Cyanight's Customizations

[John Brown]

I love the color of your fighters and your navy turned out super sweet. Thanks for sharing. :-)

[cyanight]

Thanks John… I actually want to change the color of the navy but I’m waiting for the new sculpts from HBG’s French expansion set. Probably will be released in a year or two, lol.  I love HBG but they are slow!

[jwo1984]

love the colors of your fighters and tacticals! pulling out some browns in there with the blues really look great.  Great job throughout, did you use references for those camo colors or did you pull them off the top of your head? I hear ya about HBG…it has come too the point were I just cant check out there site anymore cause I want all those expansion sets on my table!  Ill just have too wait for the email to come out that they are in stock

[cyanight]

Thanks JWO,

I copied the color scheme off of a pic I googled.  Although I substituted light blue for the grey

BTW, that UK expansion set is supposed to be released next week unless they are delayed again.

[John Brown]

@cyanight:

Thanks John… I actually want to change the color of the navy but I’m waiting for the new sculpts from HBG’s French expansion set. Probably will be released in a year or two, lol.�  I love HBG but they are slow!

Yes, the production rate has been disappointing. I wanted Spitfire to paint the British next, but instead, it will be the Australians and Chinese next.

What color scheme is your next navy going to be, or is that a wait and see? :-)

I hope your right about the British Set. I just noticed your post on it. If that is the case, then Spitfire will be getting those next. :-)

[cyanight]

I spoke with Doug from HBG the last week of July and he said the UK set would be out in 5 weeks. That should be next week.

Not really sure how I’m going to paint them.  I customized all the carriers and probably will start with the battleships next.

Here is a link of my carriers that I customized
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34206.0

I want the ships to look more realistic but I also want it to be easy to identify their nation on the game board.  The first time I painted all my subs grey and the players got confused.  So I may keep the ships the way they are.  If you notice my battleships have these big flags on them.  Its because some of our players had problems seeing the tiny flags. So I made them larger and out of scale.

Battleships have flags
Cruisers have a decal on their stern.
Destroyers and subs have no markings.

That’s the system we came up with to differentiate the Battleships, cruisers and destroyers from one another.  Battleships and cruisers are not that difficult to distinguish from each other but cruisers and destroyers are difficult.

[CWO Marc]

@cyanight:

That’s the system we came up with to differentiate the Battleships, cruisers and destroyers from one another.  Battleships and cruisers are not that difficult to distinguish from each other but cruisers and destroyers are difficult.

Most or all of the OOB destroyer sculpts have transom sterns, so that’s a helpful feature to look for.

[John Brown]

@cyanight:

I spoke with Doug from HBG the last week of July and he said the UK set would be out in 5 weeks. That should be next week.Â

Not really sure how I’m going to paint them.  I customized all the carriers and probably will start with the battleships next.Â

Here is a link of my carriers that I customized
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34206.0

I want the ships to look more realistic but I also want it to be easy to identify their nation on the game board.  The first time I painted all my subs grey and the players got confused.  So I may keep the ships the way they are.  If you notice my battleships have these big flags on them.  Its because some of our players had problems seeing the tiny flags. So I made them larger and out of scale.Â

Battleships have flags
Cruisers have a decal on their stern.
Destroyers and subs have no markings.

That’s the system we came up with to differentiate the Battleships, cruisers and destroyers from one another.  Battleships and cruisers are not that difficult to distinguish from each other but cruisers and destroyers are difficult.

I guess we will know, soon enough, if we will get them soon or not.

[Tall Paul]

cyanight and others,

@cyanight:

I spoke with Doug from HBG the last week of July and he said the UK set would be out in 5 weeks. That should be next week.�

Not really sure how I’m going to paint them.

I want the ships to look more realistic but I also want it to be easy to identify their nation on the game board.� The first time I painted all my subs grey and the players got confused.

**––Here’s something for you to consider. If you paint all of your navies in a distinctively different paint scheme (DESIGN as well as COLOR) you should be able to distinguish them from each other even without national ensigns or flags. This might seem overly simple,…but it WORKS! For example:

U.S. in solid Medium Blue,
U.K. in Blue/Black/White “dazzle”
Japan in Dark Gray
Germany in Light Gray
Italy has their Red/White striped bows
Russia,…well, that shouldn’t be a real problem.

----In addition to the colors, ALL of my naval ships will have a national ensign to assist in their identity. On most every I-94 Enterprise decal sheet is a stripe of the naional colors which can be sliced into a very small national ensign,…even for subs.
----I personally may be a “dummy”,…but I’ve found that with enough time & effort I can come up with a workable solution to most of my problems. And I’ve certainly found it to be true that the more time you spend in PLANNING the less problems you’ll have in execution. This answer was only an explanation of how things “work” for me and shouldn’t be misconstrued in any manner as a criticism of anyone.
----This forum “A&A.Org” is a GREAT place to find answers and inspiration from people a lot smartter than myself. I hope this might help you in some way.

Tall Paul**

[cyanight]

Very good points Tall Paul.  I do like how your ships have national ensigns on them. I still use the basic color scheme for the pieces but I like your idea.

[cyanight]

I was looking on HBG’s site this morning and noticed this on the UK expansion set.

Please do NOT order this with other units. All items on your Pre-order will ship together at the latest time the pieces are available. We should have them in stock September 15th, 2014

[John Brown]

@cyanight:

I was looking on HBG’s site this morning and noticed this on the UK expansion set.

Please do NOT order this with other units. All items on your Pre-order will ship together at the latest time the pieces are available. We should have them in stock September 15th, 2014

So it will be a week and a half. Thanks buddy for the info. :-)

[cyanight]

These are some Radar dishes I have been working on. They are normally clumsy and fall over but not when they have a magnet attached. These are metal and from scotiagrendel.com

http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Products/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=0&products_id=2517

We will be using these if a player gets the Radar Technology and then place one in each territory that has a facility or an AAA gun.

[John Brown]

I must say, those are pretty cool. Are you going to paint them different colors? :-D

[CWO Marc]

@John:

I must say, those are pretty cool.

I agree!  Very nice.

[cyanight]

Now that I think about it I’m not sure I like the color I painted them, lol.

[John Brown]

@cyanight:

Now that I think about it I’m not sure I like the color I painted them, lol.

LOL, sorry, I didn’t know you painted them. :-D

[cyanight]

NP, John… I was trying to find a unique color for them. Canary Yellow isn’t doing it , hehe.  I’m thinking maybe grey with a black wash followed by some detail color on the center of the radar dish.

[Tall Paul]

cyanight & others,

@cyanight:

NP, John… I was trying to find a unique color for them. Canary Yellow isn’t doing it , hehe.  I’m thinking maybe grey with a black wash followed by some detail color on the center of the radar dish.

**––Guys, I’ve tested out many variations of almost everything relating to my A&A gaming experience, especially player preferences, even if they are unconsious ones. My “test subjects” vary widely from a 90-year old WW2 vet (eyes, mobility, and slight unit identity issues due to age) to younger, more vibrant but definately NEWBIE players. Many of the things I do in/for our games are testing their preferences whether they’re aware of it or not.

----I think your plan of Gray with a Black wash is perfect,…and either
an “R” (for Radar) or a Red dot in the center of the dish would easily and pleasingly identify them and look great, too!.

----IMHO, the answer that I found through research is that any basic INFRASTRUCTURE unit that doesn’t need to be nation specific such as
Air Bases, Naval Bases, AA guns or Radar Dishes is better left in a basic but pleasing color scheme that doesn’t take any TIME for your brain to identify them. Check out my AA guns in the pic, below.

----With all of the now HUNDREDS of new units and variations of each type, I’ve even decided on “STADARDISING” a few basic units with the same well-detailed sculpts, such as 105mm Artillery and  Sea Transports, with all of the individual
Air Transports having their wingtips, fuselage stripes, and engine nacelles painted White,…the only aircraft to have White markings.

----Although, I’ve personally found that marking the IPC Factories with their nation specific flags speeds things along, especially when the gameboard gets really “clutterred”. Also, my guys LOVE to replace an enemy’s factory with one having their own flag on it whenever they capture one.  :-D

----Of course all of the above is simply MY opinion,…and we all have different tastes and/or preferences. I only offer them as the solutions that I’ve found that work for ME,…and to help anyone who might like them. I always enjoy seeing your wonderful paint jobs and look forward to many more.

Tall Paul**

[cyanight]

Very good points Paul,

I had originally painted them Canary Yellow because I wanted them to stand out separately from the other generic pieces.  But I tend to like the grey with a green/red dot better.

I used to have flags on my Major IC’s but when I changed to Shapeways sculpt I had less ICs and decided to paint them all the same.

I always welcome criticism and ideas.  I have been a programmer for over 30 years so I know criticism, hehe.