First Time painting units/starting my own paintkrieg

@Eric-Poppleton @GEN-MANSTEIN

Benefits of making all units AA.

No need separate AA gun, more space. Cheaper air and naval costs allow more different combination of purchases. It encourage German naval build up and two ocean going USA. Losing air unit isn’t a big deal anymore.

Though I have been still working on balancing units with each other after giving AA ability. I think I’m getting closer.

Further stacks do not increase AA possibilities. Only matter is amount of attacker planes. 1/6 shot down chance per attacker air unit.

I had to give ground forces +1 defense otherwise especially infantry would become so ineffective considering fighter has 2 defense and just 3ipc cost.

This is of course unplayable on board because of fractionel numbers and upkeep ( Yes there is also upkeep and method to buy 1 destroyer despite 3.5 ipc cost but its out of topic otherwise calculating massive stacks would be huge trouble). Its totally for TripleA I just wanted to learn with these unit set up, would air units be underpowered/overpowered or balanced?

The current unit set up like this (still progressing);

chart.png

Ah, yet another good use for the coasters!

I was awarded the Customizer badge at some point unknown, but marked on my pictures post as to when I found out I was a recipient. There is a post somewhere on the forums that tells of the process and from what I recall one has to be nominated by someone to a moderator and there is some sort of review process. Here’s a link to the award discussion thread: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/24173/customizers-round-2

Glad you enjoy the pics and tips! We all inspire each other with our pictures, tips, and techniques, so keep sharing!

Part 4: Starting the ships, adding decals to the tanks, skin tones on the soldiers

Today spent some time adding paint to the sprayed ships, including painting the water jettisons on the subs black (this was very tricky and ended up looking a little sloppy). Advice for painting the jettisons: toothpicks are not small enough! If you do use toothpicks, you’ll have to dab a dot of black for each tiny jettison.

The battleships were a bit easier, and painting the decks, bridge, and smoke stacks were all done in silver. I plan on adding the final grey coat last after the deck and stacks/bridge dry. I experimented with how to add the national emblem, and will probably opt for a white background with a red dot on the bow of the ship. In the future I may do that with the rear end of the ship.

I painted the tranny smoke stacks silver and added a white background for the emblem on the destroyers. All in all, the Japanese navy is coming along nicely.

The armor is pretty much done. I added a white flag to the front side of the armor and will be adding the red dots later. For the aircraft, I’ll be adding a red band around the rear part of the plane. I was debating between sky blue and red and may alternate just for some variety.

The soldiers got some skin! And I just want to say that adding the paint alone brings out the contours of their facial features in an excellent manner on their own. I may add a touch of black to certain areas of the face but that will be a last step. The next step will be panting their uniforms, rifles, and helmets.

After all this is done, I will be spray painting the japanese bombers white, the aircraft carrier black, and then will add the details to those. The Japanese are about 55% done all in all and I’m pleased with the results so far even if they do look a bit amateurish. Stay tuned.

IMG_6405.JPG IMG_6404.JPG IMG_6403.JPG IMG_6402.JPG

A few shops make 500 scale at Shapeways.  I’ve gotten Hawker Hurricanes, Spitfires, and Bf-109’s in 500 scale from SNAFU store.  HBG’s planes match up great with A&A pieces, too, and some are even better, like their Stuka G’s.

Thanks John, ill update this thread once more later when I finish those other troops… Oh I also replaced the some of the Japanese artillery with some from HBG, after which, I kinda liked the OOB ones better lol.

I have seen lots of people here use acrylics and I have on occasion. Most of my paints are enamels though. I find that is stays wet longer (which is a good thing) and doesn’t clump up nearly as much on your brush. I also use enamels in my airbrush. I find that enamels are actually much easier to clean than acrylics. While acrylics are water soluble, they don’t just dissolve, especially if already dry. It involves a great deal of scrubbing and scraping. With enamels, all you need is some mineral spirits cleaner and it takes the paint right off with very little effort. Cleaning acrylic paint out of my airbrush was hell the first time I did it… never using acrylics in there again. In terms of the finish, I can only assume that enamels hold up better to bumps and scrapes than acrylic paint does.

Someone once asked if enamels, by default, have a glossy finish to them. They do not, as long as you are using flat enamels, which seem to be the standard. I use flats and they have an excellent, non-shiny finish. I feel like enamel colors are a little deeper too, on the whole, but I suppose it depends on the brand of acrylic you use. Vallejo seems to be a popular choice for acrylics. I use predominantly Model Masters (Testors) enamels. In general, I would just said to find a brand you like to work with and produces the results you like. Don’t buy super cheap paint… you will get the results you pay for.

Good luck!

@mentok27:

Man now I wish I had some new stuff to share. But I didn’t finish any pieces  I started recently…. I did do quite a few Hungarian pieces but I was waiting till I did the Air Force as wel before I snapped a pic.

I lost a lot of time recently on the battlefield 1 beta.

No problem, you have inspired me to get back to painting. Due to health reasons, I haven’t done anything in a year, but I’m about to least, do some small jobs, here and there.

Can’t wait to see your Hungarian pieces. :-)

Cheers,

John

I can see wizards of the coast having a blanket statement rejecting all requests to modify material, after all… they probaly deal with it alot with their D&D department than with Avilon Hill products.