The long road of painting the units - Updated 1/16 Vid added

[siredblood]

Thanks KW, im pretty stoked this endeavor is about over, even more so, I cant wait to make the vid :P

[siredblood]

Well my friends, this endeavor is over!

1200+ Painted Units / 800-1000 decals …… About 400 bucks in paint, adding(replacing) units, decals, and airbrush… yes to paint dirt lol!

And WOW, looking back to the first post, 10/10… so 2 months of painting! Ill will be keeping the topic alive a tad longer, as I have gotten a few more units I want to paint, just NOT now! I bought 5 US Marine troops, and 5 German greatcoat troops, save those for a rainy day. Also, I want to do a setup, and make a vid to show the pieces on the board, which ill do this week.

Im also excited to post my current project, which ill do later today :P

Without further ado, Germany!

I used 2 schemes, Gray and DAK, I replaced all the tanks and Mech with units from HBG, 2 variants for the mech, and 3 variants for the tanks, and I added more AA Guns and Infantry totaling 163 Units.
Thanks everyone for the comments and looking, its time to put away the paints… well most of it! For now, ill be relaxing the rest of the day… sigh of relief!!

[seancb]

I have no artistic skill with a paint brush whatsoever and at 40 years old, I’m not feeling I will learn.

Fantastic work.
You cannot see me but I’m seething with jealousy right now.

[siredblood]

Thanks for the compliment sean!- the “you cannot see me” part made me laugh!

I was hoping to post my new project today, but having last minute design issues, so it will have to wait till tomorrow :(

Thanks again!

[John Brown]

siredblood, this is, by far, my favorite country, you have done.

Is that customization pieces on your aircraft carriers?

I can’t tell if your pieces are mostly black or charcoal, but whatever it is, it looks so cool.

How did you get such straight lines on the carriers?

Is it a decal?

I love all the colors of your units.

Very unique, indeed. :-D

John

[LHoffman]

Superb. Sweet decals and magnet strips on the carriers. Love the dust coating on the tracks of the grey Tigers.

Very clean work. Giving me some inspiration for my foray back into painting. Thanks for sharing.

[siredblood]

Thanks for the comments guys!

@ LHoffman - Im glad you noticed the dust, my gf made fun of me for buying an airbrush and mini compressor so I could do that. “You seriously bought that to just add dust?” ……“ya” lol.

@ John, thanks John, like Hoffman mentioned, its the magnet pads for the planes, as for the lines, its stickers I made. I created a file in photoshop that has all the carriers for the entire game in a single print, if your interested (or anyone else) I can post it.

This country was actually the easiest to paint, I didn’t have to mix too much (just the infantry)… the 2 variants of paint used were German colors you can get in a spray can, “Panzer Gray” and “Afrika Mustard” … so I was able to just basically shoot everything lol, very little brush work :)

[LHoffman]

@siredblood:

Thanks for the comments guys!

@ LHoffman - Im glad you noticed the dust, my gf made fun of me for buying an airbrush and mini compressor so I could do that. “You seriously bought that to just add dust?” ……“ya” lol.

@ John, thanks John, like Hoffman mentioned, its the magnet pads for the planes, as for the lines, its stickers I made. I created a file in photoshop that has all the carriers for the entire game in a single print, if your interested (or anyone else) I can post it.

Hey, she doesn’t know it, but the dust makes all the difference in the world.

As for the carrier templates… I would love to use your file if you would be willing to share. I have painted my carrier decks by hand in the past, which looks great but is incredibly time consuming. I have also downloaded deck templates from a couple other users here, but haven’t actually tried to use them yet. I do not have Photoshop, so a jpeg or png file may work best. I use MS Paint and Paint.net (Photoshop-like) to do minor image editing.

Thanks!

[siredblood]

so a jpeg or png file may work best

Sounds good, ill post the pic here in a bit.

[Erocco]

This is AMAZING work!!!

[John Brown]

@siredblood:

Thanks for the comments guys!

@ LHoffman - Im glad you noticed the dust, my gf made fun of me for buying an airbrush and mini compressor so I could do that. “You seriously bought that to just add dust?” ……“ya” lol.

@ John, thanks John, like Hoffman mentioned, its the magnet pads for the planes, as for the lines, its stickers I made. I created a file in photoshop that has all the carriers for the entire game in a single print, if your interested (or anyone else) I can post it.

This country was actually the easiest to paint, I didn’t have to mix too much (just the infantry)… the 2 variants of paint used were German colors you can get in a spray can, “Panzer Gray” and “Afrika Mustard” … so I was able to just basically shoot everything lol, very little brush work :)

Yeah man, I would be interested in the carrier decals, as well. Thanks, siredblood. :-)

[siredblood]

Here is the file I created, while I tried to get them close as possible by “winging it” (I took a pick of the units on my phone, sent it to photoshop lol). Most are good, ANZAC has some issues, think they were a little long, I just cut it off. America was a little long as well, but the rest I recall fit pretty darn good for my lack of fitment effort

This is set to be printed actual size on 8.5 x 11, I just printed it onto a full size label, then cut the stickers out. After you place them, I recommend brushing them in dull coat, you can pick up “Matt Finish” from Hobby Lobby for a few bucks. Its the same coat I use over my decals to get rid of the shine and to really lock them on.

Any questions about it, feel free to ask, good luck!

I don’t know how to post a pic in a smaller state you can click, if you know how, lmk, and ill edit the post…. its a HD JPEG haha

[LHoffman]

Awesome. Thanks Siredblood.

Couple questions for you:

• What carrier sculpts are all these for? It looks like a mix of OOB and HBG pieces to me. (For example, all the US carrier ones look like they are for the OOB Wasp and not HBG Essex.

• What did you use as the graphic basis for the decks? Was there a background template you found elsewhere or did you have to manually create the wood planking, deck markings, etc…?

Thank you again. These are excellent.

[siredblood]

These were all used on my OOB units.

The Japan one, I found online…. Japan was my first nation to paint, I just assumed id find all the countries… I was mistaken lol. The others were mostly created from this/that, I didn’t try to be historically accurate or anything crazy. I just wanted variants in the colors and lines.

[LHoffman]

Gotcha. Thanks for the insight.

[John Brown]

Thanks siredblood for these.

[siredblood]

Sure thing John, hope they work out for ya.

I hope to finish this thread up mid week with my first A&A vid, need to find the right music for the fly overs :)

[Spitfire38]

Love that dust on the tracks. I’ve never made the jump to buying an airbrush - which model did you use? And which paints?

Congratulations on completing such a major project! Wonderful work.

[siredblood]

@Spitfire38:

Love that dust on the tracks. I’ve never made the jump to buying an airbrush - which model did you use? And which paints?

Congratulations on completing such a major project! Wonderful work.

Thanks Spitfire!

I bought this :

http://www.harborfreight.com/15-hp-58-psi-oilless-airbrush-compressor-kit-69434.html

Luckly my local shop had one, I hate waiting for stuff in the mail! I bought “light Earth” airbrush paint from hobby lobby. I sprayed the darker units, really makes them pop, the lighter units, like British and the DAK units, it really don’t show for the effort.

[Spitfire38]

It works with acrylics! Good to hear. Thanks for the link.

At what point in the painting process did you airbrush? (i.e. after base coat? After an ink wash? At the very end, after all the detailing?)