Painting – all paints are Vallejo unless stated
The first thing that I did was to wash the whole figure again because of the grease from my hands and the residue that the M/S leaves. This was left to dry naturally overnight. The next morning I set up my Aztek airbrush, with a grey nozzle fitted; this gives a medium sized spray and is ideal for priming. I mixed Humbrol 33 Matt Black paint to the consistency just a little bit thicker than milk, this for me is better for priming.
I always spray the figure upside down first, this gets into all of the undersides (great tip Dave ☺ G), between the legs, under the webbing, under the chin and the Helmet, I then spray everything else, getting into all of the nooks and crannies. Put to one side to dry for 6 hours. Once it was dry, I base coated the uniform with a darker mix of V113 and V102, this was sprayed over all the uniform, at a lower pressure, I then added more of the V113 to the gravity cup, giving this a quick mix, but a thorough mix. Changing the nozzle to a tan one gives a finer spray pattern, using this to spray the highlights on the uniforms ridges and high spots.
Once this was done I cleaned out the airbrush and left the figure to dry for a while in the sun. You can then mix up a lighter mix of the second colour by adding V123, dry-brushing it on as the last final highlight, only to the extreme creases that require it. With the highlights done I tried a go at a different style of shadowing:
- mix up the base colour and add a little V169 to the mix
- brush this into the deepest creases
- feather out to nearly a non-existent mix using hot water, but not as hot as to take off the other paint underneath – for some reason it flows better, don’t ask me why, I’m not into the thermal dynamics of a cup of water!
The Corcoran jump boots are brown leather, this was base coated with V145 mixed to a thin consistency and applied to the boots in a downward motion, leaving a dark line in the welts of the boots. Add V145 and V122 to the mix, thinning as before but not too thin – adding to the boots as a highlight colour. You can then give the boots a very, very thin wash of Matt Black. V169 and V145 were brushed into and around the laces, and along the stitched seams, and into the welts. The laces are then painted with V143; the soles are Matt Black with a red line along the sides of the soles.
The reinforced patches on the elbows and on the knees is painted with a dark mix of V113, V102, V169 applied and left to dry. I mixed up V113, V102 for highlighting the reinforced patches, being applied to the tops of the stitching and feathered down the patches.
At this point I thought I’d paint the shirt collar with tones of Vallejo 141 English Uniform, it was darkened with black and lightened with V123.
Webbing, insignia and final painting
Time to paint the webbing with a mix of V122, V123, and a smidge of V145 carefully painted on to the webbing, taking care not to touch the uniform underneath, this sounds easy but it wasn’t. When I did touch the uniform I removed it with a clean wet brush removing carefully. For the shadows on the webbing use the base colour with a little amount of V91 applied as a wash to the areas that need it, such as overlapping straps and stitching points. The whole webbing set was a pain in the proverbial – it has so many overlapping pieces to it, so a lot of care was taken to get it right.
The insignia of the 101st is a screaming eagle on a black base, with the bird in white with a red tongue sticking out, the airborne lettering is in yellow, the stars and stripes are….well you know the colours.
The ground sheet or the poncho is painted a dark green colour; I used was V91 and V96 – highlighted by adding V143 to the mix.
The weathering was added to the uniform in washes of browns, greys, blacks, and any variety of tones of earth colours, being heavy handed in some areas and not in others. I used the DVD box set of The Band of Brothers for some of the weathering and distressing of the uniform. The closer hands-on information are from my own reference photos.
