April Paintings

Aside from doing a bit of work on the UltraModern Armoury. I also managed to paint up some WW2 infantry this month.

First up were seven USMC, the Ceramcoat Sea Green airbrushed on as a color base very nicely, and was able to be touched up by brush. German Camo Beige web/canvas gear, Leather Brown boots and holsters, and helmet covers of Khaki with Camo Olive Green and Mahogany Brown spots washed over in Khaki. Weapons are Gunmetal and Mahogany Brown; base is Iraqi Sand.

But that is a lot of white folks. I think one of the things that has kept me from historical WW2 games is the segregation of US Forces. So one of the things I decided was to integrate my units. There was some integration of combat units, notably K Company of the 394th Infantry Regiment (coincidentally a Pittsburgh unit) after the Battle of the Bulge; I have decided to fudge the dates and have my platoon, based on K/324th, integrated while the unit was fighting in North Africa. It's ahistorical, but I don't care... so much of the hobby is ahistorical... I'm changing this one.

So here are my first Army guys:

Five And A Half More...

I finished painting more minis this weekend. I was rather taken by the finished colors on the urban guerrilla pictured at right. I had used two Ceramcoat shades of green on her clothing and they finished rather nicely I thought, so I decided to use those colors as the basis for my trooper schemes. You can see the results here, the male troopers are ex-Grenadier castings by EM-4/Mirlington, the female is from Copplestone Castings.

The troopers were done a bit slap-dash, but they came out well enough. The guerrilla (a Copplestone Castings' Partisan) was painted to a much higher standard, with yellow marking stripe on the grenade and a storied baseball team cap.

At the far left is the other plainclothes cop from Northstar's "Fistful of Kung Fu" line. Probably should have gone for a higher contrast between vest and shirt, but I wanted to try that purple. Sue me.

Trooper Scheme:

Uniform: Ceramcoat "Timberline Green"
Armor: Ceramcoat "Dark Forest Green" with VMC 053 "Chainmail Silver" scratches; with VMC 010 "Bloody Red" optic lens on the helmet.
Boots/Holster/Electronics: Ceramcoat "Charcoal" with VMC 053 "Chainmail Silver" drybruch on the edges of electronic devices.
Firearms: Ceramcoat "Charcoal" barrel/GL/magazine with VMC 053 "Chainmail Silver" drybrush, and VMC 062 "Earth" receiver
Beret: VMC 011 "Gory Red"
Pouches: Army Painter "Army Green"

Urban Bases: Ceramcoat "Hippo Grey", drybrushed in Ceramcoat "Bridgeport Grey" and flocked with Woodland Scenics "Burnt Grass" static grass.

Painting Miniatures of Color

I am a really big fan of diversity - both in life and my gaming table - one of the reasons I prefer Vietnam era wargaming to the segregated army of WW2, for example. However painting miniatures that read on the table as non-white is not as easy as it might seem.

This is a skin tone tests for non-white characters. In all I'm rather pleased with the results... the only disappointment is the dirtiness of the white suit... but the photo accentuates it and it looks better in real life.

All the skintones were Vallejo Model Colors. For the three Asian figures on the left (Yakuza gangster "oyabun leader" painted as a low level chimpira in flamboyant red suit, and a "heroic cop" both from Northstar's Fistful of Kung Fu line; female "citizan militia" painted as a Hong Kong SDU officer) were painted with VMC 036 "Bronze Fleshtone". It is a bit stereotypically yellow, but it reads as "Asian" more than any more nuanced tones I've tried. It shall be my go to Asian skintone.

Next we have a "news team minder" painted as a city detective (from Copplestone Castings's Future Wars line) painted with Valleho Model Color Extra Opaque 140 "Heavy Skintone" which I think will read well for both Hispanic/Latino/Chicano and North African/S.W. Asian characters.

Finally "corporate babe 2" (also Copplestone Castings; Future Wars line) painted as an armed female corp with Vallejo Model Color 044 "Dark Fleshtone"which I fine to be a very attractive, rich black skintone in miniature - the photograph really doesn't do the actual miniature justice... she looks gorgeous in person... with just a hint of dirtiness to the white suit. I will definitely be using this color more often.

So those are my basic skintones for non-white miniatures... I would like to find more shades for each that could offer more variety while still remaining identifiable at scale... I have four or five shades of Caucasian/white fleshtone by comparison. However the fact is that real skintones aren't as defined - my wife and I are nearly the same shade for example... and at scale the slightly cartoonish choices of skintone become more important to distinguish the miniatures intended ethnicity. In my previous batch of minis I had experimented with "Heavy Fleshtone" for a lighter-skinned black woman, and "Elf Skintone" (VMC 004) for Asian characters... the results were a Latina-looking woman and two white-looking women respectively. Indeed the Asian characters skintones (two at center) are hard to distinguish from the the three "white" skintones used on the redhead corporate babe with the sword (VMC 089 "Cadmium Flesh"), the partisan in magenta watchcap (Ceramcoat"Medium Flesh"), and the biker on the end (VMC 100 "Rosy Flesh"),