I'm not going to describe the painting of every single piece here, and will produce a separate blog on the utter delight of painting the massive rifle, so instead I'll give an idea of the basic elements of the first layers of paint, often involving pre-shading and laying down background tones in preparation for hand painting. What comes across, though, is the way in which the incredibly high quality of the sculpting is brought out through the painting process.
Using the Harder & Steenbeck at a low psi (around 15) and a fine setting I used heavily thinned Tamiya XF-63 German Grey as a pre-shade on most of the parts. I chose this because I wanted to kill several birds with one stone, so that this colour acts as the base for the metal parts of the grenades, the barrel of the rifle and the gas mask holder, as well as being a pre-shade colour for the body, the various bags, etc. As ever the Tamiya paints behaved flawlessly through the airbrush and the finish is pleasingly smooth.
This was followed by a pre-shading layer of XF-64 Red Brown for the wooden parts of the grenades and for the water bottle. Again this was heavily thinned.
For the uniform, the puttees, and so on, I added a layer of XF-24 Dark Grey. This won't be the final colour but it will be a good base for the later shades of field grey, etc, plus giving 'grip' to those later layers.
This was followed by some delicate airbrushing of XF-15 Flat Flesh as further shading for the tent canvas, the ammunition bags, the bread bag, the steel helmet and the wood of the stick grenades. This is a rich colour which adds lots of interest to paler items. The ammunition bags in particular stand out at this stage, with really delicate moulding brought out by the pre-shading. Finally, I used XF-78 Wooden Deck Tan as a final base coat for all of these light pieces, adding yet more depth to the colours.
You'll note that the steel helmet has been given this light-coloured effect too. I haven't gone mad; these helmets were given a camouflage layer in the final stages of the War, often applied in the field, involving colours such as tan, red brown and green, under a good layer of mud. It's worth remembering that steel helmets had been introduced by the different combatants as standard equipment only a few years before 1918, in response to the huge losses to head injuries in the first stages of the War. In addition, camouflage as a concept was in its infancy, not least because the idea of needing to hide from one's enemy, rather than advancing in line and trying to bring them to battle on an open field, was also relatively new for Europe's standing armies. The British Army, for instance, only really started to use the term 'camouflage' during the Great War but with the balance of power tipped by technology in favour of firepower of the defender, camouflage became an essential development. With this in mind the German army of 1918 tried new methods of allowing their troops to blend in to their environment and so the shiny new helmets were given patterns to break up their profile. The different colours will be applied by hand at a later stage but it's useful to make a start with the airbrush.
After an airbrushing session covering several hours the overall effect is pleasing. The pieces are starting to gain depth and interest and everything is starting to come to life. The next stage will be the completion of the rifle, and oh my word it is gorgeous, followed by hand painting of the body and the various accoutrements. The model really doesn't disappoint in any way - this is a kit to be savoured like a fine wine or an expensive cigar. It's not for the beginner, but is a connoisseur's piece, something for the experienced modeller to appreciate for all of it's multi-layered possibilities.
Zigerastica
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