All,
Well, still depressed about the @#$%ing Patriots, but the world keeps on turning, and I continue moving ahead with my Wolverines project. Now I'm on to working on camo for the vehicles, experimenting with Blue-Tack as a mask. I went to Wal-mart and bought their version of Blue Tack (couldn't find actual Blue Tack anywhere, but reading on the internet told me the various brands are fairly interchangeable), brought it home, and got to work masking a couple of test tanks, one M-60A1 and one T-62. I primed them yesterday and let them sit over night before messing with the Blue Tack.
Here are my two test subjects, the T-62 at left and the M-60 at right. It took me about ten minutes to do this, five minutes for each tank. As this was my first time doing it, maybe it's possible to get a little faster doing this, but I can't see you shaving off a significant amount of time. Five minutes per vehicle to roll out the sausages and apply them sounds about right. I have a little more than 60 vehicles to do, so that's roughly five hours of work just to get them ready.
Anther view of our brave test subjects.
And the reverse. I laid them on, squished them in a bit, and let them sit for about thirty minutes, then headed out to the garage.
And sprayed them liberally. I let them sit for a couple hours, then brought them back inside.
Another look.
And then I pulled the Blue Tack off. And, to be honest, it was kind of a pain in my @#$%. I reckon I spent another five minutes per tank pulling the Blue Tack off. So, first up, the good: the good is that it works pretty well in terms of getting you some great, natural, soft lines in your camo. I'm really very happy with that.
The bad: this is when I learned that the colors I used for both the US and Soviet tanks didn't have, in my opinion, enough of a contrast, and the Soviet colors are way too light for combat operations in most of North America.
Another look at 'the good,' in which I'm very happy with the blended, non-harsh demarcations between camouflage colors. For 10mm, I definitely needed colors with more of a contrast.
Another look at the bad: these are the wrong colors to be mixing for camo, unless we're shooting for the Middle East. Now for the ugly...
The ugly, Part I: see the blue? Yeah, that's Blut Tack that I couldn't get out, even after five minutes of working it over with a toothpick and another ball of Blue Tack.
The ugly, Part II: don't know if you can see it that clearly in the photos, and both tanks had it, but look at center and center right. If it looks like you see bare metal, it's because you do. Taking off the Blue Tack removed paint to the point of showing bare metal. Bare metal after I primed with two coats.
The ugly, Part III, already mentioned obliquely: five minutes to apply the mask, five minutes to remove the mask, for 60+ vehicles equals about ten hours of work, and that's not good.
Verdict: I don't have ten hours to devote to just doing camo for the vehicles. I can't really deal with having small bits of Blue Tack on all my vehicles (I'm assuming I could eventually get all of it off if I was willing to spend even more time per vehicle). I can't really deal with the Blue Tack pulling off the primer, leaving bare metal. So, despite the fact that I love the soft lines for camo, I think I just got my mind changed for me. Looks like my Cold War vehicles for Wolverines will be historically monochromatic after all!
It's funny, the colors I'm looking at using are both in the picture above (the M-60). I believe I'm going to do all the US vehicles in that olive drab, and all the Soviet vehicles in the medium green. Whaddaya think?
V/R,
Jack
Hi Jack,
ReplyDeleteLooks like a lot of work for such small vehicles. I might use Blue Tack on 15 or 20mm kit, or there is a proprietary masking medium available from various sources. I'd wash those vehicles with something like Agrax Earthshade, which would darken them and make the details pop. Both greens on the M60 look good as you suggest, although I'd still wash them to bring out detail.
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers, Andy
Your welcome
DeleteHiya Andy, hope all is well! Yeah, I'm passing on Blue Tack for this project, but can see trying again in 15mm, with much fewer vehicles. And I always put washes on my vehicles and troops!
DeleteV/R,
Jack
Interesting Jack. Perhaps doing them in smaller batches and spraying straight away would be better and then getting the putty off faster. I say this because I suspect that poster putty has hardened while you did the all-in-one production line process.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I want to try at this scale is to use a small piece of sponge held in tweezers and dab thinned paint to build up a camo.
Norm,
DeleteHey, that sounds like an excellent idea, but I've decided to go monochrome, just too much work for a project I'm trying to ram through at light speed! ;)
I like your sponge idea, too, might have to give that a shot sometime!
V/R,
Jack
Coming on nicely
ReplyDeleteTake care
Andy
Thanks Andy!
DeleteV/R,
Jack
Maybe if after you put down the base coat and let it dry, spray them with a clear gloss polyurethane spray. That might keep the blue tack from pulling off the paint and exposing the metal.
ReplyDelete--Chris
Chris,
DeleteYeah, I've read where some guys have done that, and I'm going to try it in the future. Thanks!
V/R,
Jack
I tried this once with 15mm vehicles and ended up finding sticky bits of blu-tack in various crevices for ages afterwards. I think there's a way to make this work but I didn't repeat the experiment again!
ReplyDeleteJim,
DeleteDamn, that sucks to hear you had problems with 15mm, I was thinking of giving it another shot with some 15mm vehicles. I couldn't believe how big a pain in the ass it was to get that stuff off the vehicles!
V/R,
Jack
Jack,
ReplyDeleteWhat colors did you use for the US tanks again in this picture?
Crappy deal with the blue tack man...
Steve, I used Testors Medium Green, threw the Blue Tack on, then used Plastic Soldier Company's British Uniform.
DeleteV/R,
Jack
10 hours is too much time to be spend on paining vehicles rather than playing with them. I am with you, just go mono for each!
ReplyDeleteAmen, brother!!! ;)
DeleteGood to ‘see’ you, hope all is well. What have you been up to?
V/R,
Jack
Been busy with stuff to do with moving and rennovating. This week was organising the application for the loan extension to do it all :-(
ReplyDeleteOn gaming as you did ask, I have been slowly solo RPGing though the SFRPG Classic Traveller adventure Kinunir (and mostly spending a lot of time with Excel to help run the adventure). Secondly I am revisiting my Chaos in Cairo/Pulp Alley/Sccoby Doo-ish game with the aim to play the Pulp Alley Tomb of the Serpent campaign with the children. I also have a bunch of AARs of various games I played over Nov-Dec to finish off and post.
Shaun,
DeleteYeah, all that homebuying/renovating stuff isn't particularly fun, and you need to hurry up! I don't want it lingering around as an excuse to not game, ya know what I mean? Particularly with you saying you have a bunch of batreps to write from Nov-Dec! ;)
Solo RPGing? What happened to the little ones? I thought they (your daughter, in particular) were having a good time with the science fiction stuff? I look forward to your Pulp Alley stuff, and I swear someday I'm going to get into Pulp Alley as well. The biggest thing keeping me from it is that I want to do it in 28mm, where there are so many beautiful figures, but I'm scared off by terrain!
Anyway, take care Shaun, I hope all goes well and smoothly with the house. And don't move too far; the family was talking about vacations, and my daughter threw out Australia (she's infatuated with The Great Barrier Reef), so 1 down, three more to convince ;)
V/R,
Jack
Hello Jack,
DeleteI have 11 AARs to write up, including the 4 Operation Jupiter ones from 2016! I have made it a bit of a focus over the next few months to get the AARs finished off and posted. I have been slack on that front. Of course I only resolved to do this on the weekend so this focus may change by tomorrow 😊 I have been preparing the cards to use with the Pulp game, revisiting my rules and reading the Tomb of the Serpent campaign book to familiarise myself with it. Will hopefully start it soon. If the children don’t like it, I will play it solo!
We are moving to a house about 1km away from where we are now, so not far 😊 Is unlikely to be finished until mid-year and so hoping it all goes well too.
More than happy for you to come and visit, and the Great Barrier Reef is amazing! Sometime in the future we are coming to the US and Texas is on the list. It may be awhile as I think Europe is first and that trip is several years away, so don’t hold your breath.
Anyway, you seem to have nearly finished painting more WW2 figures and vehicles than all that I own, and in a month, so I think you need to play with them now.
-shaun
Shaun,
DeleteEleven batreps??? I hate when I get that behind, I begin losing motivation. So you're a better man than me... if you get those eleven posted ;) I miss Operation Jupiter, but my stream of gaming consciousness has yet to return me to that gentle, green, wargaming pasture.
And if the children don't like it, force them! They can have some mandatory fun, just like everyone else! ;)
Hope all goes well with the move, and we'll get down there, someday, certainly not this year, so you've got that going for ya ;) And whenever you make it Texas way, we're sure to be here, so stay for a bit, but not too long. I don't have a ping-pong table for you to sleep under ;)
Take care buddy!
V/R,
Jack