My focus for this competition is to complete an army, as such my painting is intended to be view from about 2 feet away and look good at that distance. Im not sure Ive actually achieved this but I have completed the core of my army to a standard I would be proud to field on the table-top.
OK well with the first month out of the way what have I learnt:
Never try and paint 2 infantry platoons in a single month! Whilst it’s possible it gets pretty boring. Although you get quick at it, my last 5 bases only took about 3 hours but that probably shows in the painting.
Don’t worry too much about faces, when put on the table to game with 95% of the face is hidden by the helmet.
Be careful in your preparation, you will reap the benefits later. The biggest thing I bollixed up was the basing. I didn’t notice until I came to paint the boots but half the feet have disappeared in the mud and the ones that haven’t are caked in dirt. It made painting the boots probably the trickiest part of the whole adventure.
That leads me smoothly to my next lesson, don’t do everything at once. Work through a few items to completion before starting in earnest. If I’d taken the time to paint to completion 3 bases I would have avoided 3 issues:
1 – the basing should have been done better.
2 – the first 8 models don’t have their entrenching tool handle painted correctly nor do they have the metal strip across the top of the gun painted but the remaining models do.
3 – I adjusted my painting approach several times during these figures, changing brushes, changing back, using more paint, using less paint, dry brush, painting highlights… All of this should have been sorted before I started.
Still now Im a fair painter of 15mm infantry & whilst I couldn’t say I enjoyed the whole thing (my sanity was returned by a couple of hours spent on the tanks) I am delighted that I managed to complete them all! Ive now got the core of my army complete a task I probably never would have completed without this competition & now I can get stuck into the fun stuff, GUNS! YEAAAH!
Also I would like to thank my wife, Kristina, for showing me no end of patience and support when I came home from work sat down and ignored her for 3 days straight before bundling her onto the train on Saturday and rushing home to keep painting. Not to mention she kept ringing and hassling me on sat evening & Sunday to make sure I was still on track, THANKYOU! I would also like to thank my best mate Nat for canceling our games night last week, without that extra night I would never have got finished & also Stu for getting me talking & thinking about FoW, without that ongoing conversation I wouldn’t have stayed focused.
I do have further plans for these units, particularly a bit of tidying up, shoulder patches, painting the blade on the entrenching tool, picking out the hand grenades etc & adding a machine gun muzzle & aerials to the tanks & hopefully a US flag to my Co. HQ but these bits are planned for the 6th month when (hopefully) the whole army will come together!
Thanks for the support everyone and don’t forget to vote! (even for me if you want
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