RE: [SG] Painting, figs

G'day,

Karl said:
> <PAU> Reasonably 'African' from what I have seen, as do some of the
> Mercenaries.

Thanks.

> On the other hand, I'm not too happy with the faces of the Gurkhas,
> fine figures that they are otherwise.

We've only got one of those so far? What do you find is wrong?
 
> Well, South/Central America has lots of Caucasians and Blacks.
> Otherwise, there are not that many suitable figures with 
> semi-Asiatic / American Indian features.

I was happy with using other NAC figs for the non-Indian figs I was
wondering if they had any figs that could represent Amazonian units etc
(as
in the location not as in all female hell warriors in metal bikinis
brandishing large swords.... I have enough of those kind of figs already
;P)

> Sunglasses are easy, dark or metallic colour and a gloss varnish.
> 
> Clear glasses ? Never tried them. My idea would be to use: 
> - a dark skin tone (to make the shaded eye region darker than the face
> - a silver wash 
> - a gloss varnish

Clear glasses unfortunately. Just painting them all white looks wrong,
but
putting black dots looks cartoonish. I ended up painting lower half to
2/3
of each spectacle flesh coloured and then putting the eye in the other
1/2
(or 1/3) works better than my other attempts and looks good on some
figs...
other figs I wish I could do better.

John also suggested:
>Start with solid black, and then use a blue grey to almost (but not
quite)
>fill the center of the lens.  Then add two or three sky blue slashes at
a
>45 degree angle.  Gloss the result, and there you go.	Or there *I* go,
at
>least.

Sounds nice and I if the figs I was painting up were generic or modern
I'd
do it, but these are Dad's Army figs (Brit comedy based on UK WWII home
guard for those who haven't had the pleasure) and I really wanted to get
Mainwaring's look right... especially if he's going to feature in a lot
of
my future FMA/SG battles ;)

Dawgie suggested (re: helmet mesh):
>USE A VERY SMALL BRUSH, AND A CONTRASTING COLOR.
>PAINT SMALL DIAMOND  SHAPES ALL OVER THE SURFACE OF THE HELMET.
>A BIT TEDIOUS!

I'm just about insane enough to do tat ;)

Indy commented:
>Ugh!! That's an understatement. Wouldn't it be easier to
>just paint highly angled criss-cross lines instead? You
>can get the diamond effect much quicker that way.  :-

That's actually a good idea, though still tricky.

Claus wrote:
>Nope, but I'd be more than happy to know what others might have tried.
My 
>Waffen SS guys would look nice with it :-))

What I ended up doing was using my dissecting kit (all those hours
dissecting insects has finally come in handy!) and go a bit of the
packing
sponge that comes with most blister packs of figs and cut very fine
slices
of it that are the right diameter to cover the helmet. Stuck it on
before
undercoating with black. Then gave it a coat of very dark olive drab and
then dry brushed with olive drab. Its worked remarkably well (and it
turns
out not any slower than the other possible methods)...I was just
wondering
if I'd missed a better alternative.

Thanks