John Brown's Painted G1940 Set - by Spitfire38

@jwo1984:

These P40’s look awesome Spitfire! well done on the shark mouths…they aren’t easy to do and those teeth turned out very nicely! I wonder if we can get decals in the future for the shark mouths??

Thank you! I am happy with how they turned out as well. As Cyanight said, “Every artist is their worst critic”, which I have certainly found to be the case :) The shark’s teeth are just white dots - no triangles or anything like that. I used a toothpick to dot the . You will likely have to wipe the tip of the toothpick off each time and get more paint on it each time if you want the precise, small dots. Decals might make it easier - I do not know of any company that provides them, but I am sure you could find them. The difficulty would be finding tiny ones. I personally prefer hand painted, but decals are growing on me as I paint John’s set. They are rather expensive and time consuming, but they give you really crisp looking roundels and stars!

For anyone wondering how I would paint the American star roundel by hand… I wouldn’t. I have found that I cannot paint stars that look good when they are that small, so I generally abstract it and paint it as a white dot in a blue circle or something like that.

Update on the ANZAC and Chinese pieces:

You guys can expect to see some photos of the completed ANZAC and Chinese forces in the next week or two. I hope that those Flying Tigers were a nice teaser; there’s more where that came from!

Best wishes on this Thursday afternoon.

Spitfire38

All of the ANZAC and Chinese forces have been completed! Here are some ‘glamour’ shots of the figures. Specific shots can be found earlier in the thread on page 1 and 2.

@dangermouse650:

Very nice spitfire, very nice….

@John:

All I got to say is, wow Spitfire! Awesome job on these. I’m very pleased. I can’t wait to see these in person. Great job! :-D

John

Thanks DM - I appreciate the compliments. One of the reasons I paint is so others can enjoy! Which pieces are your favorite? I think mine would have to be the Kangaroo mechanized infantry. John did a good job picking the scheme, and I think it came out well.

Once you get the pieces, let me know how they look with the Japanese, John!

@LHoffman:

Those Anzac ships looks awesome. Great looking stuff Spitfire. I appreciate the well placed contrast for the camo schemes and accents with the colors. Very appealing.

It can be a challenge to differentiate different Powers’ look from another, because they can tend to look similar (UK and Anzac in particular). But you have done a great job with these.

Thank you LHoffman. You have an eye for figures, so I appreciate the feedback! I feel like I am getting a better hang on what a good camo looks like in terms of the curvature and placement of the lines and splotches, the color contrasts, etc. Personally the ships weren’t my favorite, but everyone I’ve showed my pieces to prefers them.

@cyanight:

I agree completely. Very nice job.  I also like your selection of roundel decal for ANZAC.

Many thanks! John picked out the roundels - I think that the ANZAC roundel looks especially crisp and distinct.

@Dafyd:

Spitfire; truly amazing work.  I have painted some small sacle models before but this is …well…truly amazing work.  I am curious, how do you prep the pieces to be painted?  Do you use Kylon Fusion paint to hold the colors to the polypropolene plastic or do you use the acrylic paints and then clear coat them so the paint won’t come off from handling them?  Your roundels; are they paonted or are those a micro decal?  I don’t mean for you to give your sevrets away, but I was just wondering with admiration and trying to figure out how you did it.

Don’t worry, they are not trade secrets. I don’t know if I have any of those - much of the reason that my pieces turn out how they do is just the fact that I have been painting for a while and have a good sense of what works!

To prep my pieces, I spray them with a basic gray primer. I try to keep the coats thin. This helps the paint bond to the piece much more easily than if it was straight onto the plastic. If you want more information, look at my tutorial thread, which is stickied at the top of this subforum.

The roundels are a decal. On my personal pieces I hand paint them, but decals give you crisp and uniform work, especially when you get in to things like flags, stars, etc.

And finally, thanks for your praise!

@Scipe:

Just recently purchased my own set of G40 2nd Ed. Was thinking of doing the magnetic Carriers and attempting to paint the units. How long does it normally take to finish a full set? I understand that John had OOB and Aftermarket units.

I might end up purchasing some aftermarket pieces in case i REALLY mess up on painting and can’t rectify the issues with my amateur skills.

Well, the amount of time it takes depends on your process, how detailed you’d like to be, the quality of your paints (and therefore how many coats you have to do, etc…)

However, I can give you a rough estimate for my work. For each group of pieces (navy, infantry, air force, ground forces) it takes me approx 7-10 hours to paint 40 pieces. So, for one OOB nation, it might take (8 hrs x 4 = 32 hours) for one nation. Multiply that by the number of nations, taking into account that some nations have more than 40 pieces in their sets, and that would give you an estimate of how long it takes. It’s going to be a large number, I can certainly tell you that.

@Scipe:

Hey it’ll be a fun learning experience. Just got back from Michaelswith magnetic tape and the paints you recommend in your guide. Wish me luck.  :lol:

That’s awesome! I’m excited for you. Happy painting, and let me or the community know if you have any questions.