rifle, breadbag and straps. Touch up the boots if required.

Done.

I do not "dip" or highlight at all, letting the black priming do that for me. I use two brushes. A #1 for the uniform color and a 0 for the rest.

[Mk 1]

Brush size? REALLY SMALL!

Other tools? A magnifying glass on an articulated arm, set into a weighted base. (Better to have one of those magnifying viewers with the round tube-light around the lense, but those pretty much require a permanent hobby bench, which I don't happen to have.)

Method? For me, I mostly follow Ritter's approach for vehicles, but IanH's for figures. The differences are subtle. Mostly in the sequence of the steps. Both use dark tone washes and light tone dry-brushing.

Here is IanH's figures, step-by-step:
http://www.iandrea.co.uk/wargames/6mm/6mmf/6mmf.html

It is a very clear and simple write-up. I found it very helpful.

But I choose different paints than either of these two fine gentlemen. I prefer Testor's Model Master sprays for my base-coating when available, otherwise Polly-S acrylics for base-coating as well as for detailing / washes.

I have never managed to get to the point of painting webbing/haversacks. I paint boots, guns, faces/hands, and helmets ... usually in that order. So far I've done most guns in black rather than brown. In my most recent efforts the IanH method's dry-brushing seems to bring out the haversacks and webbing well enough (but mainly I can't see it anyways!). With my eyes, its really hard to see more than the flesh tone blobs and that there is "something" in the fig's hands.

But I do so love the pics that some folks here post!

[Mobius]

Actually FOWing of a game is part of the life cycle of a main sequence game genre. Once a genre has reached its FOW period there is a brilliant burst of activity and the game outshines most all other gaming for a short time. But this popularity is short lived. Once this burst is over the genre is cooked. It either collapses into a black hole of obscurity or dwindles virtually foreever as a dim, little played ember of its former glory.

This is the fate of WWII miniature gaming.

[Mk 1]

Mobius mumbled:
Actually FOWing of a game is part of the life cycle of a main sequence game genre. Once a genre has reached its FOW period there is a brilliant burst of activity and the game outshines most all other gaming for a short time. But this popularity is short lived. Once this burst is over the genre is cooked. It either collapses into a black hole of obscurity or dwindles virtually foreever as a dim, little played ember of its former glory.

This is the fate of WWII miniature gaming.

Mobius, my friend, you seem to have gotten into the pumpkin wine this evening!
I just hope you brought enough to share.

[paloalto]

MK,

Maybe I can check out your brushes and stuff on Saturday. I have a feeling I need to get a properly miniscule brush. What are these circular bases I keep seeing people using? Are they pennies?

regards,

[Extra Crispy]

Palo:

The important thing about a brush is not how small a size it is. The important thing is that it come to a fine point. I have an excellent size 1 brush. I use it for my 15s. It has a fine enough point to do piping on collars. It also does nearly everything on my 25/28mm except the basecoats and dry brushing.

One of the great lies of this hobby is "I could paint detail like that if I had a small enough brush..."

[CountRingworm]

on ExtraCrispy's note:

I bought a 20/0 brush to do faces and hands and haversacks. i thought it'd be perfect, and i'd really get the detail. it basically looks like an eyelash put into a brush stick.

it does paint those things, the problem is that it is so small you have to keep getting more paint. and the more times you have to go over something, the more chances you have of screwing something up.

i did note that it does work well when you have watery paints*, and you need to get them into a tiny crevase or on a small detail. larger areas, about as large as an infantryman's face on these models, forget it.

so, to reinforce his point- smaller not always better. there is a point of diminishing returns on brush size. just have to find the smallest you're comfortable with.

*i use vallejo paints, and i almost always add a drop of water or two to get the consistancy i like. i'm not a good painter by any stretch, so YMMV.