1/35 DAK figures & some 1/72 munchkins......

[Tim Marlow]

Sounds like you have the water in the sponge about right to me. You will find it dries out as you work, so I occasionally top mine up. As to liking it, you’ve nailed this mate, your figures are every bit as good as mine....you’ll soon leave me far behind.

[adt70hk]

They look great.

Thanks John and much appreciated. I'm pretty pleased with them.

Thanks for stopping by.

Andrew

[adt70hk]

Sounds like you have the water in the sponge about right to me. You will find it dries out as you work, so I occasionally top mine up. As to liking it, you’ve nailed this mate, your figures are every bit as good as mine....you’ll soon leave me far behind.

Thanks Tim. Good to hear I'm on the right lines. Meant to say I've cut some more grease proof paper to better fit the box. That combined with adding more water second time around seems to have made quite a difference to the dampness of the paper overnight.

And as for "....you’ve nailed this mate, your figures are every bit as good as mine....you’ll soon leave me far behind.", have you not be taken your meds today?? In all seriousness though I have enjoyed the process so far.

Thanks again for your advice and support.

ATB.

Andrew

[adt70hk]

Hi all

So three further sets of 1/72 munchkins have joined this process and two have even maned to plod their way across the finish line.

So the first ones up.......

I'm not including these because I'm particularly proud of them - in fact they're average at best and that's probably stretching it somewhat.

Instead they're representative of a major breakthrough when it comes to comes painting figures.........in short it doesn't scare the ^&%%!^$%"$$%$ out of me! :smiling: :smiling: and all thanks to Tim's SBS a while ago on figure painting.

I'm not saying I have it sussed or even feel pretty confident when approaching figures but at the same time it doesn't terrify me either.

I stumbled across these 3/4 finished figures recently, having started them at least six years ago and just after I came back to the hobby. They're not the best figures to start with, were badly assembled, had seam lines on and were badly painted. I've tidied the painting up, slopped on some flesh wash and stuck them on a base finished off with my own homemade flock. They're from Italeri's 25pdr set, which was the only one available in 1/72 at the time and so they're dressed for North Africa. As we battle in NWE, I've had to pretend it's a hot day, so their dress is not right (sorry about the blurry pics).






Next up, the crews from my three 1/72 Plastic Soldier Company Sextons, albeit you only get four crew instead of the full compliment of six.

In this case I had intended to follow Tim's SBS but did it from memory with the predictable results in that I missed out the step of 'framing' the figure in dark grey and also not applying a shaded base coat of the primary colour. To try and get around the modelling faux pas, I applied a wash to sink into the recesses.

In terms of the main uniform colour I experimented with a range of acrylic colours to see what I liked and to break the uniformity up a bit, as follows:

• Vallejo's English Uniform 70.921.
• Revell's Dark Earth 82 - a touch less yellow than Vallejo's paint but still very close.
• Humbrol's Khaki 26 - quite a bit browner that the other two.
• A mix of Vallejo English Uniform and Humbrol's Dark Earth 29 - which came out somewhere between Revell 82 and Humbrol 26. I quite like the results of this experiment.

I also adopted a similar approach with the washes, to hopefully complement the base colour. I used two Vallejo Game Colour washes diluted with their Glaze Medium 1:1, as follows:

• Sepia (73.200) for those painted with Vallejo 921 and Revell 82.
• A mix 1:1 of Sepia and Umber (73.203) on those with the Vallejo/Humbrol mixed uniform.
• Umber only for those painted with the Humbrol 26.

Perfect they are not but I am genuinely pleased with them and they have given me a real confidence boost.

ACW as usual.

Andrew


The colours of choice. This was taken outside in good light and so is pretty close to reality, if a touch on the light side.




Vallejo's English Uniform 70.921.




Revell's Dark Earth 82.




The Vallejo/Humbrol mix (left hand two) and Humbrol's Dark Earth 29 (right hand one)




A complete mish-mash of all four colours to represent different uniform batches or when one of the troops has had to replace one part before the other.

[Guest]

Andrew the Marlow Method is working well, in fact most impressive. The fact that these are in 1/72 is quite remarkable.
I'm afraid I use the Vallejo games wash on my faces and little else, but having seen what you have achieved I shall have a rethink. :thumb2::thumb2::thumb2:

[Mini Me]

Hi Andrew, I've been burning through the pages of this thread and have come to the conclusion that the "Marlow Method" is working very well for you.......have much envy. I also missed the step of black wash after primer and have since made note of it to use in the future attempts I make at figure painting. Perhaps I'll have a better outcome next time. Carry on Sir, you've done very well! :thumb2: Rick H.

[Tim Marlow]

Well you lot are making me blush aren’t you. The aim of the SBS was to take away the fear that people seem to have when painting figures and I’m glad it worked for you guys There are sorts of tricks and refinements you can add to the base technique so just experiment and have fun…..and if something doesn’t work you can alway try again…..

[Mini Me]

Nothing wrong with giving credit where credit is due.....Wear it proud Tim, me "Bucko"! :thumb2: Rick H.

[Tim Marlow]

Hi Andrew. You asked about magnets, and I think this is the better thread for the info….
I use these on the golf tees..

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076SZ621M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Many other sizes and shapes are available. Just remember to check the coins are magnetic if you want them to stick…..pre about 1990 are not…..
I used araldite five minute epoxy to stick them on the polythene…..seems to have held well.

[Si Benson]

Hi Andrew,
looks like your getting the figure painting side of things sorted :thumb2:

Its nice to see so much helpful friendly advice freely given :smiling4:

[adt70hk]

Andrew the Marlow Method is working well, in fact most impressive. The fact that these are in 1/72 is quite remarkable.
I'm afraid I use the Vallejo games wash on my faces and little else, but having seen what you have achieved I shall have a rethink. :thumb2::thumb2::thumb2:

Thanks John. Much appreciated. I really am very pleased with how they turned out and thoroughly recommend it as a process for anyone with concerns about figures.

I've just ordered a few more paints having gone through Tim's post again and so will be taking the plunge on the other figures shortly.

The DAK and a couple British 3" mortar crews I pulled out of the stash do have me worried though. Quite a few of the figures have poses that will make it near impossible to get the brush in with any degree of certainty.....but at least I now have the confidence to have a go.

Hi Andrew, I've been burning through the pages of this thread and have come to the conclusion that the "Marlow Method" is working very well for you.......have much envy. I also missed the step of black wash after primer and have since made note of it to use in the future attempts I make at figure painting. Perhaps I'll have a better outcome next time. Carry on Sir, you've done very well! :thumb2: Rick H.

Nothing wrong with giving credit where credit is due.....Wear it proud Tim, me "Bucko"! :thumb2: Rick H.

Rick

Thanks for the support and feedback. But as you say all credit belongs to Tim for taking the time to post his methods in detail. He's actually kindly given me permission to copy out the relevant posts into a single document, so I have it all in one place - pictures and all.

The black glaze really does work a treat. Even though I forgot to do the framing and shaded base coat, it still came through a bit and helped to provide some depth in places, which I topped up with the wash.

Well you lot are making me blush aren’t you. The aim of the SBS was to take away the fear that people seem to have when painting figures and I’m glad it worked for you guys There are sorts of tricks and refinements you can add to the base technique so just experiment and have fun…..and if something doesn’t work you can alway try again…..

Hi Andrew. You asked about magnets, and I think this is the better thread for the info….
I use these on the golf tees..

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076SZ621M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Many other sizes and shapes are available. Just remember to check the coins are magnetic if you want them to stick…..pre about 1990 are not…..
I used araldite five minute epoxy to stick them on the polythene…..seems to have held well.

Tim

No apologies for making you blush!!! :smiling5:

As Rick said, credit where credit is due. As you know, your posts have given me the confidence to have a go at figures and experiment in the process. I am forever grateful.

Thanks for the link on the magnets too, will have to invest in some soon.

Hi Andrew,
looks like your getting the figure painting side of things sorted :thumb2:

Its nice to see so much helpful friendly advice freely given :smiling4:

Thanks Si, much appreciated. Hope all is well you you?

And indeed, very nice indeed to get such great advice. Probably the thing I love most about this hobby of ours.


Thanks again to all of you for stopping by.

All the best.

Andrew

[Steve Jones]

Outstanding and very informative. Keep it coming my friend

[Jim R]

Hi Andrew
You're most certainly doing a good job with these. Working Tim's ideas into your own approach is paying dividends.
Jim

[Tim Marlow]

The DAK and a couple British 3" mortar crews I pulled out of the stash do have me worried though. Quite a few of the figures have poses that will make it near impossible to get the brush in with any degree of certainty.....but at least I now have the confidence to have a go.

[/QUOTE]

Don’t stress too much over them Andrew. Most parts that are covered and difficult to access are in shadow, so just go with a shade colour and break out your inner Monet for a bit of impressionist interpretation of the details. Remember as well that you can paint these difficult bits first then move to the more accessible parts (inside to outside, remember). Nobody says you need to paint the whole figure in one go, and the colours will still be on your wet palette for use on the outer bits.

[adt70hk]

Outstanding and very informative. Keep it coming my friend

Hi Andrew
You're most certainly doing a good job with these. Working Tim's ideas into your own approach is paying dividends.
Jim

Steve, Jim

Coming from two modellers of your expertise, I'll take these as a real compliments.

Thank you very much indeed.

The DAK and a couple British 3" mortar crews I pulled out of the stash do have me worried though. Quite a few of the figures have poses that will make it near impossible to get the brush in with any degree of certainty.....but at least I now have the confidence to have a go.

".....break out your inner Monet for a bit of impressionist interpretation of the details."
[/QUOTE]

That's something I never heard any of my art teachers say......but then of course I was just probably well ahead of my time and not properly understood!! Such is the life of a great artist. :sad::loudly-crying: Give it a hundred years and my pieces will be going for millions!! Now where is my knife so I can cut my ear off......?????? :smiling5:

But in all all seriousness, thanks yet again for the tips!!

ATB.

Andrew