Completed IBG Polish Infantry 1939 (35048)

[Kimmo]

Cheers Simon, Nigel and Nap!


The heat continues, and so do the short sessions. Difficult enough to paint tiny details as it is, doubly so when sweat gets in your eyes. Skin is mostly done now, a few touch ups and minor details remain. The weapons are just about there, and the rest of the fiddly stuff is coming along nicely. Inks have been added to the palette and used to glaze the wood, leather, mess tin and helmet. I really like using inks as much as possible to smooth and blend, also to add sheen. I mix them in with paint as well to boost saturation. Click on photos for full size.




























Not far to go now, touching up the uniforms and finalising the details is basically all that remains. Just hoping the weather front moving in cools everything down so I can get some extended bench time to wrap things up and move on to the bases.


Kimmo

 

[Briggsy]

They look bloody good, I really like how the various pouches and kit bags have come out. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the weather for you.

Cheers Simon

 

[NigelR]

The figures are looking fantastic IMO. Nice work all round.

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Simon and Nigel!


My apologies for the delay, the heat spell we had a while back really did a number on me. It wasn't the heat so much as the side effects, namely, my skin went bananas as it is wont to do when the temperatures get past a certain level. Unfortunately, it stayed well above that for a long time and it took forever for my hands in particular to heal up so I could get back to doing something with them.

Now that everything has calmed and cooled down, I finally got back to the bench and I think the first four chaps are done.



























Most of the work was cleaning up things and retouching a few areas I wasn't happy with. I used white ink for the shinier metal bits such as bolts and strap rings. I think it works particularly well as a final highlight and it also blends things in nicely. I added just the faintest touch of blue to give the impression of reflecting sky. There are a few shiny spots in the photos which is just the bench light, everything that needs to be matt looks matt to the naked eye. I'm pretty happy with how things have turned out, minus the time it took.


Next up is our final stock figure and a different challenge. Along with the figures, IBG kindly sent along two Hataka paint sets to have fun with. IBG recently acquired Hataka and I was told the Violet Line will be expanded. As of now, there are two basic sets:





As you might have surmised, the challenge will be in mixing all the colours I'll need. Should be fun.


Kimmo

 

[Briggsy]

They look really good, super detail and painted to perfection, I like the idea of using white ink as the high highlight, I have to get some and try.

Sorry to hear of your trials and tribulations with the heat, it sounds pretty rough so glad you are on the mend.

The paints look interesting.

Cheers Simon

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

Sorry to hear ref the heat issues , glad it’s calmed down

The completed figures look really good , look forward to seeing them and the final figure on their groundwork

The use of white ink is interesting to see

The Hataka sets look like your going to have fun with ....we wait in anticipation of the chosen subjects for that project

Have fun @ the bench

Nap

 

[NigelR]

Glad to hear you are over your skin issues. I too struggle with the heat, so I am fortunate to live in the UK!

Those figures are looking very good indeed. I agree that using white ink to highlight the metal parts is a really interesting idea that seems to work well. I tend to use printer's ink as a highlight on metal parts.

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Simon, Nap and Nigel!

Nigel, one would think living within a 14 or so hour drive of the Arctic Circle wouldn't mean having to deal with 30C or hotter temperatures...


When we last had a look at our grenade lobbing lad he was in dark burgundy primer. I've since gotten him base coated using mixes of the Hataka paints. Click on photos for full size.















My first impressions of painting on something other than paper is fairly positive. The paint flows, settles and brushes well, although coverage with lighter colours could be better. The finish is quite matt, which is good, but the paint is pre-thinned, which for me isn't that great. Pigmentation could be a lot higher.

The paint had dried about an hour or so when the photos were taken and had lightened up somewhat, and everything is considerably lighter several hours later. One of the challenges of using new paint is learning how they behave. Mixing isn't as big of an issue as I thought it might be so far. I found a good video showing how to mix common earth tones, and that info helped me out even if I didn't mix any of the exact colours shown. I'm not sure how close I would have gotten in any case as the yellow and heavily yellow based colours are quite weak in pigment. Anyway, video link below.





As to what you get out of the bottle(s), this should give you a good idea






I should have plenty of bench time tomorrow, let's see what we get up to.


Kimmo

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

Nice start on the grenade thrower , really interesting to hear your comments on the paints , how does the lack of pigment in some affect your painting ?

Good video to watch

Thanks for updates , have fun at the bench

Nap

 

[Briggsy]

Fair start on grenade man, I prefer to underpaint as much of the figure as I can to start with, helps me remember what I'm doing!

I much prefer paints with high pigmentation as this allows one to thin it to near invisibility. What can't be done so easily is get good saturated cover with low pigmentation paints. Still I will be interested in your further research with these paints.

Cheers Simon

 

[MalcC]

Very nice work.

Malc

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Nap, Simon and Malc!

Nap, the challenge is that you can't really tell what's going on until the paint has fully dried. It looks good (or horrible) and then it doesn't. I will say that they blend well without glazing.

Simon, I like to block things in as well, I still haven't got the hang of being elegant or neat like some painters.


Didn't get the bench time in the other day as hoped, my monitor decided to give up the ghost and spent way too much time finding a new one and getting things set up. Par for the course this year. I did get a decent session in today, and made some progress, although things still look quite rough. Somewhat ironic perhaps is that the uniform colour is more of what I had in mind for the first batch. Click on photos for full size.















These paints aren't exactly the best in the world for figure painting, but I'm not going to throw them completely under a bus either. The main challenge I'm having is with their thin nature, they just spread out all over the place on my wet palette for starters. The lack of pigmentation isn't helping any to be sure, but these paints are so different to what I'm used to using and it's frustrating me somewhat. There are positives with the paints; the finish for one, and the colours are pretty good in that they are fairly vibrant and not muddy or faded despite the lower pigmentation. For basic painting these would certainly do the job.


We'll press on tomorrow and see where we are after some shading and another round of skin tones.


Kimmo

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

Your getting the colours down nicely , good to read the comments reference the paints , obviously as the pigments not as strong more work is needed but they sound good for blending

Thanks for updates looking forward to seeing more

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Briggsy]

Nice colour tones and a nice flat finish, but like Nap said they need working more than other paints, depends on ones level of patience I guess

Cheers Simon

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Nap and Simon!

These definitely require a lot more patience and work. I just don't have the time, nor the inclination to properly figure out the best way to use them right now. I can't imagine any outfit producing paints that just don't work, there would be absolutely no point in that.


Got some more bench time today and tried to get things tidied up and add a bit more contrast to the uniform. The lack of pigmentation is really making this much more difficult than it should be. The paints blend well together at full strength, but as soon as you thin them down, all bets are off as to what you end up with. You can make out a lot of brush strokes and pigment deposits here and there. Adding white to get lighter flesh tones and the webbing colours helps but of course completely desaturates things, which means you have to try and glaze with paint that refuses to glaze well. I'm also finding it very difficult to paint thin lines. One saving grace is that the paint has a fairly long working time and the pools on my wet palette are still usable. The photos look a bit more horrible than to the naked eye, click for full size.
















I'll do one more session tomorrow and try out some matte medium/varnish and the thinner that was also provided to see if we can't get things to look a little neater. I suspect if you used a wet palette you'd get better results, but I don't like painting figures that way. Too much mixing for highlights and shadows as it is without the added fun of mixing every colour to boot.


Kimmo

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

The figures getting this , from the comments perhaps not your favourite paint of choice

Good that you have the longer working time

Keep at him

Looking forward to seeing more

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[NigelR]

The figure is looking good but the paints certainly don't sound great. Hataka is a brand I associate with airbrushing.

 

[Briggsy]

Nigel has a point there, nobody tries to brush paint Tamiya acrylics, but airbrushed they are brilliant, well not the best on the market but still rather good.

That said I have painted camouflage with them quite successfully, Airborne Dennison Smocks where the colours overlap and the lower colour can be seen through the upper. I would imagine the Hataka paints could be used as finishing paints for similar use, but so can thinned pigment rich paints.

You have done a nice job with the paints but they do not sound like they are the best, good job they were free.

Cheers Simon

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Nap, Nigel and Simon!


These certainly wouldn't qualify as my paints of choice, no. Hataka makes "modeler friendly" paints in lacquer and acrylic, they do have airbrush and brush specific ranges. I've used the brush acrylics on a vehicle before and they are quite similar to Life Color. The airbrush crowd seems to like how they all spray and cover. These are totally different, true acrylics, albeit not the greatest ones available. Most modelers seem to have a less than favourable attitude to brush painting and see it as some sort of necessary evil rather than an extension of the process which is why hobby sets are generally geared towards this demographic. I'm happy that Hataka has gone one step further to address figure painters, the execution just feels off. Hopefully with IBG getting involved, maybe they'll be able to develop the line further because I can't see these being terribly popular or getting more people on board the hairy stick train.



Had a bit of a hand issue again over the weekend but did manage to get another session in, now things are starting to look decent. Click on photos for full size.














Adding matte medium really helped to smooth things out, that little extra body makes a huge difference except for the lack of coverage. The more I use these paints, the more I'm convinced that they should be used with a well palette. They just run all over the place on a wet palette. Letting the paints sit for a while to let them dry out a bit would probably be a good idea too. None of this solves the lack of pigmentation issue though. Speaking of, the dark blue and dark green have got some seriously powerful pigments. Not just comparatively speaking to the rest of the set(s), but in general. They cover better than the others but even still, not quite as much as one would like or expect. The black is really disappointing.


I'll go for one more session to tidy up a few things, then I'll decide whether to bring inks into the fray or not. This week is promising to be another scorcher, and I need to get everything wrapped up while my hands are in decent shape. Have I mentioned I loathe summer?


Kimmo

 

[Briggsy]

Such a shame about the paints, more choice is always a good thing but these look like they are market testing at the moment, seeing how cheaply they can produce a product that people will buy.

Not good regarding the heat and your aversion to it, hope your weather cools down sooner rather than later. Being a Yorkshireman I officially start to melt in anything over 18°C, 33 last week was a killer yet my daughter can complain of being cold in a Cyprus summer!

I think inks may well be the order of the day to avoid a build up on the details. Good luck, with the paint and the heat.

Cheers Simon