General Gaming

A STEEP LEARNING CURVE – BUT AN EXCELLENT SUBJECT   

I have been playing around with our new camera some more. There seems to be a rather steep learning curve on the technology and skill of taking good pictures. Have no fear though, gentle reader, for I shall persevere and learn how to do this right (or I will just get fed up and return to the camera to the store… J).

Anyways, here are a few shots of an M4 Sherman Tank I just finished for my 15mm American North African/Italian campaign WWII army. I am especially pleased with how it turned out as I used some new techniques for it. Specifically:

• MiG Pigments were used to weather the tracks and road wheels. This is a product which come in a powder form (which is how I used it for this application) that can also be mixed with different mediums to create washes, caked on mud, etc. 
 

• Woodland Scenic’s rock molds were used to create the rocking outcroppings on the base. I only have a couple of the molds, but they are very easy to use and produce great results. I didn’t even paint them, that is just washes (including the Woodland Scenic’s Earth Wash) over the casting material!

• The base was prepared with Valjello’s Grey Pumice and then given a light base coat of tan. After that it was just a quick series of washes to get a great realistic ground look. I didn’t even drybrush or highlight it!

• I used Testor’s Decal Set on the star decals, which really helped take the shine off of the decal and allowed it to be successfully weathered and blended in to the rest of the model – the lack of being able to do that has always put me off of using decals in the past.

• The vehicle was given a wash of my house “Magic Dip” solution, which I thought gave a great tone to the underlying colors. I will be doing that on all of my vehicles in the future as well.

• I hand painting the tank’s name (“Birdshot”) on the hull. It wasn’t that hard, and it opens up a host of possibilities for futures projects.

All of these steps were surprisingly quick and easy to do. The tank, with 17 stands of infantry, were done in about a week with these results. In today’s world the name of the game is speed, and yet still having really great results. I think we are really developing these at the shop these days.

Anyways, I am very please with how the tank turned out, and I will be giving this kind of treatment to all of my vehicles in the future – and hopefully, even getting better at doing them. If you have any questions about the products (which we do carry) or techniques I used please stop by and I would be glad to talk more about them!

Well, until next time…

Happy Gaming!

Dan