WIP Barbarossa - Jeff Shiu - 120mm

[Ferris]

Hi All,

Here are some quick shots of my ongoing project, a very nice 120mm figure from Jeff Shiu. I bought this more than 10 years ago, painted the face, and left it like that for other projects. Glad to finally go for it now. Still a long way to go, but it’s going rather smoothly so far.

Hope to update soon.

Regards,
Adrian

 

[ometz]

Looks really nice. Smooth.

 

[Briggsy]

Love the face, the tunic is damn good with some lovely shading and highlighting.

Cheers Simon

 

[Nap]

Hi Adrian

Great to see what your working, do like the flesh on this , jkt looks good as well ........did you use a colour set ?

Following this with interest

Have fun at the bench

Nap

 

[Viking Bob]

I have always hankered after this one and may well get it one day.
Excellent painting on the face and uniform jacket.
Following now.

 

[NigelR]

Looking really good so far......

 

[phil_h]

Very nice work Adrian - really looking forward to seeing him finished

 

[Steve Ski]

That's lookin pretty nice, Adrian, glad you got back on it!

 

[Ferris]

........did you use a colour set ?

Nap

Yes and no. I wanted to try out the Andrea set for Field Grey, that I bought in a sale a while ago, but only used the base colour, 2nd shadow and 2nd highlight. I find the contrast range too narrow, and added Vallejo basic skintone to the 2nd highlight, and black to the 2nd shadow to increase contrast.
I also added blue tones to some of the shadows, and touches of a warmer green to some of the midtones.
I do like Andrea’s base field grey. It’s rather different from AK’s and Vallejo’s. This doesn’t matter much though, as field grey in reality also came in a rather broad variety.

Thanks for watching!

Cheers,
Adrian

 

[Ferris]

Did the helmet today.
The band around the helmet was made of rubber, and used for mounting twigs for camouflage.

Also prepared the equipment for mounting and painting. Fiddly stuff.

 

[Briggsy]

Helmet looks well usd and grimmy, perfect.

Cheers Simon

 

[Warren SMITH]

Excellent brush work.. on one of Jeffs finer figures..

 

[Nap]

Hi Adrian

Nice weathering on that helmet , will look good on the Figure .......

Looking forward to seeing more

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Steve Ski]

Helmet is looking good.

 

[Dr Bison]

The helmet - you nailed it

 

[MalcC]

coming on a treat.

Malc

 

[Ferris]

Thank you all for your replies and likes!

In this update I’d like to show how I approached construction of this figure. It’s a really dynamic and well-sculpted figure, but one really needs to think about how to attach all that dangling equipment. I hate mounting stuff after painting, as the handling will damage the paintwork, or worse. On the other hand, not everything can be painted in situ. Below are some examples how I handled things.

First the MG34. It’s held by the sling, which is not provided in the kit. The sling is a rather complex two-part assembly, kind of a double sling, each on one side of the gun. I wasn’t confident arranging this after painting and did this:

I cut off the arm, hollowed it out and made a male/female connection using rare earth magnets. In other words, the bare arm can be magnetically fixed in place and I could easily manipulate it for installing the carrying belt.

Here’s some more pics:

This is where it fits:

The belt itself is made of a mixture of Greenstuff and Magisculpt, rolled out thin and cut to size. I waited about 1.5 hours before bending the belt. This makes the material stiffer, almost like leather. I did this in about 4 sessions, doing a part of the belt per go.

Connectors are made of thinly rolled out Magisculpt. A fiddly job that I don’t like…

 

[Ferris]

Two bits:

0.5 mm hole with brass pin. This serves as a holder during painting and firms up the final fit on the figure.

To make these fit on the figure, I drill a three times bigger hole on the mounting location.

This seems like a wobbly fit, but at final mounting I plug the whole with fresh Magicsculp in which I press the pinned (painted) items. This allows some final manoevring of the items and creates a secure fit.

The thing that gave the hardest time is mounting the spadeand gas mask container, bit I’ll upload that during the weekend.

Hope this is informative.

Cheers
Adrian

 

[Babelfish]

Fabulous painting so far, and both interesting & informative to see your approach to the sling and attaching stuff to the main figure.

Slings & straps are the bane of my modelling life, I hate having to make them (the connectors especially) and painting them is always my least favourite part of any project. They are a massive and often frustrating chore, but can spoil the look of the whole figure if not done right (even if the rest of it is good).

Following with interest.

- Steve

 

[Nap]

Hi Adrian

Catching up on this great VBench

Very clever and well done work on the MG 34 belt .....looks really good

Nice work on the fitment of other bits as well

Looking forward to seeing more

Have fun @ the bench

Nap