FoW: Slovak Objective Bases

Welcome once more ladies and gents to my corner of the wargaming world.

Truth be told I've hit my wall where research and writing of history go with regards to this Slovakian project and so I thought it would  be good to just go ahead and concentrate on a post that whilst being Slovakian related, allows me to ditch the history and just concentrate on the modelling!

So, as most of you who play Flames of War v.III will know, the game revolves around objective markers and as such I thought that it would be a nice addition to my army if I could find some sculpted objective markers as opposed to those, lets be honest, bloody ugly great perspex flags that are dumped all over the gaming table.

I had bought a load of objective markers for my Polish army and I really liked them so I thought I would go ahead and do the same thing for my Slovaks.

My Polish objective markers had been purchased from Mierce Miniatures (https://www.mierce-miniatures.com/), the makers of the utterly beautiful Darklands game... sadly just too expensive for me to get involved with though... it was either Darklands or buy a house... and it was a REALLY tough choice!

Now it came as no surprise to me that they did not actually produce a range of Slovak objective markers BUT what they did do was produce a pretty healthy variety of German objective markers included in which was an example of each of the main armoured vehicles used by the Slovaks; the LT vz.35 and the LT vz.38. Once I had an example of each of these I decided to choose a simple nondescript one that I could use as Slovak (or else any other nation that may need an additional one).

So once I received these beautiful little resin models the first thing to do was clean them.

I soaked them in warm soapy water for about an hour before taking them out, rinsing them under clean cold water and leaving them to dry thoroughly for a while.

Once the models are totally dry it is time to prime the models ready for painting. Personally I am a big fan of Matt Black Etch Primer. The 'etch' that is included in the primer is a very low level of acid that microscopically corrodes the surface of the model allowing the black spray to form a nearly indestructible bond with the surface of the model which provides a rock solid foundation for all subsequent layers of paint to adhere to.

Each of these objective markers has a 'gimmick' on it that provides the focal point for the eye. On two of the bases it is the ruins of the armoured vehicles whilst on the third it is a ruined shack.

The painting of the armoured vehicles and shack are probably the most complex procedures on their respective bases so I will go through them first.

Painting the Shack

The shack is modelled to be a load of old wooden planking that has long since become decrepit and as such displays a lot of raw wood. 

Wood can present a royal pain in the ass if some basic techniques aren't known... or more to the point; unless you own some pretty funky paints and over the years I've bought a load of different paint sets with specific aims in mind and one of those aims in particular was a couple of sets of paint that would bring some convincing looking wood within reach.

The entire cabin was basecoated using AK Interactive's AK779 'Wood Base'. Personally I find AK Interactive's acrylic paints a bit too thin and as such a couple of different layers need to be applied to make sure a uniform layer is result that is being chased. This gives a lovely warm beige on which further effect layers are applied.

After the basecoat is dry I apply a liberal coating of AK Interactive's AK263 'Wash for Wood'. When applied over the Wood Base it produces an extremely convincing wood tone. This is left to dry and when it is dry the excess is rubbed off using cotton buds (or cue tips to our American friends) and Daler & Rowney artist grade white spirits. Some areas are streaked clean of excess a little more vigorously than others to leave a dynamic variation between the tones across the planks of wood.

The actual model of the shack is extremely well sculpted with plenty of wood grain so when the excess is wiped away it leaves some really nice contrasts across the whole model. Once dry a layer of varnish is applied to fix the enamel layer.

Once this layer is dry a selection of different colours such as Vallejo's 819 Iraqi Sand and Vallejo's 914 Green Ochre are very lightly dry-brushed across the model, mainly focusing on the edges and raised areas.

Painting the Vehicles

The main paint scheme of the armoured cars is done by airbrush using my MIG Aircobra for the Priming and Basecoating and my Harder & Steenbeck for all of the shading and highlighting as my H&S has a 0.15 needle and provides a hell of a lot more control... but the MIG is SOOOOO easy to clean it just makes sense to use it where I can...

The Airbrushing steps are as follows:

i) The model is primed with a Matt Black Etch Primer

ii) The basecoat is Tamiya's XF-58's Olive Green

iii) The first highlight is LifeColors UA221 Khaki Olive Drab applied in a panel highlight fashion

iv) The second highlight is LifeColors UA224 Olive Drab Faded Type 2 applied as above but a bit lighter and gathered in along the edges and prominent areas

v) The third highlight is a 50/50 mix of LifeColors UA224 Olive Drab Faded Type 2 with LifeColor 01 White. This is applied sparingly just along the edges and prominent areas.

So that's the airbrushing complete and don't be overly concerned if your third highlight was too heavy as the next two steps will, if done correctly, tone the whole contrasted effect down.

vi) The next step is to apply the colour swatches over the body of the vehicle that will provide the camouflage pattern. With the green camouflage base now finished off I add swatches of Vallejo's 914 Green Ochre and Vallejo's 826 German Camo Med. Brown to leave an equal balance of all three colours in an intentionally smoothed edge blotted pattern.

vii) Now we apply the Filter over the whole thing to unify the colour aesthetic and clip the contrast a little. I apply MIG's Filter 1506 Brown for Dark Green.

viii) Once dry wipe of any serious excess from where it may have pooled but otherwise leave it untouched.

ix) At this point I apply the first layer of Varnish. It doesn't matter which varnish you choose so long as it fixes the Filter layer to the miniature as its an oil based layer.

Once the varnish is dry its time for the next layer which is where the real depth starts to come out.

x) Over every detail laden part of the model apply a Wash. I use AK Interactives Wash 075 Wash for NATO Camouflage Vehicles. Don't be shy with this step. Slap it on aplenty! Then leave to dry for a while.

xi) Once its dry (or dry-ish) use cotton buds (cue tips for you Yankees out there...) and use a gentle white spirit to wipe away the excess leaving great detail and shadowing around all of your detail areas and a general lowering of the overall luminosity. Personally I use Winsor & Newtons Artists White Spirit as I had a bad experience with normal white spirit stripping away four layers of paint and primer and have no wish to repeat the disaster!

xii) Once the whole piece is dry to the touch apply another layer of varnish to fix everything in place.

xiii) The last thing to do with paint is to lightly airbrush a layer of Vallejo's 826 German Camo Medium Brown across the wheels and the lower third of the vehicle. This layer has a highlight of Vallejo's 914 Green Ochre mixed in whatever ratio you want with the German Camo Medium Brown already in the airbrush and is then applied in splotches to provide some variance in the muddy weathering.

xiv) A final varnishing is applied to the vehicle which are then finally fixed to their bases.

The Bases

The bases themselves are a little easier to deal with as I only complete the work that is done on all of my bases. I slap a load of Vallejo's 826 German Camo. Medium Brown ensuring that all areas where bare earth is revealed is completely covered. This then has the obligatory Vallejo's 914 Green Ochre dry-brushed over it.

Every one of the bases has small stones littered over it and these are all picked out to provide some textural dynamics on the base. They are picked out with a base coat of Vallejo Model Color's 995 German Grey, then highlighted with Vallejo Model Color's 992 Neutral Grey.

Each base has its own particular gimmicks on it and perhaps the most noticeable of all is the brick built chimney on the objective base with the destroyed LT vz.35 light tank. There is also a ruined brick built well, or base of a chimney stack on the base with the LT vz.38 and these are both painted the same way. A base coat of Vallejo's Game Color 065 Terracotta is painted over all of the brickwork which is then highlighted with Terracotta mixed with Vallejo Model Color 819 Iraqi Sand. A light wash is applied over the top to provide some increased contrast. This didn't work so well for me so I would say choose whichever wash you want to, to get you over the line. Brickwork often works well when you pick out individual colours in different colours. Some lighter than the base colour and some darker. This isn't something I did on these models though.

The ruined cabin also has a couple of mattresses in there as well. It would be expected that these would be heavily weathered but in the interests of visual contrast I chose to have them pretty clean and white. The initial base coat was Games Workshop's Space Wolf Grey with the top coat being Vallejo Model Color's 820 Off White. Nice and simple... and high contrast with all of the wood.

The last thing that needs to be done is to provide all of the 'soft furnishings'. These bases have been sculpted with small bushes littered over the bases and as I am not a fan of just painted bushes I decided that I needed another method to give a more aesthetically pleasing result. I opted to give them a dark green basecoat firstly. Its not important really which green you choose so long as its a dark one as the next step in the process will obscure the majority of this anyway.

The next step that I took was to grab some of my Woodland Scenics Light Green Clump Foliage and make sure that the clumps are in a suitably small size. The resin bushes then have a layer of superglue gel painted over them. I tried other glues but none worked well enough. Liquid superglue is 'too' liquid but the gel allows the painting over the upper layers of the bush. The clump foliage is then piled over the top of the bush and compressed down onto it to make sure as much of the clump foliage as possible makes contact with the superglue. This is allowed to cure for five minutes or so and then the excess is shaken off. You will likely have some of the excess contaminated by superglue but as the clumps are so small in this usage I think they are easily usable again on other projects so you can save it.

The final thing that needs to be done is the grass effects. As you may by now know, I use my own mix of static flock and rather than point you in the direction that I have done myself I would advise you to mix and match yourself. For myself I love the look of a died and dried high summer so that's what I'm chasing for my World War 2 armies. Standard PVA glue is painted onto the bases in the areas that I wanted clumps of grass and then a static flock applicator was used to fix the flock to the base, then left to dry for an hour.

So there we have it... another fun filled adventure with Bayonets (and Brushes!). Slap a bit of paint and toppings and we have some fine additions to anybody's wargaming table.

See you next time...