Sunday, January 8, 2017

'Armour' from ByronM: 28mm APC for Sedition Wars

For the first of the Fortnight Theme week entries, I had planned to paint up some 28mm Bolt Action vehicles, including a bren carrier. However, I realized at the last minute (last weekend) that I still had a vehicle kicking around that I have meant to paint for at least the last 2 years and one that I really should get done, so pulled it out and got to work.

The vehicle is a 28mm Caiman APC from Khurasan Miniatures and it is huge!  It is a bit over 19cm long (about 7 1/2" for the metrically challenged) and about 10cm wide (4").  It is a solid resin hull with a resin turret and it weighs a ton.

The finished transport with a squad of Vanguard troopers.
Anyone that has ever watched any Aliens movies can tell, it is a pretty close copy of the Marine vehicle from Aliens and I was very tempted to paint it that way.  Here are pictures of the miniature painted up from the Khurasan site in a close approximation to the movie and a clip from the game of the movie, you can see how close they are (I am actually surprise there has been no legal action).



However, I actually grabbed it for my Sedition Wars force as a transport as I thought that the overall shape and lines would make it fit well with them.  Therefore my paint scheme was very different than the movie.


The Vanguard are a high tech fighting unit, and therefore don't really worry about passive camouflage as they have electronic active camo and stealth systems to deal with threats.  With no need to blend in their armour is clean glimmering pale blue / white.  I wanted to go with the same look for the vehicle, however that would make for a very plain looking miniature.  To spice it up a bit I decided that I would have to chip and weather it a bit, but in a way that still made it look fairly clean, a tall order. 

That idea led me to look back at some of the cell shading effects used in games such as Borderlands 2 for their vehicles.  I didn't want a pure simple colour though as I thought at this scale that may be too bland, even with chipping and some dust, so I faded in some pale blues and greys as a base.


The base coat was all done with airbrush, blending in some blues and greys to start with, then going over them on all the flat areas with a very pale white/blue mix.  Then going over them again with a thinned down translucent white to provide a bit more white while still allowing for the undercoats to show through.  After all that was done, I went on to chipping it with a dark German grey, and then applying a hard line white edge highlight to make some of the sharp corners really show up and pop.



This being for Sedition Wars (which is a board game much like Space Hulk) there were no decals for anything so I had to figure that out next.  I tried some test stencils since I knew I wanted the numbering to look like military stencils, but had little luck with that as the numbers were too small to get accurate cuts with the exacto blade.  Therefore, I had to freehand all the numbers and logos, but make them look like they were stenciled.  I am not very good at freehand work, but I think they came out decently enough to work.  If you look closely some of the numbers and letters and not exactly even with each other, and the star on the logo is a little off, but overall they work.



After all that was done it was time to dirty up the tyres a bit (add some grey dust) and to add some dust to the side panels as well.  I tried to keep it fairly sparse and not too grungy, after all these guys are high tech and would keep everything clean, but dirty enough that you can tell it is used and out on a mission.

29 comments:

  1. Very Impressive weathering / chipping and overall painting. This vehicle has clearly been in service for a while! I really enjoy your background notes and information on your painting technique.

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    1. Thanks Jonathan. There is more that just isnt showing on mine. If you check out Greg's 30k tank his photos show the same kind of effects on white, but much clearer. We each go about it using different methods but come to very simiar resuts (at least in my view).

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  2. I like this a lot Byron. Well done.

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  3. Terrific stuff Byron, and great to see it in close-up with all your detail work :-)

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  4. Wonderful work Byron. White armour can be very hard to pull off but you've done a smashing job here. Very cool model.

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    1. Thanks Curt, it honestly looks better in person as well, as for some reason the black, grey, and dark brown powders almost dont show at all, but are really there around the bottom and wheels to show dirt. Not sure what it is with weathering powders and my photos, they hardly ever show... All i do is pply them then matt coat, they show in real life, but any kind of photo, its like they re not there

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    2. Very nice work Byron! In regards to pigments and weathering powders I highly recommend applying them after you have used your Matt sealer as that will fade or even erase your powder. If you wish the powder/pigment to be sealed onto the miniature use a pigment fixer or as I do just apply the pigments and leave it in a raw state and occasionally apply a touch up if needed.

      Christopher

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  5. Very nicely done! It does look like a huge vehicle next to those mini's!

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    1. Thanks Steve. Yeah, its supposed to be huge, i think in the movie it has room for 10 guys comfortably in the back and then 2 up front in the drivers compartment. It's definatlty bigger than most 28mm transports though!

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  6. I've had my eye on this model for a while, it is bigger than I thought!

    Very nice weathering and overall look, it looks like a veteran!

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    1. It is a beast, size and weight wise. If you want one, i would order while they are in stock (I saw they were when i went to get the photo from his site) as i tried to get one for almost a year to get mine, as I kept missing them when they were in stock and kept having to wait.... It's not chep, but for th size its not bad.

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  7. Really good weathering on those whites! You're right, it works perfectly for the Vanguard forces.

    Maybe we should have a side challenge for heaviest tank kit ;)

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    1. Would walkers count? If so, I am in as I have a Tau titan that weighs in at a little over 1kg :-)

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  8. great stuff, I always loved that movie, it was the first scary one my parents allowed me to watch ;-)

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  9. This looks somewhat larger than I thought it would. I was going to buy one before now. Excellent work.

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  10. Great work on this Byron - weathering looks really sharp.

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  11. Wow that things is massive! Great job on the white Byron.

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  12. It looks really good in the white, offset with the nice chipping and detailing that you've done. I agree that an elite outfit would not allow a vehicle to stay grungy for long, although in my experience people often somehow forget to go through the wash bays when they return kit to the motor pool.
    Nicely done, a very strong entry.

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  13. It is a great painting work. I like how you handled the chippings, difficult to achieve the right balance. Incidentally, I watched Aliens 2 in the TV last Xmas (they showed a marathon with the 4 films)

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  14. Very well done! I know how hard is to get a completely white model look interesting but you've certainly pulled it off.

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  15. Fantastic weathering effects! Really brilliant!

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  16. Looks awesome! great job. cheers

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  17. Looks fantastic, great repurpose of this classic vehicle

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  18. Very nice, Byron! I am soooooo jealous! This and a few companions are still on my wish list, at least I have the 15mm model which is a girthy beast as well!
    Beautiful effect on it. The shape still sez aliens, but now I have visions of District 9. That is a wonderful ride you painted! ;)

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    1. Thank you very much for the compliments. I hadn't pictured District 9 when painting it, but know that you mention it, yeah it would fit.

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