Ah, the SS......what to do? I'll be honest, these are not something I delight in having in my collection. After all, this lot are Hitler's ideological warriors - the armed enforcers of the twisted, Nazi world-view. So, what's to like? Well nothing really, that is save their uniforms. There are some great camouflage schemes that scream out to anyone who fancies their skills at painting miniatures to have a go at reproducing. So with the flimsy excuse of playing the Operation Martlet Chain of Command pint-sized campaign that features the 12th SS, I thought here was an excuse to try to paint up a platoon. These are AB Miniatures 20mm SS and they are beautifully sculpted and cast figures.
I took my inspiration for how to paint these from the Too Fat Ladies Christmas Special 2015 and a very useful article by Ben Fiene on painting German camouflage. So all credit to Ben for the guidance.
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| Various schemes applied to these late war figures |
Overall I was happy with the way these were going. To some extent the pea dot is over scale but I think for gaming purposes this works very well. Anything smaller would be impossible to see from a distance.
Not much to show in progress, so here they are finished, based and flocked:
Your done a great job on the AB figures, they are excellent figures with natural poses, I own a British platoon unpainted because I though ever one was playing 20 mm but it turned out the group that I play with used 28mm, so the Brits are sitting on the shelf.
ReplyDeletecheers John
Thanks John and yes agree on the poses, I think AB captures this well across their entire range. 28mm does seem to be the popular scale, but I find on a 6'x4' table 20mm looks about perfect. 15mm has always been too small for my tastes and while 28mm figures look fantastic I feel the table looks a little crowded at that scale. That said I have a painted platoon of USMC and some unpainted Japanese in 28mm, so my mind is not shut to that scale.
ReplyDeleteYou pea-dot camo is excellent! What sort of ink/wash do you use? (if you use one...)
ReplyDeleteThanks. I did use a wash with these, it was the Army Painter dip, strong wash I think. It has a gloss finish so the figures were sprayed with Testors Dullcote for a matt finish. I'm not sure if I would travel this path again, I'm moving away from an overall wash on certain uniforms as it can really dull down the whole look. I've found painting the base colours quite bright is one way to avoid this, but I'm now more inclined to do selected washes on certain parts and then use a brush to apply a dark colour to recesses like under arms and around webbing. More time consuming but a very pleasing effect and it makes the figures pop out more on the table.
DeleteThanks! I had asked because the dip looked pretty subtle, and i had wondered if it would work for 15s. As you said, I'll have to paint brighter if I go that route...
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