I was wondering if anyone has any tips on painting Baccus WW2 infantry and artillery figures? For some reason, I seem to be finding it harder to do them justice than the other ranges. The models look fine as models, so it clearly isn't that, but I am finding it a bit tricky to narrow down the exact issue(s) I am having.

I'm not a great painter but I have been chipping at WW2 forces to play IABSM from TooFatLardies.

The sculpts are great.  Given that uniforms, webbing, and personal gear are all almost the same colors, especially at arms length, it is a challenge.  If you try to paint camoflage (Denison smock, the various Germans schemes for example) you could go blind getting patterns just right only to have them blur into a mess when based and put on the table.  I have tried a couple methods.  Base coat in the color of the webbing, place dots for the trousers, coat, weapon, and any distinct kit that may be a different color of the webbing.  Dot in the face and hands and base.

Alternatively, I base coat in the color of the uniform and apply a wash in a suitable color for the webbing, usually a brown of some shade.  I then dot in the some of the kit and and skin and base.

I have found that for camo, i paint the coat of one figure in a color of the pattern and dot in a couple places with one of the other colors.  I think use a different color from the pattern on the coat of the next and so one.  If you base them in groups of 3 or more, the over all effect is that of  the original pattern even though no single fiuges has that scheme.

A common thread for all of the above is basing.  Seeing that fire team or crew all together on a base really makes it come together for me.  The Baccus basing method works as a starting point.   

Thanks Rakkasan, those are interesting ideas around how to treat the webbing, especially using the webbing colour as the base colour. Might make an interesting contrast between British and Germans, for instance.

Hi there

I am not a pro painter, especially not in 6mm. I changed from 20mm to 6 mm a few month ago.

The most important change for me was to brighten up the coulours from original uniforms a lot to represent them in 6mm. But I brighten up the bright colours much more than the darker colours. Additionally i use almost black washes and white highlights (by drybrushing) to support this contrast between dark an bright colours ????????  

I read an article a few years ago, that described to mix in more white as smaller the scale gets (for 6mm i use up to 30 % of white to brighten up as a quick guide for me). But i forgot the exact numbers in this table..... but I could search for it, if you like. There was also a professional term to explain this effect....

But I asume, you know this stuff already ????????????????

CU
Michael

I think, it is called scale effect in modelling (not to talk about scale effects in economics ????)

Sorry about all the question marks.... dunno why ????

I too have issues with 20thC painting.  All those drab colours!   I like the undercoat in webbing and then add uniform.  Reverses the order for me, but as my current method does now work well, I will give it a go.