Village Games' Blog - Painting Projects

Even the Small Can Look Great

nospam@example.com (Dan Hobot) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:48:30 -0600

AMAZING RESULTS

One of our regulars (Terry) recently brought up some of the Oddzial Osmy (“O8”) 3mm miniatures he got from us all finished - painted, based, etc. The results were absolutely amazing!

Bear in mind these miniatures average only about a ½” in length. The obvious sculpting detail is brought out even more by Terry’s realistic paint job and basing. The details really add to them as well - notice the telephone poles on the helicopters’ bases. He really did a great job, and he said it wasn’t too hard to do.

One of the real perks of these 3mm is the ability to place an entire unit on a single reasonably sized base; especially useful if you play a rule set that uses a one stand equals one platoon or company. It gives a real sense of the scope of your forces if you can still see a one-to-one vehicle representation (albeit grouped on stands) on the table top.

The O8 line is growing rapidly, and we are planning to expand our selection as it grows. The only problem for me now is what units should I paint up first – early war WWII or a massive Cold War force? Maybe even an ultra-modern force?

Ah decisions, decisions….

Until next time – may all of your commands be productive!

Dan

The Beauty Can Come Through

nospam@example.com (Dan Hobot) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:35:00 -0600

NEW CAMERA

We just got a new camera for the store – one that can take great zoom and close-up shots as well as a host of other neat features. I need to get some special lighting equipment to take the best shots, but here are a couple of pictures just to test it out.

The first is a close-up of one of the 1/72 scale British paratroopers I painted a while back (see the previous post on painting these). The shots I had of the fig’s then left a lot to be desired. While this one still needs some lighting work, you can get a much better idea of how they turned out. He is Sten gunner from the Red Devils:

The other shot is of some 15mm WWII German paratroopers that I just finished up. They were painted in the camo smocks that were issued in North Africa, and more importantly for my purposes, in the Italian/Monte Cassino campaign. Again, the lighting isn’t the best but you can see a lot of the detail. (Note: These guys were base coated with my airbrush and then speed painted in the same fashion as the paratrooper above using the “Magic Dip” method):

I have thrown out a challenge in the shop for someone to paint up a matching New Zealander, Indian or Polish force to take on the Germans in a Cassino mini-campaign, but so far no one has risen to the occasion. I still have hope though…

Until next time…

Happy Gaming!

Dan

1/72 Scale Growing...

nospam@example.com (Dan Hobot) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:15:00 -0600

ANOTHER FOLLOWS SUIT

After my going on about the success of my experiment with 1/72 scale figures, one of our regulars – Mike Z. – decided to give it a try with some Imperial Romans. Now bear in mind, Mike hates painting figures – he will only play games with vehicles or prepainted figures. After his efforts though, he is sold on the idea of the 1/72 scale figures!

Mike’s Romans are from Caesar Miniatures which have a nice mix of poses for skirmish armies (Mike’s goal with this first batch). Mike painted 22 of the figures intermittently over a couple of nights at the shop. He used the same techniques I outlined in my blog entry about the British Paratroopers I painted. Unfortunately my camera can’t do justice to his paint job, but suffice it to say that given the little time and effort it took Mike the results were spectacular! Mike is very proud of how they turned out, and rightly so for his first foray into figure painting:

You will notice in the background are some German WWII Infantry that I painted up using the same techniques. I now have someone to skirmish with my Brits! Now onto the next group…

Until next time – Happy Gaming!

Dan