US 5th Armored Division, Hürtgen, 1944

I have finally made the push to complete the painting of this sombre scene depicting the bitter fight by the US Army forces during the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest in Fall of 1944. Inspiration of this vignette came from literally thinking within the box as I set upon myself the challenge to create a narrative using just only the contents of the kit. With the exception of swapping the stock heads for the more expressive offerings from Hornet Models and the remodelling of the hands of the kneeling figure, no other alterations were made to the stock Tamiya figures.

 I initially planned to create a solemn scene of the kneeling tank crew in front of a grave marker, but after seeing the half-figure tank driver in the set I though I would change it to a macabre one. However, I did not want to give that away in an instance and hence I had the kneeling figure hold up a tarpaulin to momentarily shield the viewer from the gory of a corpse sawn in half. I wanted the viewer to piece together the elements and form the story once his eyes went around the scene.

Painting wise, the colour palette consisted of various hues of dark browns and greys to convey the mood and physical condition of the subject. I alternated the colour temperature of the skin tones between the kneeing tank crew and his fallen compatriot for greater visual contrast. Image stills from the movie Fury helped provide references for painting and weathering the uniforms.

In all, this has been another engaging project with a stronger emphasis focused on the narrative. I must say that I am on a roll with these new generation of 3D-scanned injection moulded plastic figures from Tamiya. Onward to the next project....

 Cheers,

 Calvin

US 5th Armored Division, Hürtgen, 1944

Managed to get the ground work and sculpting of the tarpaulin done over this week. Next stop, painting.

Cheers,

Calvin

US 5th Armored Division, Hürtgen, 1944

A work in progress on a narrative I am currently working on using two figures from Tamiya's US Tankcrew (ETO) set swapped out with Hornet heads. The tarpaulin is sculpted with Apoxy Sculpt over a crumpled piece of Tamiya PLA-PAPER. This double layered approach yields a more natural appearance due to the natural wrinkles produced by the PLA-PAPER - as opposed to just using only rolled out epoxy putty which has a high tendency of producing "lasagna" or "Mee Hoon Kway(面片)like results.

Cheers,

Calvin

The Human Cannonball, 2nd Armoured Div., Germany 1945

Got sometime off tonight to put the finishing touches to this little project. I also added a war souvenir Ritterkreuz from Aber to his zip tab as a tribute to Oddball from Kelly's Heroes. I must say that this is one of the more enjoyable projects I am able to indulge in these recent years. Wonder what I can hatch up again with these new figure offerings from Tamiya......

Cheers,

Calvin

The Human Cannonball, 2nd Armoured Div., Germany 1945

Here is another conversion based off a famous wartime photo using Tamiya's Sturmtiger barrel and the US Tank Crew ETO set. I swapped out the original head with one from Hornet Models (which I must say bears an uncanny resemblance to James Franco) and married it with the Tamiya helmet. The arms are re-positioned and jacket seams detailed with thin strips of rolled out epoxy putty. The ambush scheme is hand painted with Vallejo acrylics as I figured it would be easier and quicker than doing a mask and spray with the airbrush. 

I am currently about half-way done on this piece and I reckon it would need another few more sessions to refine the painting.

Cheers,

Calvin

Young Miniatures - Alter Hase

What better way to kick off 2019 by sharing a recently completed box art assignment from Young Miniatures of an "Alter Hase" or "Old Hare". It has been a fun assignment to be able to go a little adventurous particularly with the painting of an ugly Nordic pattern scarf as well as a gaudy floral gift box. I guess I would not have done so if not for the candlestick in the grenade bag; speaking of which marks my first time using the Non-Metal Metallic (NMM) rendering technique on a larger sized object. I am satisfied on how it shows up but I do reckon more practice is needed to perfect it. It is always fun and refreshing to always try out new things. In all the sculpt is quite clean with lots of possibilities to exercise the skills and imagination of the painter - especially on the camouflage smock and scarf.

Finally a special thanks to Young-Bok for giving me the privilege of painting this fine sculpt.

Cheers,

Calvin

US Tank Crew, 2nd Armoured Div, ETO 1944-45

Took some time over the last two days to finish up the painting double for the filming of Calvin Tan's Basic Guide to Figure Painting DVD. The face and uniform are painted with Vallejo Acrylics and Andrea Colour according to the methods depicted in the DVD.

In this variant, I did not hand paint the the Armoured Division shoulder patch, but instead used the ones made by Archer Transfers. I adopted what I now call a "low depth of field" approach to painting; meaning to only direct the viewer's focus toward a specific point and blurring out the rest. I did so in this particular piece to circumvent the main drawback of injection moulded figures by only raising the tonal contrast of the areas that registers the best definition of details. Regions lacking in definition were rendered with darker analogous colours and low tonal contrast to reduce their visibility. A good example would be the use of Vallejo SS Camouflage Black Brown and Andrea Slate Grey to create the mud stains on the bottom of the overalls. This harmonizes the figure with the ground work to enhance the atmospheric perspective of the entire composition.

Cheers,

Calvin