Alpine Soviet Scout 1/35 completed

hello there,

Here is the finished work (tan tan). I couldn't stay more because I'm going to bring my nephew to the Montrouge (near Paris) scale figure competition and afterward we'll go to see the last movie in la Géode (3D 360° giant screen) to see a movie on the DDay. What a Saturday ! For lunch I'll lhave to hold strong against Mac Donalds and bring him to a traditional French restaurant. That's my biggest challenge of the day I think...
All the best,
Julien

Alpine 1/35 Soviet Scout WIP

Guttentag,

I've been making some progresses on the Alpine Russian scoot figure.
This figure presents a lot of folds and by playing with the colors I tried to give some texture effects.
The figure is 75% done.
J

Dragon panzer crew pair, achtung Jabo set, 1/35

Another set for sale.
The two figures comes from the "achting jabo" set from Dragon. I replaced the heads by Hornet ones. On one of them I scratched glasses. They wear the green jacket of the panzer crew, quite common in Normandy.

Miniart British tank crew

Hello,

In between two projects, I made a commissioned work for one of my clients.
Miniart sets in 1/35 are quite good, detailled and original in their subjects.

Best,
Julien

Worlwide Premiere Sneak Preview : Vladimir P. and Dimitri M. portraits

Dear Reader,

Let me present you the two closest friends : Validmir P. and Dimitri M. in their new movie : Two Heads For One Body.

Stay tuned.
Julien

Bravo 6 French para : un mauvais pressentiment III

Hi folks,

Back on the blog. I've just finished my french para and I must say I'm very pleased with the result.
My first try on the ventral bag was just a catastroph : shiny as hell, thick coat of paint etc.. So I decided to strip off the paint on it with nail polish remover (thank you darling). Long and painful process. You better off carefully chose your paint before starting applying the brush !
the shiny bag

After some striping

So I repainted the famous bag. Ang guess what : the second try was as shiny (not glossy) as the first try :(
All that work (and smell, because nail polish remover do smell a lot !) for nuts !
So I resigned myself to use the matt varnish. I don't like matt varnish. You usually use it when you failed your paint. Matt varnish do ternish and melt the different tones. In this particlar case it wasn't so bad as it create a convincing blending effect.

At that point I started to work on both hands. In his left hand he holds a strap, certainly the one that hang to the central line within the plane. Whereas he holds his helmet in the other hand. Bravo 6 did not include the straps, so I did them with putty and white metal stripes. I also started the paint of his musette and carbin.

I first assemb his arms. I was reluctant to add the musette and carbine as it would cover what I estimate as the best painting part of the figure :l upper part of the legs. That's why I took pictures before final stage : I could still remind this part through pictures. I notice one fact when I added the arms, specially the right one : it was much clearer than the camo on the body. I guess it's a natural tendacy for painters. The more the surface gets small the more when want details on it. The final result on this kind of camo is that the overall tones  got darker. I think it's very important to regularky check the overall coherence of your figure. So again I had to take the beige I used as a base and cover many part of the torso to get it clearer. It partly worked.

Finally I reworked the face. I thought the contrast were too high, so I smoothed the different part of the face. I might have let the face as is, but hey, at some point you need to stop changing your mind ! 

I finaly convinced myself to finish Mister Reno.

Bravo 6 French para : un mauvais pressentiment II

Hello lads,

I had the opportunity recently to work on my French para Jean Reno, despite a very busy life (professionally and personally). This figure is a little gem. I told myself that I everytime I plan to buy a Bravo 6 figure, I should buy 2 of them. Why ? Because there are so much details, and some of them are so subtle, delicate that even with extreme care and a very light coat of paint, you lose some of them. At least with one unpainted figure as a comparative, you lost no detail.

As far as painting is concerned, as usual, eveything done in enamel and oil. I strated to paint the camo. The black layer allow me to avoid to underlin in black some part of the figure difficult to access.
Once the camo done, I started to highlight some folds and other prominent parts. Then I worked on the straps (there are many !). A little trick for you painters. To simulate some texture on the strap, strat by applygin the basic coat, darker than the final color you are aiming at. Then paint in a much lighter tone vertical and horizontal lines all along the straps. Then apply a very diluted coat of the final color on such framing. The final result will give a nice rendering (unfortunately the final result is not that visible due to the shinning effect).

After all that work, it's a shame that I will have to cover most of the legs camo with an additional bag and the carabin. But that's the game !

More to come soon.

Best,
Kinggeorges

Bravo 6 French para : un mauvais pressentiment

Fellas,

I've started a new fig for a running campaign on armorama, Vietnam;Trouble in Southeast Asia II.  This figure is a bit special for me as my friend Vladimir Demchenko, the owner of Bravo6, asked me at the time to find the french title : "un mauvais pressentiment" (in english "a bad premonition"). The figure represents a French para ready to embark for a jump on Dien Bien Phu eventhough he knows the stronghold is already condemned. Many young Frenches voluntereed to jump on DBP on the very last days (many died due to the jump at a very low altitude, given the Viet flak all around), to help their trapped buddies. The figure facial expression reflects the resignation which should have marked those modern heroes.

This figure is quite a challenge as it contains many (I mean many :)) straps which are part of the TAP 660 parachute. I must say it's the best figure from Bravo6 in terms of details and thinness of the whole equipment. In this respect I've decided to opt for a technic I've seen used by Calvin tan I think which is black priming. This allows me to incorporate all black underlines directly with the first coat of paint for each part (applying those afterward is just impossible, at least for the torso).

And of course you would have recognised mister Jean Réno as the main actor of this scene !

to be continued

Miniart Soviet officers at field brieffing

Bonjour !

Another set representing infantry and tank officers at brieffing before the attack. They come from a miniart set. I enjoyed a lot painting them, especially all the medals and insignas which are very detailled. For the fun I made a scar on the tank officer face. I don't think it's visible from the pic..
Those 4 are available for sale.

Julien