Finished: Project VI/16

The captain was completed as soon as I had painted the Reichseagle onto the top front of the hat. I didn't go for the stubble after all. As a finishing touch I went over the whole guy with Vallejo's satin varnish and then, after a decent curing time I did the binocular lenses and some splash-like surfaces "beaming" from above with gloss varnish. The result was pretty neat.

Lastly I took a few silly photos of the cap'n on his command tower, observing the seas. The tallness of the edges managed to surprise, as you could see surprisingly little of the guy.

The captainy details

Skin tone issues

I started painting the skinny bits again with a coat of chocolate brown (VMA 70872). On top of that I applied an almost as covering layer of dark flesh (VMC 70927). Finally I painted a bit lighter but still not entirely dry brushful of medium fleshtone (VMC 70860). This recipe had worked just nicely on the Deutsche Afrika Korps guys, so why not again?

I happily gave this guy a white sweater that'd bring some variety on the otherwise dark figure. Generally I used this pic as a reference, because I thought it looked amusing enough. There was no way I could get such an expression done, but one can't have everything.

What sort of a face would I like to show around?

After the skin was done I did the eyeballs with two tiny droplets of white in both eyesockets. Then I dropped an even tinier droplets of non-aryan chocolate brown for the eye colour, managing to achieve a really suspicious look on his face. I also did some buttons on the coat, again looking at the ref pic, using old gold (VMC 80878). Six out of eight got to the photos. There were no other markings to be done on the coat.

Put on your hat, man!

Lastly I attacked his hat. I painted the lip, the brim and did a larger round on the forehead part with black (VMA 71057). The rest I painted white (VMA 71001) to add another layer on top of the white primer. A bit later I scribbled some leaf-like things on the front edge of the visor(?) and a wreathlike thing on the round bit on the front of the hat. In the center of that I attempted to paint the roundel by dropping a drop of white and then its center another, smaller droplet of red (VMA 71085 Ferrari Red). For examples and inspiration I had found this photo.

While I was typing this up I noticed that I had forgotten the Reichseagle from the hat, so I had to add that sooner rather than later. I had also thought that I could maybe attempt to create some sort of a beard's shadow effect on the face, but I wasn't sure if I dared to.

Captaining

Fast-forwarding

Apparently my evidence recording conventions have got weak lately, as I almost completely forgot to take any photos of the puttying and sanding stages. Not that there was much to see, but the principle is what concerns me. What I had done was that I had applied an amount of Tamiya's putty to cover the insane gaps and rents and then sanded away the worst lumps.

After that I had glued his arms on in a "I just lowered my binoculars to look at something with my own eyes" position, or that was what I was aiming for anyway. Again I puttied gaps and after letting it cure over the traditional 24h time I sanded the excesses away. I even glued on the head, even though it may have been a bit easier to paint off the torso. Being a bit paranoid I decided that I'd paint it on its proper place to avoid making a fingerprinty mess by accident or plain carelessness.

Airbrushing

Now I primed the guy and his unattached hat with Vallejo's White Surface Primer. Then I proceeded to blast his pants with Panzer Dark Grey (VMA 71056), his shoes or boots plain black (VMA 71075) and finally his coat department with German Grey (VMA 71052). These colours were chosen by my googling results.

All the rest I'd do the old-fashioned way. I am completely and totally aware of the fact that no marine historian would accept this coat as a correct one, but I was looking for a long coat that could be called a raincoat of a U-Boat commander. At this point I was already thinking that maybe with a creative use of varnishes I could get a neat splashed wet effect by first using a satin varnish and then using some gloss varnish on the splashed on surfaces. Maybe.

Project VI/16

Still far away from my comfort zone

My huge submarine was still captainless. My last attempt at painting humans succeeded rather well (my SdKfz 251/1 project was done five years ago already I, II), so why not give this another shot and paint another dude for a bit of a different situation?

The starting point

I had bought, ages ago, a Rommel and his staff box by Dragon, that contained four guys. According to the box art at least one of the not-Rommels had a long coat and that was good enough for me. I also remembered when buying this kit that people had praised Dragon's figures quite a bit. Not that it mattered that much to me, with my skills you couldn't tell the difference between the best of plastic figures and a barely ok one.

There were two sprues inside, one with the men and their rags, while the other had a mountain of accessories, like binoculars and pistol holsters for a few HQ units. I thought that at this point I'd be more than fine with just one pair of binocs that I could ultimately glue into the poor man's hands.

Getting to work

I chose the rightmost binoculars-wielding guy from the box art as my transfer to the Kriegsmarine. All I changed was his hat from the field cap to the officer's fancy hat. That may require some poking later on (I had this idea that the naval officer's hats in Das Boot were a bit less pointy than the Wehrmacht ones), but it could also look good with just the proper colours.

Käytin siis suoraan takakannen "rakennusohjeen" merkitsemät palat, joista tuo takki oli ehkä omituisin kokonaisuus. Ovelasti, mutta itselleni täysin turhasti, kaverin lahkeet saisi maalattua täysin ja nätisti takinhelman altakin. Liimasin äijälle jalat kiinni torsoon ja takin selkäosan heti perään. Kevyen koesovittelun perusteella takki olisi aika hyvin sopiva, jos kohta lievää saumakittailua edellyttävä. Ehkä minä malttaisin hoitaa ne kuntoon parempaa lopputulosta jahdatessani.

At this point I kept the arms off the torso just to keep their final position open. And this way they wouldn't be on the way if I started working on the front side of the coat. According to what I found out with a quick googling the naval raincoats were a bit different than this one and I wouldn't have any need for the belt going across the chest. I was beginning to think that this wasn't going to be just as quick a project as I had thought in my delusions of grandeur...

No matter, there have to be challenges. I still thought that as I'm a total amateur, the Project Mumblings wasn't even going to aim at perfection but something acceptably cool.

Finished: Project V/14

A German type XXIII submarine

My last assemblage, paintage and weatherage -related mumblings were taken care of the last time, with photos and all. The net is full of stuff about the fascinating engineering projects of the late-war Germans, still their navy has been (for a reason, I guess) mostly out of the limelight. And from that little the genial type XXI submarine has been the most popular one, at least over this type XXIII coastal sub (I cannot claim to understand how the Germans set up their types), so this build has been done with very little aid from online references.

As it seems to be the way of the Project Mumblings, the model was built OOB and without the decals. I didn't bother painting the U-numbers into the conning tower, and they were something of a super rarity in the pics I've seen anywhere. Funnily enough the kit provided the white lines on the tower, but using them sounded plain silly, so I just painted them on, as reported earlier.

Some parts and pieces were missing from the box, such as the torpedoes. And I got the model partially assembled already, so I didn't have much input on that, either, the hull is in the condition I received it in. The build was quite fun, but in all honesty I have to say that the immense size (99,1cm) of it provided some practical challenges to both assembly and painting.

Photos of the finished product

The english/german mix on the plaque is annoying me to no end

Some comparison shots

The insane size of this model is difficult to convey, if one doesn't see it in person. To aid in that I took a couple of silly photos with a bunch of tank models in the same scale. Just in case that didn't help, I also took a photo with the dvd box of the absolute best submarine movie in the history of all the multiverses. Everyone's seen a dvd box at least once in their lives, I assume, so this one should enlighten the non-modelers as well.

The land-vehicles are lined with the ends of the U-Boat

Off-topic

Now that I'm done with this sting and February is well on its way, I'll be doing something completely different for a week or two. Along with the (slow) finishing of the U-Boat I've been working on my pygame project for the last two weeks and a bit more. While I'm writing this that project is functionally better than before and looks much more elegant.
My next scale model is going to be one of the 1:72 scale A-10 planes. I'll be mumbling about that after a couple of weekly posts, in case someone was keeping tabs.

Under the weather

Weathering

My plan was to keep this boat relatively fresh-looking, without a ton of battle-scars or years of mistreatmeant under horrible conditions. Despite that the salty sea-water should've left some marks on the surface, espacially where the water might be pooling for longer times than on the smoothest surfaces.

A rusty wash

For this stage I dug out my Vallejo rust liquid (VMW 76506 Rust) and applied it pretty carefully here and there. I mostly concentrated on the conning tower and the numerous openings of the topmost hull. On those I typically dabbed a bit with the brush and pulled it down gently for a drip-like effect. The stronger ones I then smeared with my fingers to make them look a bit subtler.

Messing with pigments

I had thought I'd try out the fresh rust pigment (VP 73118 Fresh Rust). The point was still that the effect wouldn't be too strong, but as I'm a total amateur with them, the expected result wasn't guaranteed to be perfect.

Port

Starboard

The result

It didn't look too bad to me. Of course, differing opinions are welcome. I doubt that I'm going to modify this model anymore, but accept it as finished at this point. Then we get to the question I've been afraid of asking for a good while: "how on earth do I stage this monster up for the final photos?"

Rowing and texting

The dinghy

Gluing the three parts of the inflatable boat didn't take more than a moment. Of course at that point I noticed that the seam area's painting was imperfect. While I was tinkering around, I glued on the oars and then the rope pieces so that the impending reairbrushing would cover up the glue stains.

Of course I would have to remember to repaint the now messed up rope loops. On top of the german grey I applied gently the same terra tone I had used on it before. To bring out the rope-like texture I later washed them again with black.

The plaque

The results of my quick letter-painting last week wasn't adequate, especially at a close range. To improve on it I defied my neck-shoulder region and attacked the letters again. My goal was, of course, to get a much better looking coverage on them.

Looks like gently weathering the submarine itself is my next step in this lately very delayed project. A bit of rust-wash here and there, accompanied with a bit of light rush pigment, perhaps. At least that's what I've been thinking lately, I guess we'll all know better when I post next week.

Hans tests the inflatable boat

Easy does it again

We're on the second full work-week after my vacation and I still haven't gotten a hold of myself. The fact that I haven't got much done about any of my projects tells the woeful tale quite clearly. Maybe a part of the blame lies on the workday rhythm I've had for these two weeks: I have much less of that random time available. The next two weeks should be better from that point of view.

I had already painted the wooden pieces, so they didn't require that sort of attention. As the oars were going to be glued on to the bottom of the inflatable boat, they shouldn't be all painted with the same exact paints. For the similarity reasons I washed the bottom pieces with Citadel's Devlan Mud so that they'd be like the planks of the sub itself. The oars I washed with the same company's Badab Black.

While I was reading my rss feeds, I suddendly realized that the stand's plaque would maybe need some painting, too. Thanks to the FSM forums and all the handy things they talk about! I decided to paint the sunken letters with the aforementioned black liquid. Of course the first iteration did not provide me with a perfect result, there's going to be at least another painting round.
That said, I'm not going to paint the Bronco logo, as it's not important enough for me to suffer a whole long evening with a stiff neck -caused headache.

Like an inflatable rubber boat I'm bouncing to you

Returning from a vacation is always a slow process. For some reason I also seem to take a good while to get back to my projects. Nonetheless, I managed to kick myself up and working a bit on the inflatable raft.

The last sprue contained the three-piece boat itself, some small arcs I assume to be pieces of rope or something and a set of four oars. I primed the whole set in its sprue and then airbrushed the essential pieces with German Grey (VMA 71052).

Next I'll paint those inner bottom's wooden things just like I painted the planks on the sub itself: with an earthly colour (VMC 873 "US Field Drab" (though the Spanish "Tierra" tells a lot more, imo)). I'll do the same with the oars, as they're wooden and why change the effect that worked so nicely already?

I'm going to let them dry overnight before I continue further. For some reason I really don't feel like ruining anything at this point, I believe you can imagine.