Completed Dragon Fallschirmjäger 1/35

[Kimmo]

Next on the bench is another bit of madness, I'm going to give German splinter camouflage a shot. The new brushes I've picked up recently have given me enough confidence to give this a whirl. The figure is one of the two from Dragon's Fallschirmjäger with donkeys set and is mostly out of the box. I replaced the head, added some equipment, a scarf and redid the boots. These figures are starting to show their age, and illustrates rather well how far injection molded figures have come in the last 20 years when comparing them to say Tamiya's latest releases. The donkeys and radio in the set are excellent and will be used at some point, worth picking up for these alone. I whipped up a quick base with foam, styrene, two pieces of cork bark for a cliff face, and a mix of Celluclay and plaster for the groundwork. This is essentially what Sculptamold is. Celluclay looks great as earth, but shrinks and cracks depending on how wet and thickly it is applied, this can also warp thin bases. Adding the plaster makes it dry quicker and gives it more strength without worrying about cracking. The sand and rocks are the dust and particles from working the cork. I find it to look much more realistic than fine sifted sand which is too uniform and crystalline.

















I got primer down on the figure and base so the fun should be starting shortly.

Kimmo

 

[Kimmo]

Some quick and dirty work to get the base colours blocked in with a bit of outlining and shading. This stage always looks horrible...











The base was roughed in as well with different primers.






I need to get a bit more green in the smock, other than that, the base tones are about right. Next up will be a flat coat to help with paint adhesion. The more paint you get down, the better it sticks and varnish is a nice short cut plus protective barrier.

Kimmo

 

[Warren SMITH]

Great start..

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

Nice to see another piece beginning , good subject and nice bit of reworking , like the equipment positions and the boot work

Effective basework

Colours now coming on so looking forward to seeing more

Good explanations as well

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[bucsfan21]

Kimmo, Love the groundwork. Would like to see more of your work here! Thanks for sharing

Terry Martin-member of the Atlanta Military Figure Society of Atlanta, Georgia, USA

 

[Steve Ski]

Looking great from here. Splinter in this scale is a tough one, but I'm in, go for it! We can't improve it we don't stretch that comfort zone, right? Ruck On, I say.

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Warren, Nap, Terry and Ski! Quite the crowd forming already...


As Ski mentioned, splinter in this scale is a bit of a bugger but sometimes you just do what you gotta do. I managed to get the front and back camoed along with some work on the details to give me an idea of how things will look over all, still very rough at this stage and the bench lighting doesn't help matters much. You can see the greens and browns used for the initial shading of the smock, no sense going overboard as you can't be quite sure what gets covered. The pattern is sort of accurate if you don't look too closely. There's so much stuff in the way and folds that I didn't see the point in trying to be 100% accurate. The sleeves should look somewhat more like the real deal. Click on the photos for full res versions.

















I'll post a photo later of the colours I'm using. Tomorrow it's on with the sleeves.


Kimmo

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

Nice updates , difficult to comprehend the scale of this , going to look good, sure there will be tweaks from your brush along the way

Looking forward to seeing more

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Steve Ski]

That's working fine, keep er rollin.

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Nap and Ski!


Got the sleeves done and gave the smock another flat coat. This will protect all the work to date and it sharpened up some lines, now I have a good idea of how to continue. I got a bunch of other stuff done as well. Some of this is still very much in progress, but starting to come together.


















As promised, my palette. Missing is Black, Cork Brown and Red. The Prussian Blue is there to darken up the Luftwaffe Uniform which is a bit too pale and purple for my liking.








And for Nap's edification as to size. For those of you unfamiliar with the scale, these are rather small. 54mm seems substantially larger in comparison, even though they are less than 10% bigger.





Tomorrow we clean up the smock and continue with the rest.

Kimmo

 

[Warren SMITH]

Very impressive... looking forward to seeing the finished piece.

 

[Lazarus]

Looking good mate, love to see these old DML figures given a new lease of life.
G.

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Warren and Lazarus! There are some real nice figures from this era, the equipment more often as not leaves you a bit disappointed though.


Starting to get there now. I decided to punch up the green by adding Jade to the Intermediate, it looked too washed out. More contrast this way without being too dark. another flat coat with a touch of Camo Beige to blend things in a little. Did some refining and carried on getting the head sorted out. Another good session might see things done.


















We'll see what tomorrow brings.


Kimmo

 

[Kimmo]

Getting there. I need one more session to get the figure done and hopefully can get the base wrapped up at the same time.


















A quick check to see how the base tones on the base are looking. I want the top layer to be dirt/clay and the bottom to be rock so there will have to be a bit more separation between the two tones. I'm basically using the same colours as on the palette and have done nothing more than a bunch of heavy washes and dry brushing.








More tomorrow hopefully.

Kimmo

 

[Kimmo]

The week didn't quite go as hoped, not much time to sit at the bench for any great period of time. In one sense, this was good because I could let stuff fully dry and get my eyes and mind cleared. After a fair bit of minor touches, I think I'm just about done. The rain drops didn't turn out as well as hoped, in this scale they should just barely be visible and sort of felt rather than seen. I may add another coat of dust to the smock to hide them a bit more. The wood and metal bits got a light coat of satin to help differentiate them from the fabrics. Click on the photos for full size.


















The base is pretty much done, I used Desert and European Dust Wash to tone and blend everything. The camera isn't quite cooperating with the base for some reason, lighting and balance get thrown off. if it were properly set, you'd see the dirt portion might be a touch more yellow than it should be so another application of European Dust is in order. At least you can clearly see that there are two distinct layers. I also moved our chap back a little bit, I'm still wondering whether I should have him coming down the path instead of up. He seems to have a slight backwards lean.











Hopefully I'll get this wrapped up today and get some good photos taken over the weekend.

Kimmo

 

[Kimmo]

Finally calling this done. I ended up going out of town for the weekend and did the final touches today and yesterday. I tried to improve the raindrops but quickly realised it wouldn't work at this stage so decided to try a bit of deception. Green is a tough colour to work with sometimes, especially when thinned down and painting fine lines. I found it easier to paint very thin lines with a lightened smock base shade in the areas where the green patches are or would be. The effect is sort of the same, even if not quite accurate. The overall feel is of a worn and dusty smock and works for me. The face got a bunch of iterations, it would either be too dark, too tan, too light or too desaturated. Plenty of minor touches and glazes with lots of drying time was needed. I also switched the direction of our chap, the pose and balance looks better this way I think.















I'll get some better photos taken as the bench lighting set up isn't ideal, so look for a gallery link soon.


Kimmo

 

[Joe55]

Patience and skill sprinkled with a load of attention to detail paid off. You have yourself a sharp looking little figure!

Joe

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Joe!

A gallery is now up here. Pretty happy with how this turned out, next time I'll try my new trick for the raindrops and see if that gives us a better result off the hop. The face could have been a bit better, but I can live with it. Just need to paint more in this scale to get the process sorted out.

A teaser from the gallery

Thanks to everyone who followed along and commented.

Kimmo

 

[Lazarus]

You should be proud of that one, mate. Excellent workmanship there.
G.

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Lazarus!

Kimmo