Funny thing happened to me last fall. I had set up a game of Iron Cross for an old gaming buddy that was visiting from out of town. I got in touch with the old group and we were all set on attendees. I decided an East Front clash would be in order. The night before, I pulled out all the terrain and miniatures for play. It was at this point, I remembered that I never finished my 20mm German infantry for WWII! I had a couple of friends collections at my house for a while and I had been using them for these games (with their permission of course). However, I had given back both of these sets during the spring… Disaster! Well, I had to change the scale to 15mm to make the game work. No loss, it was a fun game. However, it was clear that I needed to finish the miniatures that I had, so this would not be an issue in the future!
So, I pulled out my tray and looked at where I had left off. Basically, I had only done the block color painting and attaching them to washers. So, they needed some finishing up work. How long could that take…..
I actually purchased these models many years ago and started painting on them. However, for what ever reason, they ended up in a box unfinished. the models themselves are all SHQ 20mm models. These were my favorite figures in this scale back in the day, so I ordered them online and had them delivered.
I was not planning on entering these into any contests, so the idea was to keep things simple. I went with a field grey paint and painted the uniforms and with various browns and greens to paint the equipment. The hard thing was painting the splinter camo, so I would like it in 20mm. I wanted to actually include them, as I think it is iconic. I started with an eggshell green base and painted the brown and green blotches and then ended with the dark green splinters. The idea was that the shade would darken the base green, but still give enough contrast to see the camo. Since the most common splinter had a base green, this seemed to be the way to go. I then painted all the bases dark brown and set them aside…
Come back to 2021, and it was time to get these done. The plant was to do most of the remaining work with washes. I started with GW agar earth shade on all the skin and green areas. As field grey has a green tone, I thought this would be the best shade. I then hit all the camo areas with GW Camoshade green to tone down the green and give a more olive look. Once all the washes dried, I realized a few issues. First, some of the colors toned to dark, so they needed a highlight. This was true of all the dark yellow equipment and the field grey. So, I pulled out the appropriate colors and highlighted these up. The other issue was that I did not realize that I was using Gloss Agrax Earth Shade (#?>*&*#@$). So, the highlight had to tone that down and would have to hope the dull coat would fix the rest. There were a couple of items here and there that needed a quick hit to wrap up the figures.
Finally, there was the basing. I hit all the bases with Vallejo mud. Once that dried, I dry brushed them all with some light tan. I finished up with some blended turf from Scenic Express, attached with white glue. Once the glue had dried, I sprayed all the models with Testors Dull Coat. I knocked down most of the remaining gloss.
With that, I have some troops, now I just need some weapons to go with them!
- Manteuffel