For this weeks submission I left the homey shores of my favourite period and went to explore the perilious lands of South East Asia.As some of you might know I'm doing the First Indochina War lately. And as if that's not enough of a challenge all this is done in greyscale.
Redstar Miniatures offer a very nice range of figures sculpted by the very talented and ubiquitous Paul Hicks (Somehow it seems to me as if there's almost no range out there he hasn't already sculpted at least a few figures for).
If you only have the slightest interest in this period you really should give this range a try. I certainly can't recommend these figures enough.
Those of you knowing my earlier greyscale figures will know I'm always trying to add a focal point by using red for some part of the figure. But for a whole force I considered it to be too much. So I painted a red flag with yellow star for my Viet Minh. For the flag shaft I tried to make it look like bamboo.
Another nice touch about the Redstar figures is the weapon teams coming in both moving and firing poses. The firing version of this mortar team is still to be done though.
For the metallic parts of the rifles I tried to produce something akin to Non Metallic Metal but I'm not totally convinced yet by my first attempts.
I'll happily let our grand judge calculate the points as he might want to add some additional points for the flag *hint* or subtract some for the guy carrying the wounded. But all in all there are 13 figures in this submission including the wounded.
From Curt:
Stunning work Nick! I love your approach to the greyscale in this project. In fact, from these images, they look to be more an impression of de-saturated colour rather than straight greyscale. It really does give a fabulous effect, especially when you punch it with the contrast of the vibrant red banner (well done on that BTW).
Again, beautiful stuff Nick. Now, this makes me want to do another installment for my greyscale Great War collection...
These are really great. The colour scheme looks very much like they are emerging from the pre-dawn light. I am very impressed with the effect and the painting.
ReplyDeleteAbsolute genius. Very much the "less is more" approach to colours but the painting is amazing and works really well. The faces in particular stand out.
ReplyDeleteThese are definitely AbFab. Nicely done :)
ReplyDeleteWow, that's some serious eye-candy. I do wish one of you "grey scale types" would write a magazine article on how it's done... [whistles]
ReplyDeleteTerrific work, you have nailed the grey scale for sure
ReplyDeleteIan
Brilliantly washed out with that punchy flag. Amazing - can't wait to see more!
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubting your prowess with the brush.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding work Nick! If your questioning the metal effect I think you totally nailed it!
ReplyDeleteChristopher
waouw!!!!
ReplyDeletethey seem to come out of the photos of the period!
you're on the way to the Golden demon !!! I vote for you!
Very nice work! Going grey-scale is very difficult, but you've really pulled it off extremely well! The red flag really adds a nice focal point to the unit.
ReplyDeleteAnd agreed. Paul Hicks seems to have a supernatural skill of showing up almost everywhere with his sculpts. I'm not complaining though as he's one of my favorite sculptors
That is impressive, I think I may need to learn how to do this.
ReplyDeleteWonderful, Nick. These are really lovely. I love the sepia tones you've used on these chaps. The Non-Metal Metallic effect looks perfect to me. Marvellous work!
ReplyDeleteVery impressive.
ReplyDeleteJohn
Wonderful painting work. They appear to came from an old French movie!
ReplyDeleteNow , that is a special entry alright. Cracking work.
ReplyDeleteWow!!! Fantastic work!!
ReplyDeleteI can't love these enough. I've really got to try my hand at grayscale/de-saturated painting one of these days. Thanks for the inspiration! (Oh, and for the record, I think your NMM looks just dandy.)
ReplyDelete