DkoK: Painting a Leman Russ Tank in winter camo

Hi folks,

I´d like to show you how I paint my Leman Russ tanks for my DKoK Army. Since they will be fighting in a witer urban environment I decided to  use the old "white wash" camo that was used during WWII. It basicly is white paint over your normal tank color, applied by the soldiers during wintertime.

Let's get started with this step by step.

1.  Give the tank a light basecoat with a black primer and then apply Vallejo german panzer grey primer with an airbrush

 

2. Next is the modulation of the tank, we want it be a bit lighter on the upper sides. So I use some colors of the AK interactive (only "AK" from now on) to achieve this with my airbrush.

3.  Now I apply the company marking, which is a violet stripe.

4. Apply the decals you want. But first, put some gloss varnish on the area. After the decal is on apply 3-5 more layers of gloss varnish.

5. Next step is an invisible one. Spray the whole tank with AK Heavy Chipping medium and let it dry. Afterwards spray a thin white layer on the tank (with zenithal light in mind, so spray upper areas a bit more intense).

6. Now the weathering fun begins. Grab an old brush and some water and scrape the white paint randomly off the tank. On some areas you can increase the wear and tear and some other areas you might leave white. This gives a more realistic impression. After this step is finished, spray the whole tank with Satin Varnish. This is for protection of your work so far.

7. In the next couple of steps we use some more AK products. First up is the Filter blue for panzer grey, which is great for darklining all the rivets on the tank. You don't need to be overprecise right now, we will get rid of the excess filter in the next steps. So just let it flow in the recesses and again, have fun.

8. Paint rust streaks on the tank. Use a good brush with a fine tip for that. Vary the lenght of the streaks for a more realistic impression.

9. Now the magic is kicking in.  We use white spirit (or odorless turpentine) to blend all the excess filter with the rest of the tank. Also blend the rust streaks while moving your brush up and down. Use just a little bit of white spirit for that, theres no need to flood the tank. After this step when the paint is dry, coat everything again with Satin Varnish.

10. The same as step 8 but only with Winter streaking grime and you can also add the streaking grime to some areas you want to modulate in color.

11. Blend with white spirit. Also I have added mud to the track and lower sections of the tank. the mud was generated by mixing Natron, AK Fresh Mud, AK Wet effects fluid and brown/grey pigments. This can then be applied where wanted and sealed with a coat of satin varnish. After the satin varnish more Wet effects can be added to make some areas appear like fresh mud.

12. Painting of the metallic parts like the Aquila on the turret. Just finishing work really. Tank driver painting etc... (Tank driver isnt painted in the example yet).

This is how a force painted with this technique can look like:

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, if there are any questions please contact me in the comments. Also, for more in depth tutorials, visit the Blog of Mig Jimenez: http://migjimenez.blogspot.co.at/

kind regards,

Nathelis

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Pimp my DETOLF: Dust-Proofed!

As many of us I do own a "DETOLF" display cabinet by IKEA to show off and store my painted miniatures and those, which took a break due to other projects I prefer to finish first. It's one of the cheaper but still good looking ways to present our miniatures. 

A while ago Raffa from Massive Voodoo shared his way of adding a proper lighting and a nice but cheap background. I followed his advice and bought a pair of additional lights. What a boost! Im able to see more then just painted miniatures. They started to show me their details in all their greatness :) I've pimped my display cabinet and am very proud of this little change. 

But there's one point... I don't like about this cabinet. It's collecting dust. Pretty fast and a lot of that!

To be honest, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to clean my display regular. It's more like: "Wtf! Why's there so much dust all over again?!". What's following then is an extensive, time consuming process to get rid of the dust from the display boards as of the miniatures. It's also some kind of risky as I have to move every single project out of the cabinet. 

As one of my brushbrothers asked me how he can get his new cabinet dust proofed i started to search for an answer. I never really thought about how to achieve this. But there's a simple solution that guarantees a 99.9% dust proofed cabinet! And best of all: It just costs me around 10€ including pp!

So, what's this cheap solution I am talking about? 

It's a brush seal with adhesive backing (measuring 4.8mm base x 4mm high) attached all around the single door that prevents dust from getting inside of the display cabinet.

Dust-Proofing your display cabinet

Materials needed:

- paper tissue / Kleenex 

- glass cleaner / windex

- about 6m brush seal with self adhesive backing (4.8x4mm) ((I've got mine here))

- a duster 

- a pair of gloves

- a screwdriver 

- a scissor

Step 1 - Empty it

...but be careful! Handle your miniatures with care and try to avoid to drop them on the floor or to bump them on the side panels! Store them safe while you're going on with the next steps. 

Here's how it looks 2 weeks after I carefully cleaned it:

You can easily see where I've placed my miniatures. Very annoying. Damn this dust!

No accidents happened? Great, lets carry on then. If not... Well, it seems not to be your best day. Keep your head up, you're probably not the only one. It might have been even more worse!

Step 2 - The Cleansing

After you've removed every single miniature and stored it safely you can start removing dust and any fingerprints. Make it shiny again! This is where the gloves come in. Wear them to avoid adding new fingerprints while cleaning everything. 

Don't forget to clean the edges (very important!) and outer glasses too.

Step 3 - Sealing-Preparation

As its easier to work with a lot of space it's necessary to remove the door from the display cabinet. 

There are just 4 screws we have to loosen. Be careful and fixate the door while doing that with the other hand. It might fall off immediately.

Step 4 - The Sealing

Now it's time to add the brush seal all around the door. It's quiet easy as it comes with a self adhesive backing. Just work precise here as any misplaced part will be visible later. 

The gaps between the door and the side panels are everything else then even. So it might be necessary to attach the brush seal on the door AND on the side panels to prevent dust from getting in there. 

I guess you can see where's the gap after adding the brush seal. That's the upper part.

And here's the lower part. Later we will adjust the door.

If you've attached the brush seal all around its time to bring back the door into its place. Adjust it by moving it some millimeters if necessary. 

At this time your DETOLF should look like this:

Step 5 - Re-Organisation

Now it's time to get all your beloved projects back in place.

Again: Be careful to not bump your miniatures on any furnitures. 

This is how my display cabinet is looking after this complete roll up:

The black clothing on top was used to get better photos for you. I'll definitely add something like this permanently. I'm also considering of replacing the back with a mirror. But I'm not sure about that right now. 

Do you own a DETOLF too and pimped it in any way? Tell us in the comments. I'd like to gather as much ideas as possible to sum up in another article so everyone can get the most out of his display cabinet. Who knows, some day IKEA might change their DETOLF to our likes...

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DKoK: Painting Tutorial

Hi folks,

this time I´m back with a paint scheme tutorial for my new Death Korps of Krieg Army. So this is a small step by step and color recipe article.

I want the Army to look at home at a cold Winter urban fields, or maybe at ash wastes urban field. The colors were chosen with that in mind.



1. Building the miniature and basing it with Vallejo sandy paste, concrete rubble mix, and a little pieces of barbed wire. Priming was done with airbrush and first black, then zenithal white (2K priming).

 

2. Blending of the trenchcoat. I went for grey-blue winter colors. You'll notice that on the backside the coat is highlighted zenithal downwards, this is done against realism but for a nicer view on the tabletop.

 

Color recipe for the blending:

VMC Black

VMC Dark Bluegrey

VMC Dark Sea Blue

P3 Trollblood Base

VMC Blue Grey Pale

VMC Pale Blue

VMC White

3. Paint the gasmask, as this is the central theme of the Krieg army I painted it different than the rest of the Model. In very light colors. Note that there is texture on it and it's highlighted around the seams.

Color recipe:
VMC Cork Brown
VMC Iraqui Sand
VMC Deck Tan
VMC White

4. Paint boots and leggins/gloves. For the boots I wanted a worn leathery look. This is achieved by painting sharp highlight dots on the edges. The leggins are simply highlighted in various steps. Always remember where the light hits them from the most commong angle and highlight that part stronger.

Color recipe (boots):

VMC Black/VMC Flat Brown 50/50
VMC Flat Brown
VMC Cork Brown
VMC Iraqui Sand

Color recipe (leggins):

VMC Black/Cork Brown 50/50
VMC Cork Brown
VMC Iraqui Sand
VMC Deck Tan

5. Paint helmet and carapace armour. I wanted them to look black and dark, so while I used my usual silver NMM colors, most of the surface had to remain black with very light highlights, that are blended in a very short space to black. If you make too much of the space a highlight area, it will look grey and not black.

Color Recipe (Black):
VMC Black
VMC Dark Sea Blue
VMC White

6. Paint the violet parts. I choose a cold violet as my company colors. This bonds the army together and differentiates them from other Krieg companies (If i were ever to paint a second company...). Remember, you can desaturate colors by adding a grey of the same lightness level to it. So if the violet you have is too bright and colorful, add a bit of black/grey or white to it.

Color recipe:
VMC Black
VMC Purple
VMC White

7. Paint metallics and grey respirator. Metallics were done in TMM style with Black, GW Chainmail and VMC Metal Medium. First one can mix Black with Chainmail, to get a Dark basecoat of the areas. Then highlight with pure Chainmail and then put dot highlights with Metal Medium where the reflections should be.

The grey parts of the respirator and cable was done in 3 highlightning steps from Black basecoat.

VMC Black/London Grey 30/70
VMC London Grey
VMC White

8. Paint additional parts, pistol holder, knife, Vox cable and Vox

Pistol holder and Knife were blended with the recipe from Step 7. The vox cable was black and P3 Coal Black in different layers of transparency. The Vox itself is painted black and highlighted on the edges with Chainmail and Metal Medium.

9. basing and finishing the miniature

First I applied a layer of AK Fresh Mud to the base, and while this is still wet, put various grey pigments on that. Pk-Pro crushed glass was added for the snowy/ash effect and everything fixed with AK Gravel&Sand Fixer.

 

Hope you enjoyed that little tutorial, and if you like the miniature, you can vote on CMON for it: http://www.coolminiornot.com/338426

keep on happy painting,

Nathelis

How to paint lichens on trees / rocks

Hey ho, it`s time for my first video-tutorial.

In this short video I'll show you how to easily create lichens on wooden surfaces like tree-bark, any wooden panels (like on a bridge) or even rocks. Small details like this will move you a step further for a more realistic base.

But before I am going to show you how to do this we need some pictures for reference:

...followed by 2 painted bases with lichens on them:

It's rather easy to paint those. Here's a short instruction, followed by a video to get a better feeling for that.

Step 1: painting the surface (rocks, trees, wooden surface)

Step 2: Mix paint with a lot(!) of water. Dilute the paint more then the mixtures you're using for creating a smooth blending. Add a blob of this mixture to the surface.

Step 3: Immidiately afterwards use a dry brush and soak up the blob. What remains is our result.

Happy testing!
Arne

Tutorial - TrueMetallicMetal (TMM)

Since I had to do the backside of my Troll's axe at the end I thought I might give it a try and take some step-by-step pictures of my painting. Unfortunately some pictures turned out quite blurry but I hope that the progress is still recognizable during the different steps.

Dilution:

Basecoat: 1 : 1 Paint : Water
Everything else: 1 : 2 Paint : Water (unless otherwise stated)

Let's go!

1. Silver-TMM

Basecoat was done with Coat'd'Arms Gunmetal(this one's an equivalent to GW Boltgun Metal).

Shadows:

For the first shadow I picked a green color P3 Ordic Oliveand started glazing it towards the shadows starting about in the middle of each part. I will be reworking the midtones later on so don't worry about starting the shadows in the middle.



Ok, this one looks weird but it will come out nicely at the end. :D

Next I used a mix of P3 Cygnar Blue Base : P3 Exile Blue ( 1 : 1 ) . Again, glazing towards the shadows and leaving a bit of the green untouched. I also try to make the paint more opaque in the deeper shadow areas.



To intensify the shadows, my next mix consists of P3 Exile Blue : P3 Beaten Purple ( 1 : 1 )and like before leaving a bit of the previous layer untouched I start glazing towards the deeper shadows.



Ok, enough of those funky colors. :D It's time to move towards black for the deepest shadow. For the next shadow I used P3 Exile Blue : P3 Beaten Purple : P3 Coal Black ( 1 : 1 : 1 )and concentrating more and more on the deepest shadows.

Note:The name P3 Coal Black is a bit irritating since it's not really a black, not at all. It's more like Vallejo Model Colour's Dark Sea Blue maybe even a bit brighter.



For the last shadow I added some GW Chaos Black to the previous mix P3 Exile Blue : P3 Beaten Purple : P3 Coal Black : GW Chaos Black (1 : 1 : 1 : 1) and glazed it on the very end where the deepest shadow would lie.



Highlights:

First thing I do before I start with the actual highlights is bringing back some of those metallic pigments as well as the midtone. For this I use the basecoat color Coat'd'Arms Gunmetaldiluted with a ratio of about 1 : 4 with water. I glaze 1(-2) thin(!) coats over the entire area (yes also shadows!) and then, with the same diluted paint, start to bring back the midtones and soften transitions.



Slowly taking shape… :D

Now highlights. For the first highlight I use a mix of Coat'd'Arms Gunmetal : Coat'd'Arms Enchanted Silver (this one's an equivalent to GW Mithril Silver) (1 : 2). Like with the shadows I glaze it upwards moving my brush towards the highlight areas.



Followed by pure Coat'd'Arms Enchanted Silverleaving some of the previous layer untouched.



To increase the shine and contrast for the top highlight I used a mix of Coat'd'Arms Enchanted Silver : VMC Metal Medium (1 : 1-2) and glazed it in as a final "bright spot" / highlight.



Not done yet – still missing edge highlights and scratches. :)

For the edges I actually use pure VMC Metal Medium but it's quite exhausting to paint it pure over dark layers of paint to really get the full effect and bright edges. Therefore I "pre-prime" the edges with the following mix P3 Morrow White : VMC Metal Medium (1 : 1-2). Due to the white paint and already some metallic pigment in it, it will be much easier to apply the VMC Metal Medium in the next step (and actually see it shine).



As you can see although I mixed some VMC Metal Medium to my white paint those edges aren't really shiny (yet) but I will deal with it now. Using only VMC Metal Mediumand going over all the edges I previously "pre-primed".



Here we go shiny edges. Now onto the scratches. Like with the edges I first pre-painted the highlights with P3 Morrow White : VMC Metal Medium (1 : 1-2)and then going over all lines again with pure VMC Metal Medium. I started with the white highlights and not with the black actual scratches because this way it is often easier for me to make the white lines real thin by painting over it later with my black color.



And finally the scratches with pure GW Chaos Black(undiluted!).



That's it for the Silver TMM part – now the Golds.

I also reglazed the deepest (last) shadow in between to cover some of those metallic pigments that were shining through from glazing Gunmetal over the entire area.

2. Gold-TMM

It's more or less the same for the Gold as it was for the Silver so I will keep the descriptions rather short.

Basecoat was done with GW Shining Gold.

Shadows:

I applied the first shadow using GW Snakebite Leatherand again starting about in the middle and pulling my brush towards the shadows.



Next I applied some GW Snakebite Leather : GW Scorched Brown (2 : 1)leaving a bit of the previous layer untouched.

Unfortunately it's quite difficult to see the difference in the next steps until the last two shadows are applied. Anyway technique's the same always leaving a bit of the previous layer untouched and moving the brush towards the shadows.



Continued work on the shadows with GW Snakebite Leather : GW Scorched Brown (1 : 1)



Pure GW Scorched Brown



For the last shadow I added some black and applied it to the deepest shadow parts, GW Chaos Black : GW Scorched Brown (1 : 2)



Highlights:

First thing I did was bringing back some metallic pigments as well as the midtones and softening of the transitions (like described in the silver part). Glazed 1(-2) times over the whole area with some diluted GW Shining Gold(diluted 1 : 4 with water) and then worked on bringin back the midtone and softening transitions.



Followed by adding highlights moving my brush towards the light / brightest spots with

- GW Shining Gold : GW Auric Armour Gold (1 : 1) - GW Auric Armour Gold





The last highlight was done with a mix of GW Auric Armour Gold : VMC Metal Medium (1 : 1)concentrating on the brightest spots.

Edges were done the exact same way like in the silver part. Pre-priming with P3 Morrow White : VMC Metal Medium (1 : 1-2)and then going over with pure VMC Metal Medium.



Colors Overview:

TMM - Silver:

Basecoat:Coat'd'Arms Gunmetal

Shadows:
1.) P3 Ordic Olive
2.) P3 Cygnar Blue Base : Exile Blue (1 : 1)
3.) P3 Exile Blue : P3 Beaten Purple (1 : 1)
4.) P3 Exile Blue : P3 Beaten Purple : P3 Coal Black (1 : 1 : 1)
5.) P3 Exile Blue : P3 Beaten Purple : P3 Coal Black : GW Chaos Black (1 : 1 : 1 : 1)

Highlights:
1.) Coat'd'Arms Gunmetal : Coat'd'Arms Enchanted Silver (1 : 2)
2.) Coat'd'Arms Enchanted Silver (Mithril Silver)
3.) Coat'd'Arms Enchanted Silver (Mithril Silver) : VMC Metal Medium (1 : 1-2)

TMM - Gold:

Basecoat:GW Shining Gold

Shadows:
1.) GW Snakebite Leather
2.) GW Snakebite Leather : GW Scorched Brown (2 : 1)
3.) GW Snakebite Leather : GW Scorched Brown (1 : 1)
4.) GW Scorched Brown
5.) GW Chaos Black : GW Scorched Brown (1 : 2)

Highlights:
1.) GW Shining Gold
2.) GW Shining Gold : GW Auric Armour Gold (1 : 1)
3.) GW Auric Armour Gold
4.) GW Auric Armour Gold : VMC Metal Medium (1 : 1)

Edges (Silver & Gold):
1.) P3 Morrow White : VMC Metal Medium (1 : 2)
2.) VMC Metal Medium


That's it. :)

Hope you enjoyed this little Step-by-step.

Cheers
p1per