Bolt Action British Paras

[Cubster]

I bought a box of Bolt Action Airborne Platoon a few weeks back and finally managed to clear a little space in my diary to get them done. I've painted Artizan Paras before and quite liked them, so I wanted to see how Warlord's own would compare.First off, I guess the obvious thing to say is exactly what everyone says about Artizan v Bolt Action, ie. the former are quite chunky compared to the latter, which have more realistic proportions. I prefer this realistic style of sculpting, the disadvantage obviously being the relative fragility of barrels etc.., something which I am happy to repair rather than return.Did I like them? No.I loved them!Right from the off, seeing the positions, the proportions, the faces, the highly accurate kit, I knew these were good figures, but it was only during the painting process that I was able to fully appreciate what a work of art these sculpts are. Yes, the end of the sten gun was a little miscast (something I repaired with a pin), yes there has to be the tiny compromise here and there on minute details to retain the overall effect, but I cared not a jot for this. I know I've said it before, but they were an absolute, unmitigated joy to paint and I can't wait to get round to the rest of the unit. One gets the impression that these fellas will bring out the very best in the Army Painter Dip, for those not wishing to invest a lot of time on the paintjob, preferring a tabletop force. There is so much crisp detailing and deep texture, just tailor-made for inks, washes or the dip, especially with the drab colouring of the uniforms.So that said, on with the pics.Pic1: Shows a couple of riflemen in the maroon beret. Rifle slings were made out of simple strips of card glued in place, with brass buckles just painted on. A word on the demison smock. When I painted the Artizan Paras I hand-painted all the colour splashes on in layers and frankly was a little unhappy with both the time taken and the end result. This time, armed with a lot of source material, I was able to identify the smock as the MkI. It has ribbed cuffs (dead giveaway, the MkII had button-across cuffs) and the brown and green dye stains were hand-painted onto the sand coloured fabric at the factory with paint brushes, sometimes giving a very washed-out and haphazard effect. Thus I was very happy to paint the smocks a sandy khaki with normal shading, then add watery washes of the brown and green afterwards in splotches. It pleased me greatly and the end result is bang on to the real thing.  Pic2: Here you can see all the webbing slung round the back. What's that you say? Shouldn't the 37 pattern webbing be a more yellowy colour? Yes, when factory-new or untreated, but troops were issued with a waterproofing cleaning product called Blanco (which also brought up the brass buckles nicely), which resulted in a more khaki green colour. I'm planning to add some variety with later troops having some items un-Blanco'd in the original yellowish khaki. Pic3: I actually varnished the guys and was preparing to photograph them when I realised I'd forgotten the 'Jump Wings' on their right shoulders. Ay carumba! I painted them on swiftly and re-varnished, crossing my fingers against 'sugar-frosting'. Pic4: Paras in helmets. Again, my lovely book ('For King and Country: British Airborne Uniforms, Insignia and Equipment in World War II' - not cheap at all, but the best source book I've ever bought) told me that the MkII Helmet with black leather straps (as opposed to canvas ones) was used right through the war and the MkIII wasn't seen until D-Day, when it began to be issued. Pic5: Again, the webbing is on display, along with the bottom of the ammo boot with the para on the left. It may seem a small thing, but to someone as crippled by anal retention as I, knowing that the sole of the boot was brown leather with metal hobnails was absolutely essential! Pic6: The camo on the helmets was very easy and just made for drybrushing. You don't get a great view of them in this photo, but all the bases were decorated with sprue bricks (if anyone doesn't know what these are, just ask) and designed to look like a suburban warzone, with a variety of surfaces. Really good fun to do. The bases and boots were just dulled up slightly with some red-brown chalk dust. That's the sharp end of my mighty Airborne force to be. I plan to add Ox and Bucks, plus Glider Pilots and Pathfinders in the future, maybe with the odd jeep or two, who knows. Hope you enjoyed them.

[SgtPerry]

Outstanding!Hats off, gentlemen.

[paulsmodellingworkshop]

Outstanding once again Cubster Sir!

[Suetonius Paullinus]

1.   Good job! (<- understatement)2.   What are sprue bricks and where can I get them from?3.   How on earth did you do the shoulder insignia?4.   Can you please share the recipe for the camo+ trousers (what exact colours/ paints)5.   Please do Ox & Bucks next.6.   I think I'm gonna start quilting as new hobby now.   Cheers S.P.  (<- still stunned)

[Anatoli]

Marvelous paintjob, very impressive and probably the best British airborne I've seen.

[Paul@BAM]

You are making me a very proud man indeed Cubster. They are fantastic paint jobs. I do hope you have the hunting horn figure because I would love to see what you end up doing with it.Paul

[Cubster]

Must ... lift ... swollen ... head.Thank you all for the ego-boosting stuff.Paul@BAM - it is my ultimate goal whenever I paint up a lovely model to try to bring it to life the way the sculptor originally envisaged it when he created the model in the first place. To me there is no higher praise. This is why I'm happier painting for companies than private commissions or eBay, despite the generally lower paychecks. It's a genuine honour to me. Yes, I do have the hunting horn figure and he'll be along in the future along with the rest of the platoon.SP - 1 - Why thank you.2 - Sprue bricks are ace, I love stuff like this. Free stuff I mean. Whenever you get a plastic kit or box of soldiers, the one thing from the box you always chuck away is the sprue. If your sprue happens to have a square (ish) cross-section then instead of throwing it away you can chop it up into little bricks and keep them in a tub. Sometimes the plastic sprue can be really tough to chop through - I usually end up doing it on the kitchen chopping board with a big cook's knife. You don't need a lot of them (usually one or two per base) and I usually nick little chunks off the brick here and there, to stop the edges looking all neat and sharp and to show battle damage. If you chop the brick in half widthways, at a sloping angle, when you stick it to your base (with some nice irregular bits of sand or gravel) it looks like a brick partially buried in rubble. You can even build little walls with them if you get enough bricks of roughly the same size, or cut a slim slice off and use it as paving slabs (as seen on the running beret wearing rifleman) or line them end-to end for curbs (the running helmet wearing rifleman). If you don't have the sprues I'm sure if you ask at your local GW store they'll have a load in the bin. 3 - 'Jump Wings' just painted on with a steady hand and a tiny brush! I'm slightly short-sighted and I'm told that gives me an advantage with close work like that. I painted the backing material on first in the general outline, then painted in the parachute in a pale grey, highlighting the chute and 'man' underneath with a very pale grey (almost white). Pure white would have been too extreme. The wings were a pale blue highlighted with a very pale blue. Then I just carefully made sure the backing material colour was evenly surrounding the whole and it was neatly outlined.4 - trousers were very easy colour-wise. Using GW colours it's a base coat of Scorched Brown, highlighted up through four layering stages (obviously less stages might be preferable if you have a life you want to be getting on with) of Scorched Brown/Graveyard Earth mix until the final extreme highlight just here and there of pure Graveyard Earth.The demison smock is a little trickier since I used colours I have pre-mixed myself. I'm sure Vallejo or Foundry will have a khaki or sand shade that's suitable. The base of the smock was a dark khaki brown that I added a little sand colour to, highlighting up to a pale khaki highlight (probably Kommando Khaki with a Vomit Brown dash would be suitable). As for the colour patches, something little Bestial Brown and Catachan Green with a dash of Dark Angels Green would probably be close enough for government work, watered down to a thin wash and painted on sparingly. Best to go for too thin and do it in a couple of layers than go too thick.5 - Yeah, when I've done the Paras that's my plan - a glider based Airborne Platoon of 'Ox and Bucks', with Glider Pilots, maybe Pathfinders and Engineers.6 - don't you dare! Passion is what drives us and without looking at the likes of Kevin Dallimore, envying the effects he achieved and shamelessly copying some of them I wouldn't have become the painter I am. For an example of what I mean, look at the wood effects, with the grain. Until I saw him do this with a musket I just painted the wood normally, but the difference I saw with the first time I tried it was so striking I've never looked back. I'm still learning all the time, still improving, still making mistakes, but the important thing is not to remain stagnant. Always look to do it a little better the next time, don't settle if there's something you're not completely happy with. I'm always going back and tweaking this, dabbing at that.

[rasmus]

Again let me add another Wow! That is what painting should look like - gi'me an other lifetime and no wife or kids around and I might not even match it

[Parmenio]

Love what you've done Cubster. Credit where credit is due...this is an inspiration to us all. This is why the forum is so great. It lets us share skills and tips...and gives less capable artists like myself a template to work by! Can't wait to see the rest of the figures.I remember getting a sample pack of the paras with stens with my order of SS from Steve and Toni when the range originally came out and I was sorely tempted to buy them all...unfortunately I had stocked up on the Foundry paras years previously: and to my shame most are still unpainted. Maybe your example will spur me into finishing them.  yours enviouslyG  

[Cubster]

One way I didn't want to start the New Year was with the worst bout of food poisoning I've ever suffered (thank you Subway's Chicken Temptation), in shivering nauseated agony for 24 hours (it seemed like a week), so this is a day later than I intended. I guess it's one way to start a diet for 2011, but not one I'd recommend.Apologies for so many pics, but I forgot to photograph them in pairs this time.Here's the next batch of reinforcements for the Paras. Same applies as per last ones, I just can't get over what damn good sculpts these models are; if you don't have any I can't recommend them highly enough. The only real difference in method is the paved bases that were made from Milliput and the fact that I mixed myself up some 'Demison' and 'Webbing' colours (each in Base, Midtone and Highlight) to speed things up and make life easier on myself.   Pic 1 – the Sarge. I decided I wanted a Sergeant from this batch and this figure was the one who finally earned his stripes.Pic 2 – rear view showing kit and webbing. After wasting a lot of time mixing up a Khaki Green colour for the webbing last time around, I then discovered a colour I had premixed years back and forgotten about – Khaki Green Base, Midtone and Highlight! It turned out as almost exactly the same shades so I simply removed the crusts, thinned it out and Robert was my mother's brother. Pic 3 – wings and stripes. I think I've actually done the jump wings too large on this batch, but I'm okay with that.Pic 4 – rifleman. This shows the sort of detail Paul Hicks manages to squeeze into even hard to reach places. The eyes, the pursed mouth, the concentration on the face of this squaddie taking aim is superb. The weapon slings are thin card again, but this time I actually added some very thin buckles with ultra-thin rolled greenstuff.Pic 5 – rear view. As you can see, this guy has a new backpack and hasn't got round to adding blanco yet. After comments last time I decided to put some plain yellow webbing in, either straight from the QMS or still with desert blanco from North Africa.Pic 6 – wings again, this fella clearly hasn't snipped the cloth too neatly!Pic 7 – a great action pose full of movement. Once again the expression sculpted into the face is superb. Note the extra sten magazine pouches.Pic 8 – rear view with the rope toggle just visible above the entrenching tool. Lovely little details like that are a pleasure to paint and are educational to boot!Pic 9 – jump wings and also a good view of the sten sling with greenstuff buckles. The slings were so easy to make and add so much to the model I would recommend anyone give it a try.Pic 10 – this guy was one option for my sergeant model, but in the end the running fella won. It's a great pose, the Para dropped to his knee and taking stock of the situation before moving on. I tilted him up slightly for the photo to show off the fantastic expression Paul has once again given him. I've also added a couple of spent shell cases which are just visible.Pic 11 – another un-blancoed piece of kit on display and his tin mug. It's also a nice view of the hobnailed boots.Pic 12 – and the final set of wings.Hope you like them and any questions, comments or dirty limericks are very welcome.