BTW as I've bee painting this large batch of 25 figures, I've been trying different techniques. For example, some have black-lining while others are lined using darker shades of the shadow color. You can see this on the equipment especially. All this variation just seems to add to their ragtag appearance.
Know The Code
As is often noted, the Soviets had very little quality control in their uniforms, so I used a variety of shades to give them that hard-fought look. The lighter the color, the more veteran the soldier. (I read about this in many books and online discussions.) To keep the colors straight, I painted codes on the bottle caps. TK, for instance, means Reaper Terran Khaki. The left code is the color for the blouse, while the right code is for the trousers. This system worked great! I think I'll use it for Confederate troops as well. I'll post my painting guide a bit later.
Soviet Helmets
Also, I notice the helmets look a a lot greener in the photos than real life, probably due to the sunlight and the yellow envelope. I looked at many photos of Soviet WWII helmets, and it appears they, too, had many different shades from a more olive to a more greener look. So, I uploaded various helmets to Reaper's Power Palette webpage to get a match for the Reaper colors. For example, the one helmet came up Reaper Highlands Moss. I have it's shade, Jungle Moss, but not Highlands Moss. So I custom mixed some craft paints to get something close enough. More on this mix in another post. Though the uniform colors vary widely, I wanted to paint these helmets the same color to pull all the figures together. These were the first 28m helmets I've painted, and I think my style of feathering mixed with blending worked pretty good.
Okay, I've blathered on long enough! Here are the pics.
They're looking great already.
ReplyDeleteThanks, LL!
ReplyDelete