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Recently bought so lame Death Korps so I'll be posting as I paint them hopefully. That being said, here is my first squad. Went with a few dark colours because I see Death Korps as a "darker" regiment with some snow (baking soda, craft store white paint and Elmer's glue) sprinkle and contrast. Please leave suggestions as I would love to get better!!!

The fatigues look amazing I think. I think there are parts where you overdid the snow marks on dudes themselves, as they look like being in a giant snow storm but the ground depicts it is mild snowing perhaps? Often less is more with weathering.

Anyway looks real cool. The mood fits DKoK real well. How many you got?

Make one squad or one heavy weapons team have a fire they set up. Maybe make a couple of boards (square toothpicks should work, even) that they scrounged and a tiny flap of some sort of cloth to give them a "tarp", and put some cotton (try spraying it with an airbrush if you can, with red/yellow paints) over some more such (glue them together) pieces of toothpick. Have a pile of such nearby, with snow on one side (away from the fire) and no snow beside the fire. Scale 15mm axe from any sort of medieval warrior gives them a realistic wood chopping axe that you could stick in the ground by the blade beside that pile. If its a whole squad, some of them can be on snow free ground (near the fire) which would be easy to create by making terrain out of "dirt" that you can stick their bases down into. So in the diorama, everyone else is standing in snow terrain, surrounded by it, tiny trees covered in it, but around the watchfire, its warm enough that the mud is back.

Maybe somewhere else a heavy weapons team has a smaller fire, and set up a lean to tarp. Make the spotter guy nearest the fire under the tarp completely snow free. Maybe he has a catachan head on and his mask is hanging from a thread being dried in the heat? Maybe he has a tiny cup in his hand like he is drinking hot water and enjoying his leisure, while his buddy mans the (front covered in snow) double heavy stubber. Point is, he found some warm, and everyone else hasn't. (Bonus points if you set it up so the fire is on the edge of his little heavy weapon squad, so the DKOK commisar and officer can be leaning over beside it staying warm. Share with command = don't get in trouble.)

I picture that part of dkok as the only decent job, sort of, maybe they have a tiny pot over their tiny fire, and are drinking something (probably heated water) from tiny cups. Perhaps one guy is istting on his butt in the warmth reading a book, waiting, while the other mans the gun. If you know what Glug or Grog or Gluhwein are, picture something like that (tiny wine bottles they found? Soldiers are incredibly resourceful!)
While everybody else stands in snow, of course, Get tiny, tiny pieces of greenstuff to model some tiny, tiny cups, and hang a helmet (doesn't have to be dkok helmet) from a thread upside down over their watch fire. So it looks like they are boiling snow or warming drink.

To my mind, that contrast would highlight how miserable the lot of the rest are, a tiny moment of peace and luxury in the middle of the grimest dark, I think.

Ilgoth wrote:
The fatigues look amazing I think. I think there are parts where you overdid the snow marks on dudes themselves, as they look like being in a giant snow storm but the ground depicts it is mild snowing perhaps? Often less is more with weathering.

Anyway looks real cool. The mood fits DKoK real well. How many you got?

Yeah I had the same feeling with the snow, it covered a lot of my highlighting so I was kinda bummed XD. I got 20 more basic dudes I'm gonna try to paint today. 15 engineers and 10 death riders still on the way, should be here soon, so now I kinda know how much snow to put. Thank you!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dukeofstuff wrote:
Make one squad or one heavy weapons team have a fire they set up. Maybe make a couple of boards (square toothpicks should work, even) that they scrounged and a tiny flap of some sort of cloth to give them a "tarp", and put some cotton (try spraying it with an airbrush if you can, with red/yellow paints) over some more such (glue them together) pieces of toothpick. Have a pile of such nearby, with snow on one side (away from the fire) and no snow beside the fire. Scale 15mm axe from any sort of medieval warrior gives them a realistic wood chopping axe that you could stick in the ground by the blade beside that pile. If its a whole squad, some of them can be on snow free ground (near the fire) which would be easy to create by making terrain out of "dirt" that you can stick their bases down into. So in the diorama, everyone else is standing in snow terrain, surrounded by it, tiny trees covered in it, but around the watchfire, its warm enough that the mud is back.

Maybe somewhere else a heavy weapons team has a smaller fire, and set up a lean to tarp. Make the spotter guy nearest the fire under the tarp completely snow free. Maybe he has a catachan head on and his mask is hanging from a thread being dried in the heat? Maybe he has a tiny cup in his hand like he is drinking hot water and enjoying his leisure, while his buddy mans the (front covered in snow) double heavy stubber. Point is, he found some warm, and everyone else hasn't. (Bonus points if you set it up so the fire is on the edge of his little heavy weapon squad, so the DKOK commisar and officer can be leaning over beside it staying warm. Share with command = don't get in trouble.)

I picture that part of dkok as the only decent job, sort of, maybe they have a tiny pot over their tiny fire, and are drinking something (probably heated water) from tiny cups. Perhaps one guy is istting on his butt in the warmth reading a book, waiting, while the other mans the gun. If you know what Glug or Grog or Gluhwein are, picture something like that (tiny wine bottles they found? Soldiers are incredibly resourceful!)
While everybody else stands in snow, of course, Get tiny, tiny pieces of greenstuff to model some tiny, tiny cups, and hang a helmet (doesn't have to be dkok helmet) from a thread upside down over their watch fire. So it looks like they are boiling snow or warming drink.

To my mind, that contrast would highlight how miserable the lot of the rest are, a tiny moment of peace and luxury in the middle of the grimest dark, I think.

Holy f*** this is an amazing idea, I will definitely try to do this with heavy weapons teams in the future, or even a command squad. Have the standard leaning against a rock and the rest of the squad around a fire. Great idea!

So I haven't posted in a while because I was just painting another 20 kreigers that look almost the same but with a tiny bit less snow. Here's my latest model though, really happy with how it turned out. I was afraid all the different colours would look to bright but enough wash (grim)darkened everything up. Tried to melt the necron a bit from a plasma blast for some more flavour on the base.

Earthshaker diorama inspired by @dukeofstuff, thank you for the idea!

That is just frigging awesome. I love the detail snow stuck in the wheel cracks and crevices on that gun, and the little matchstick leanto they built for shelter in the siege months.

If you want a to go grimmer and darker in the grimdark setup, for another spot in the army, you can have a similar leanto, and some of the tiny barbed wire, with a dead krieger hanging in them. Just hanging there, no equipment left on him except the mask and coat, old bloodstains all over his coat. Oh, and he has no legs below his torso, those are just gone. Perhaps one of the live crew of that gun is sitting there , trying not to think about sargeant Franzes out on the wire, even. Put a small sign with the symbol for "danger, minefield" on it next to him to sort of explain why nobody went in to get his corpse, and have the replacements -- well, I reckon you could make a lot of little footsteps in the snow but NONE near the minefield and dead guy, except one pair leading up to him and then a shallow depression under the wires.
Yes, this would be probably a pain to make, but I think it would be cool. Just a dead guy who went to pee at night and stepped wrong...

After seeing your leanto, I am pretty sure you could make up a small wooden table, almost a picnic table, and a chair that is a couple sticks with a piece of cloth between them a bit like a directors' chair in our world, and a pot helmet hanging by a single tiny strand (you can use a jewelers wire for that) over the fire. Fire you can make with about a half dozen tiny matchstick ends in a circle, paint the center in warmer colors, paint the bottom of the helmet a dull red/orange, and then put a drop of clear plastic like liquid silcon into it, just a tiny bit, to show its got something cooking. Or just melting. Cadian helmets work for this, each pack has one or two not on someone's head. Why the kriegers have it? To cook, of course! Some people put tiny wisps of cotton down and spray them first with dark grey paint to make a grey/white smoke for fires, I reckon that could be useable too.
All they need is a matchstick stuck in the ground with the tiny wire down from it to the helmet, to have a boil water system.
(It would be about the first thing I myself would set up, and there is never in the history of our world a soldier unable to start a fire. Ever.)

I guess I see your work and am inspired with ideas like these, even if you don't use them or don't exactly use them, I like what you are making, makes me frankly envious. Course, with the virus changing life for us all the next few weeks, I may get to build a few models myself soon.

Dukeofstuff wrote:
That is just frigging awesome. I love the detail snow stuck in the wheel cracks and crevices on that gun, and the little matchstick leanto they built for shelter in the siege months.

Hey it was your vision XD. Got a second one coming, gonna try to make a fire. I've never done object source lighting but i feel like it could add some nice contrast to the dark+snow theme of the army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dukeofstuff wrote:


If you want a to go grimmer and darker in the grimdark setup, for another spot in the army, you can have a similar leanto, and some of the tiny barbed wire, with a dead krieger hanging in them. Just hanging there, no equipment left on him except the mask and coat, old bloodstains all over his front, and the guys behind that gun can have a tiny table they made with a tiny pot of something edible on it. Perhaps one is sitting there warmly, trying not to think about sargeant Franzes out on the wire, even. Put a small sign with the symbol for "danger, minefield" on it next to him to sort of explain why nobody went in to get his corpse, and have the replacements -- well, model them to look nervous...

Don't have the models for that yet but that's another good idea. I'll see what i can come up with. I was planning on getting a Quartermaster at some point so a scene like that with him could work too

Yeah, I was editing my post when you posted the clip of it. I remain wildly enthusiastic about your work though.

Dukeofstuff wrote:
Yeah, I was editing my post when you posted the clip of it. I remain wildly enthusiastic about your work though.

Thank you! There will be more