Wednesday, January 26, 2011

People's Army of Vietnam.

I just finished a squad of 28mm PAVN for Vietnam. The miniatures are from Baker Company's 28mm Vietnam Range I picked up a few years back but never got around to. This was my first attempt at using a modification of the "Dip" technique and I think I finally arrived at a result I am happy with. The Dip never produced enough contrast for me before, and I never seemed to get the results other people were able to get. I tried the Minwax method on a test PAVN model and it came out ok, but I decided against the tone I had used (Tudor).

Instead, I found the best results by spray painting the miniatures flat Dark camo Brown from Krylon, followed by a light covering with their flat Khaki camo. After that I painted the uniforms with a lighter shade of the khaki uniform color I wanted to end up with, followed by the pouches and equipment in a lighter, but different tone of Khaki. After the skin and guns were blocked in with color I washed the whole thing with Games Workshop's new Sepia tone wash. When this was dry details and some highlights were done on certain spots and details were added such as the gun stock and hat badges etc. The whole thing was based and static grass was added. Overall, a fast job and a result I am happy with.

I am not 100% sold on the dip, but I like the way these came out and will complete the whole platoon this way with plans to pick up a platoon of Baker Company's U.S. Airborne so I can do some LZ X-Ray games. A similar technique will be used on those models as well.

Baker Company minis have some really nice character and the sculpts are clean cast with nice crisp detail. The only complaint I have is they are only available from the U.K. and the cost of exchange rate and postage kind of puts me off.

Edit: Ordered the U.S. platoon for my birthday and they should be here soon. Looking forward to getting them on the painting table. Also, I have been looking for a die cast 1:50 scale Huey or two (both Corgi and Forces of Valor make one), but have only found them for $50 and up. Might just have to bite the bullet. Can't do LZ X-Ray with nothing for the PAVN to shoot at...

I want to take some better pics of the whole lot when it is done.

Anyway, hope you like them!

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