In the latter part of the war Popski's Private Army operated primarily in Italy. To try and create this feel (and avoid the obvious cliches) I decided to have the jeep depicted on a dusty track with a dry-stone wall as a backdrop.
As is my usual procedure, the base was a piece of builder's insulation foam with a rough track gouged and sanded out. Once the rough form had been created I clad the sides with fairly thick plasticard, shaped at the top to follow the contours I had just created but leaving it a few mm higher to take into account the next bit.
For the actual groundwork, I used DAS Air-dry clay. This was rolled out into a reasonably thin sheet (using plenty of talc) and then draped over the base to form the surface. I used plenty of PVA glue here to make sure everything would stick together.
Once happy with the form, I began to texture the surface with an old paintbrush and some more watered-down PVA to get the look I was after.
For the wall I did toy with the idea of making one myself then decided that life was way too short for that. This particular item is from Accion Press and is finely cast in dental plaster which makes it really easy to cut to your own requirements, if necessary. You can order one from their website here.
The wall is actually a lot bigger than I wanted so I cut it in half at an angle and firmly pushed it into the still-wet clay.
To add to the surface texture I then sprinkled various grits and small stones over the base to add a little interest. Remember that on a track such as this the passing of vehicles will move the larger pieces to the sides of the track, some are retained in the centre but very little will remain in the actual tracks. This was fixed with diluted PVA and the whole lot was set aside to dry for a few days.
The gatepost here is just a piece of plastic stock that has been textured with an old saw blade and shaped at the top.
Once everything was fully dry, an airbrushed coat of Stynylrez black primer gave a nice even coat on which to start the painting proper.
The wall was removed for painting separately after drilling location holes to fix it securely. After masking off the sides of the base I began airbrushing various earth tones for the ground. To start I gave everything a coat of Tamiya XF52 Flat Earth, to this I added XF78 Wooden Deck Tan and XF57 Buff in various quantities to try and impart some variation and to try and pick out the track marks.
The stone wall was airbrushed with Vallejo 884 Stone Grey (handy name, huh?). This was done from above to try and keep the dark shadows on the underside of the stones and retain the volume. Individual stones were then picked out by adding other Vallejo colours to this base, in various amounts, to try and make the wall look a little more believable. I used the following colours; 987 Medium Grey, 986 Deck Tan, 871 Leather Brown and 976 Buff. The beauty of acrylics is that you can really use their transparency to build up subtle colour differences.
Once everything had dried I began using various washes of oil paints to give some depth to the colours and pick out the shadows. This was particularly evident where the wall meets the ground and the joints between the stones. You can use a ready made product for this but I mixed my own from various oil colours.
You can see here how I have tried to keep the actual tracks quite light, fading out to darker areas where the wall is.
Next step is to pick out some of the stones on the ground with the colours I used for the wall. Logic would dictate that the stone wall would be made from local materials so this will help to tie everything together.
For the vegetation I used various ready-made grass tufts and also some dried items that I have collected over the years. This is a quite long and tedious process if it is not to look too contrived, it really does pay to study a similar location to the one we are trying to replicate; observation is the key to a believable scene, especially with natural items.
When the grass is applied it does give the whole thing a very stark look but this will be toned down later to blend everything together.
I did feel that something was missing and although the wall gives a nice backdrop, it is lacking in height. My initial idea was to use a cactus plant; these are used in the Mediterranean as wind breaks and are often seen next to stone walls like this.
Eventually I decide that this was probably a little much (although I may use that idea for a future project), so I chose a ready-made tree form the Mininatur range. This seemed to be just what I was looking for to add height and interest to the rear of the scene.
I spent quite some time looking at wooden posts whilst out walking the dog and initially I found it quite difficult to pin down the actual colour of these.
Eventually I decided to keep the palette on the warm grey side and started with a base of Vallejo ModelAir 131 Concrete. To this I added various shades to pick out the grain and ended with a light wash of grey/green to the lower part of the post. The gate is an etch brass item from Verlinden, again painted in various dark grey tones.
To finally tie all the elements together, a highly diluted mix of Tamiya XF57 Buff was airbrushed around the base giving the dusty, dry look I was after. This was further enhanced with Pigments; Europe Earth and Light Dust from the Mig Ammo range.
With that, the masking was removed (always a moment of apprehension) but luckily there were very little touch ups to do.
So this is how it turned out; there are a few little tweaks to do but that is done once the vehicle and figures are in place.
For me, the base is a critical part of the project and I usually have an idea in my mind of how I want to display the vehicle/figures; that will inevitably change and evolve as the project progresses but the important thing to remember is that it is a major part of the project, not an afterthought. I will often spend as long on the base as the main object of the scene.
All too often you will see a base that is hurriedly thrown together afterwards and all that does is detract from what you are trying to display. It isn't difficult and it doesn't need to be elaborate (as I've hopefully shown here), in fact the simple, well observed scenes are often more powerful.
So, next time, I'll show how I painted the figures here and then we'll pull it all together with some more dust.
No comments:
Post a Comment