Day of Days

 

Band of Brothers. That epic mini-series really captured my attention, and from the start I wanted to create a scene that portrayed the feel of the show.

The title of this piece, and one of the episodes, revolves around the final preparations for the parachute drop on D-Day. The scene in that episode that really struck me involves the paratroopers preparing their equipment on the airfield, with Lt. Winters helping everyone up to board the aircraft.

So, the scene is simple. It involves a couple of paratroopers making their final equipment checks with an officer coming to see them off. They look sykyward; maybe in anticipation, or maybe they are watching the first wave take off.

The Jeep is the Tamiya kit with a few added missing details and the steering turned slightly. I added the Mantis Miniatures jeep stowage set, which includes a folded canvas roof and some baseball equipment to put in the back, as well as some other items of equipment.

Painting was pretty straightforward as I wanted the jeep to show minimal wear; I assumed it would be fairly new, after all. Restraining the weathering was harder than it looked as there is a tendancy for it to look toy-like. Just some subtle modulation and a light dust layer did the trick.

The two figures on the airfield are both from Minisoldiers, and all of the equipment strewn around comes with the bending figure. The officer is a Soga Miniatures figure and it, along with the standing figure, had their heads modified to look up.

I read somewhere that paratroopers would lay out all of their equipment on a blanket whilst gearing up. That way they would immediately see that they had everything once the blanket was clear. I rolled out some putty for the blankets and pressed down all of the equipment into it.

As you would expect, painting of this equipment takes some time. Painting this, and the Airborne uniform is explained in more detail in previous blog post, here.

One item I hadn't tackled before was the inflatable "Mae West". Painting yellow is always a tricky affair but the key is to use a flesh undercoat before the yellow goes on. This really helps maintain the vibrancy of the colour, without it becoming washed out.

Another thing to consider is the shade colour. The opposite complimentary tone for yellow on a colour wheel is violet. Now this may sound odd, but used sparingly, this really does work. As always, I tried this out on a spare torso before committing to the figures.

This is the palette I finally used for the yellow.

Yellow Mae West Life Preserver:

Undercoat:        AK Gen3 11403 Highlight Flesh

Base Colour:     Mix AK Gen3 11042 Volcanic Yellow with a touch of 11078       Medium Orange

Shadow:            add AK Gen3 11406 Reddish Black (Sparingly !)

Highlight 1:        add more AK Gen3 11042 Volcanic Yellow

Highlight 2:        add AK Gen3 11041 Golden Yellow

Final highlight and edging was done with 11036 Ice Yellow, and the midtones were then glazed sparingly with 11078 Medium Orange

Finally, I was honoured to receive the D-Day theme award for this piece at the KMK Scaleworld show in Belgium.

SAS Jeeps. (Now it's finished)

 

Finally.

Got the camera out and took some decent pictures.

In-depth article coming soon...

SAS Project complete (almost)

 

Almost.

With the exception of a few finishing touches, I'm calling this one done. Finally !

More detailed photo's to come when I break out the camera gear but in the meantime, here are a few shots taken with my phone.

US Airborne Revisited

As you can probably see from the contents of my blog, the US Airborne has always been a favourite subject of mine so I decide it was high time to revisit the uniform.

At the time I was pleased at how my attempts came out but always felt I had never really captured the elusive colour of the M1942 jump uniform, fast forward a few years and many experiments I (hopefully !) have something that looks a little more like the image in my head that I wanted to portray.

There was obviously a great variation in the colours of both the uniform and the equipment, as these re-enactment photos show.

My earlier efforts were more on the lighter side but I wanted to try and capture the warmer tones of the figure on the left in the top photo.

I suppose Band of Brothers had a little to do with this, it's de-saturated style seemed a lot more gritty and gave it a more authentic feel.

So this is my previous palette, you can find a full rundown on the construction of this Dragon figure here and the full paint guide here.

And this is my latest attempt on one of Alpine Miniatures' sublime figures.

Here is a rundown of the paint palette I used, mostly Vallejo Model Colour but a few Lifecolor (UA Prefix) and one AK colour. As it turns out, the main one.

M1942 Uniform

Base colour - AK3076 Canvas Tone

(this can be substituted for a 50/50 mix of Vallejo 988 Khaki and Panzer Aces 317 British Tank Crew but it's easier out of one bottle)

Highlight 1 - add UA430 HBT Light Shade

Shadow 1 - add UA422 Wool Olive Drab

Shadow 2 - add 887 Brown Violet

At this stage I used a filter of 880 Khaki Grey to try and bring in the mustard colour to the midtones. Once happy with the overall colour I enhanced the highlights slighty by adding a little 845 Sunny Skintone and darkened the shadows by adding Andrea black.

Reinforcement Patches

Base Colour - 80% 830 Field Grey, 20% 988 Khaki

Highlight 1 - add more 988 Khaki

Highlight 2 - add 972 Light Green Blue

Shadow 1 - add more 830 Field Grey

Shadow 2 - add Andrea black

Equipment

Pretty much anything goes here with the webbing and equipment, the trick is to mix and match different complimentary colours and tones to separate the equipment from the uniform but to retain the colour harmony.

Webbing

Base Colour - 879 Green Brown

Highlight - add 976 Buff

Shadow - add 941 Burnt Umber

Ammunition Bandolier

Base Colour - 924 Russian Uniform WW2

Highlight - add 845 Sunny Skintone

Shadow - add Andrea black

Afterwards I thought this looked a bit too similar to the uniform so I gave it a filter of 967 Olive Green to try and bring it back to a more greenish tone.

Waterbottle

Base Colour - Panzer Aces 314 Canvas

Highlight - add UA430 HBT Light

Shadow 1 - add 887 Brown Violet

Shadow 2 - add Andrea black

Rifle (Metal)

Base Colour - 50% Vallejo 721 Burnt Iron, 50% 950 Black

Highlight - add more 721 Burnt Iron

Shadow - Scalecolor Black ink

Rifle (Wood)

Base Colour - 50% 872 Chocolate Brown, 50% 846 Mahogany

Highlight - add 876 Brown Sand

Shadow - add 872 Chocolate Brown

Glaze - thinned Scalecolor Chestnut Ink

Boots

Base Colour - 50% 872 Chocolate Brown, 50% 875 Beige Brown

Highlight - add more 875 Beige Brown

Shadow 1 - add more 872 Chocolate Brown

Shadow 2 - add Andrea black

Glaze - thinned Scalecolor Chestnut Ink

The ink gives the boots a slight sheen whilst imparting a really nice red leather tone, once dry any scuffing or additional highlighting can be added using 819 Iraqi Sand.

Once I decide what I am going to do with this fella I will add some weathering to blend him into the chosen base, other than that I think he's about done.

Obviously I'm not daft enough to paint on the 101st Airborne badge, this is a dry transfer from Archer Decals, blended in with a very thin wash of the base colour.

So, a slightly different colour palette, and I think I prefer this one.

Until the next time..