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Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





G'day all,

Just looking for comments and criticisms on my first crack at British tanks. I'm not sure what division I'll go with but I'm thinking Desert Rats, I haven't given this one squadron/regiment markings though.

I spent a while firstly figuring out that it should be painted SCC15, then spent a while trying to figure out what to use for SCC15... then I ended up just mixing my own concoction for SCC15, so I'm interested to know what people think of the colour

It's not painted to a super high quality as I have quite a few to get through, I used acrylic washes rather than oil to speed things up, but they do tend to be a bit messier... of all things I used vodka to clean up the acrylic wash

This is actually my first attempt at decals since I was about 9 years old (19 years ago) I think they came out alright, especially since I didn't have any decal setting solutions or solvents, I just invented my own. Pretty happy with the way they turned out, though I might buy myself some decal solvent to get around the harsher surfaces.

It's also not weathered yet... I'm kind of liking the clean look. I always end up butchering 15mm models when I attempt to weather them so I'm not sure whether I'll have a go at it or not. I might paint up a few squadrons before I decide whether I'll destroy them with my pathetic attempts at weathering



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/06 11:51:57


 
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





UK

Looks good to me. A close up in better light would help see a bit more

Not sure if its the picture quality or your painting but it looks quiet dark to me. Personally I prefer a lighter look buts that's just my choice.


Good look painting up the rest of the squadron


Also don't get hung up on people telling you that you must use certain colours(e.g. SCC15). The best paint jobs are always people mixing their own colours

My British are mostly a mixture of Vallejo 924 Russian but it works well.

Old warriors die hard

https://themodelwarrior.wordpress.com
 
   
Made in ie
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!




Kildare, Ireland

Id go with some British squadron markings, maybe less stars and get the unit symbols in the correct places.

Paintjob is nice though and thats the main thing.


 Strombones wrote:
Battlegroup - Because its tits.
 
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut





looks great, and don;t worry about colour's being accurate as there was always some lazy guy who doesn't do the paint job properly. heck look at the story of the pink american submarine.

Only the Insane have strength enough to prosper, Only those who prosper may truly judge what is sane. 
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





I think I'll go with a Guards regiment as it seems the Desert Rats didn't use Shermans heavily and I have a bunch of Shermans I just need to sort out the proper markings and I'll be set.
   
Made in us
Lieutenant General





Florence, KY

This should help.
[Thumb - British Sherman Markings - Guards Armoured Division.jpg]

[Thumb - Grenadier Guards Markings.jpg]


'It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents
cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable
defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war.'

- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty
Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim
 
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





So a single squadron would be something like 15 Shermans and 5 Fireflies? I was confused as to whether a squadron was what my Fortress Europe book calls a "Armoured Platoon", or whether it was a group of several Armoured Platoons.

So say I had 20 Shermans (15 regular I/II/II or IV and 5 Fireflies) they should all have the same Tactical Sign for being in the same regiment (the 51, 52 or 53) and then they should all have the same coloured shape for being in the same squadron as well (either the diamond, triangle, circle or square).

If I then got another 20 Shermans, they'd have the same Tactical Sign (51, 52 or 53) as the first batch, but then change the squadron shape to make them distinct from the first 20?
   
Made in gb
Hulking Hunter-class Warmech




North West UK

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
So a single squadron would be something like 15 Shermans and 5 Fireflies? I was confused as to whether a squadron was what my Fortress Europe book calls a "Armoured Platoon", or whether it was a group of several Armoured Platoons.

So say I had 20 Shermans (15 regular I/II/II or IV and 5 Fireflies) they should all have the same Tactical Sign for being in the same regiment (the 51, 52 or 53) and then they should all have the same coloured shape for being in the same squadron as well (either the diamond, triangle, circle or square).

If I then got another 20 Shermans, they'd have the same Tactical Sign (51, 52 or 53) as the first batch, but then change the squadron shape to make them distinct from the first 20?


Basically yes. that's the way I've always understood it;

A "Squadron" is equivalent to a "Company", using the Flames of War term, about 20 tanks.

An "Armoured Platoon", in Flames of War terms was known as a "Troop" in British service, and consisted of 3 Shermans and 1 Firefly.

All the tanks in the Squadron should have the same regimental and squadron markings; so 51, 52, or 53 on the front and rear hull; opposite their divisional symbol with their turret markings in the corresponding colour (51 being red, 52 being yellow and 53 being blue). The shape on the turret indicates the squadron; A squadron being a triangle; B&C being a square and circle respectively. Diamond shape indicates the HQ squadron; so in Flames of War you're generally only going to use that on the HQ attachments (The Recce troop of Stuarts and AA tanks are the only two I can think of from the top of my head, but there may be others)

So; as an example; if you wanted to do B squadron of the Irish Guards; all your Shermans and Fireflies would have a 53 on their front/rear hull and on the turret they would have a blue square. If you took a Recce platoon of Stuarts; they would have the same hull markings, but with a blue diamond

I hope that helps If I've fethed anything up, I'm sure Big P will be along to correct me shortly

Really nice paintjob too BTW, I can't wait to see a full squadron like that!


Not One Step Back Comrade! - Tibbsy's Stalingrad themed Soviet Strelkovy

Tibbsy's WW1 Trench Raid Diorama Blog
 Ouze wrote:

Well, you don't stuff facts into the Right Wing Outrage MachineĀ©. My friend, you load it with derp and sensationalism, and then crank that wheel.
 
   
Made in ie
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!




Kildare, Ireland

The Tibster pretty much nailed it...

 Strombones wrote:
Battlegroup - Because its tits.
 
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





Well they're taking me longer than I expected to do (both because they are taking longer to paint and because I have less free time than I was hoping to have ). The panel lining actually takes me quite a while to do which I wasn't expecting on such tiny models!

Here's the first 3, the one on the left is a PSC model, the others are BF from the "Achtung!" set...





   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Love the colour, not sure the 'Russian uniform' option works, for faded armour with a bit of weathering its fine, but for a cleaner look the deeper richer green you have looks better.

How is it mixed?

never bothered with the front decals on mine, they don't fit in the right place so I just painted a bit of mud there.

Like the neat finish though
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





I've been using VMA paints, the first one I posted was 1 part Interior Green to 1 part Tank Green. For the last 3 I decided to brighten it a bit so I went 2 parts Interior Green to 1 part Tank Green. What sort of varnish you use really changes the look as well, with a matte varnish it's really toned down the green now.

The front decals are annoying, I'm looking for smaller ones that actually fit properly. You can't really see it on the images but if you look really really close you can see a bit of silvering on the front decals where they go over the little bump that covers the inner part of the drive sprocket.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/01/06 20:41:30


 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran





Charleston, SC, USA

Lovely. Nice to see tanks with proper markings.

Also like the paint job. Sometimes I just like a nice clean tank.
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





Yeah, I'm undecided whether or not to weather them up (if I do, I'll do them all together once I finish the squadron).

They are lacking a bit in so much as they have no stowage or extra track armour, the PSC stuff doesn't come with extra stowage, not really sure what direction I want to go with there.
   
Made in gb
Incorporating Wet-Blending





Wales: Where the Men are Men and the sheep are Scared.

You can get some decent metal stowage from skytrex or peter pig.



 
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





I think I'm gonna put the British tanks on the shelf for a while. This is where I've gotten up to now.

I did a close up on the Firefly because I had a crack at some very basic weathering on the Fireflies and the last Sherman. Would love to hear some comments and criticisms, if you click on them you can zoom in further. I probably need to do something with the tracks as far as weathering is concerned, but I'm not really sure what. I really suck at weathering, nice clean armies like Eldar are so much easier, lol.




This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/02/08 15:18:38


 
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




Awesome looking tanks. You did a great job.
   
Made in gb
Incorporating Wet-Blending





Wales: Where the Men are Men and the sheep are Scared.

I like how you have done these. Mind sharing roughly how you painted and weathered these? I am going to tackle my shermans and cromwells pretty soon and they are my first real vehicles so I am kinda unsure where to begin.



 
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





They are a bit more time consuming to paint than I'd like, I keep changing the method slightly, but I'm happiest with the most recent batch I did which is what I used on the Sherman Firefly in my last post. My basic method is...

Do you have an airbrush? I did most the groundwork with an airbrush, though I reckon it wouldn't look much worse if you just painted the whole model with something halfway between my base and my highlight.

Airbrushing all done with VMA paints except for the VMC german camo biege...
Basecoat 2:1 interior green:tank green

Shade 10:5:2 interior green:tank green:black

Highlight 4:2:1 interior green:tank green:VMC german camo beige

Then I just do all the detailing, a gloss varnish and apply decals, and the final step is a wash of 2:1 VMA:Burnt Umber:VMA Black with a couple of drops of Vallejo drying retarder (it probably ends up about 2:1:2 B-Umber:Black:Retarder). I thin that down to almost wash-like consistency and apply it directly in to the corners and crevices and around details. I do about a 3rd of the model and then wash my brush off and clean up the transitions using Vallejo Airbrush Thinner (don't use much, just rinse the brush in the thinner then stroke it on a tissue to remove the excess, you don't want the thinner pooling on the model).

The method for blending the wash is basically clean the brush, wet it with airbrush thinner, wipe the brush off on a tissue, then wipe the brush over the area you want to smooth. You basically learn how to "sweep" the paint around the model to blend it in. If the brush starts getting dirty just wipe it off on the tissue. I only do 1/3 of the model at a time because I don't want to let the wash dry for too long. If you don't use the retarder, this method doesn't really work because the paint will dry too much and when you come to sweep it off, it'll come off in chunks instead of smoothly blending.

For weathering, on that Sherman Firefly I just combined the weathering with the blending of the wash, instead of creating a smooth blend I purposely favoured sweeping the brush up and down to create the streaking effect. On the large flat surfaces I just applied a bit of wash and then came back to clean it up the same way, favouring vertical strokes to create that effect.

I think the tracks and underside needs a bit more weathering as well, not sure how I'll tackle it though, I really suck with weathering powders!

When I get around to painting more, I think I'm going to try and get some enamel burnt umber and black to do the wash instead of using the acrylic+retarder. I do have some enamel washes but they're waaaay too thin for what I'm trying to achieve, so I might try and grab some regular Testors Model Master or Humbrol enamels to do it instead. Then instead of Vallejo Airbrush Thinner I'll use white spirit.

That final step of doing the wash/blending/weathering takes me a bit over an hour per model, that's why it is a bit more time consuming than I'd like!

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/02/20 08:39:32


 
   
 
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