Ardennes Dio - Almost done.

Work on the trees is completed. It was a bit tedious work, but these trees play a major role in the scene!

As mentioned in earlier posts, the trees are made from balsa wood, small birch twigs, and moss. I pull the moss apart till I have single “straight” strands of moss. These strands are then glued on one by one using superglue. I start out by placing one long strand across the full length of the branch, then I glue strands on the side starting with two longer ones at the base of the branch and making them shorter and shorter as I make my way to the tip of the branch.

After having made a sort of rough “fish bone” structure on the branch, I start adding smaller and shorter pieces of moss to break the planned, rather stiff pattern and give the branch a more “chaotic” and natural look.

I gave the green parts a few sprays of darker greens with the airbrush followed by a coat of matt varnish.

After a few days of drying I started applying snow on the treetops. I brushed on heavily deluded white glue with a medium large brush and then sprinkled on a layer of Woodland Scenic’s snow. Each branch got two layers of snow, letting the glue dry completely between each application.

I finished the groundwork as well. This is a winter scene set in December ’44, so it will eventually be covered with snow. The ground was made from a concoction of plaster, sand, flowerpot dirt, a bit of static grass, a few drops of brown and black acrylic paint, and finally MIG acrylic resin to ad strength.

Now all I need to do is apply the snow, and the thing is done!

Ardennes Dio - Update on The SS

Still needs a bit of work here and there...

Ardennes Dio - Update on the Sherman

I gave the Sherman a final coating of clear varnish, now I only need to paint and weather the tracks and add snow and winter mud to the tank.

Ardennes Dio - Trees…trees and more trees!

I had the time to glue a few twigs together too. They were made from a balsa wood and birch twigs. Airbrushed in various green-brownish shades. Later I will add moss to represent smaller branches and needles. This will later get coats of dark greens.

Ardennes Dio - Figure painting continued

I’m nearly finished with the figures. Since I’ve never really done US uniforms, I had a bit of trouble figuring out the right colour for the Wool overcoat on the US Airborne. After a bit of research I went with a mix of 5 parts US Field Drab and 1 part Olive Drabe for the base coat.

For the overcoat highlights I added a bit of 815 Basic Skintone to the base. For the deepest shadows I added a tat of black.

After hours of reading ALL the different opinions on The Airborne uniform colours (and there are A LOT out there!) I decided to go with a mix of 4 parts 988 Khaki and 2 parts 924 Russian Uniform.

For the belts, webbing and the various bags I used different shades of 886 Green Grey. Adding a tiny bit brown to some of the webbings and bags, I tried to emulate the difference in colour of the field gear issued throughout the war. Unfortunately these differences aren’t really that visible in my pictures…

There are still little things here and the to be done on each figure…

Ardennes Dio - Figure painting continued

The past days I’ve done a bit of work on one of the Airborne figures.

I started out by painting the face in the manner described in my earlier face-painting test. I used the same colours, though I did lighten them a bit more then the test. I thought the test face was a bit too tanned. This particular figure is an Airborne NCO in the Belgium winter…so I recon a more pale look is suitable.

Once again…the eyes look like shit, but hey they are really, really small and it’s a learning process!

The helmet was painted in VC 887 Brown Violet and weathered with Humbrol enamel steel on the rim. The visible lower inside of the helmet was painted with darkened Brown Violet to add shadow and depth. Final I applied a light was of US Olive Drab round the brown leather strap.

I painted the scarf with a base mix of 25% Brown Violet 887, 25% Middlestone 882 og 50% Russian Uniform 924.

For highlights I added a touch of VC 976 Buff to the base mix.

Shadows were down with a pin wash of US Olive Drab.

Ardennes Dio -Friul tracks and mug up

Today I did a bit of work on the M4 Sherman Friul metal tracks. Friul tracks are great, though I had to use some thicker brass wire instead of the thin and way too flexible wire that came with the kit. After trimming the wire, a painting and weathering will be up next.

I also found the time to do a simple mug up of the dio. I’m still not satisfied with the positioning of the two SS infantrymen on the left side (okay I know that circles don’t have sides…but you get the point!)

I’ve scaled the dio down a bit compared to the original idea in order to make it more compact and intense. The positioning of the trees looks a bit weird and I still need to work on that. But still, the trees in the Ardennes are planted, so they do actually stand in straight rows.

Later I’ll sand the connections on the wooden sides down to get a smooth and completely round circle. I think I’ll paint them flat black to give a bit of contrast to the snowy surface of the scene.