Scratch Soviet tanker

Some time ago I decided to do a Soviet tanker using an old Katyusha miniature that I had at home. Battlefront Minaitures doesnt produce any tankers, so I should use a ZIS-3 truck  and do it using putty.

Flames of War Katyusha minaiture

The truck I want to do

The first thing I did was remove all the rocket launcher structure and the spare wheel. After that I added a lot of purry to create the container in the back of the truck. It is a difficult task, since I have to get plain and smooth sides.

This Christmas I will continue with it and hopefully it will be finished soon!

Flames of War Elefantinos

A few days ago I received some boxes of the excellent tufts that Tajima1 sells. For this army most of the tufts I am using are yellow, but I am also mixing some brown tufts.

This platoon is finished!

Bersaglieris in the ruins

The Bersaglieri army continues advancing. I painted the miniatures using the technique I explained before and now is the moment to place them in the bases and do something special. When I paint flames of War armies I love doing special decoration in the bases.

The classic ruins can be found all around the Mediterranean: Greece, France, Tunisia, Lybia and even in italy itself, so this bersaglieris are setted to fight in all the italian fronts of the WWII.

Tutorial: How to paint Bersaglieris

Today I want to share a tutorial that I did explaining how I have been painting the Bersaglieri army. First of all I have to say that painting with yellow is a nightmare. I needed 2 layers to cover completely the black base color. I was lucky, because I used Green Ochre, a yellow color that is not so bad covering.

Let's go with the tutorial.

1. Spray the primer.

2. Paint the body parts with Chocolat brown

3. Paint the body parts with Orange brown leaving the shadow areas in brown. The space between fingers, the eyes or the space around the nose should be respected in brown.

4. Highlight with Orange brown + white the body. You should highlight the prominent parts, as the nose, the chin, cheeks and fingers.

5. Paint the uniforms in Green Ochre.

6. Highlight the uniforms with Green ochre + white.

7. Paint the wood of the weapons with Mahogany brown and highlight them with the same color + white.

8. Paint the straps of both, weapons and uniforms. In the weapons i used Khaki grey and Khaki was the color used in the uniforms' straps.

9. Paint the helmets with Green Ochre.

10. And highlight them with Green Ochre +white.

11. Now is the moment to paint the helmet's feathers win grey using the dry brush technique. Afterwards is the moment to paint the helmet's rosette. You should start paintint the a red dot. When it is dry you paint a smaller white dot. And finally a smaller one using a very vivid green.

12. Paint the bag using Khaki, and the water bottle in grey.

13. And finally paint the metalic parts, as the weapons, binoculars and the button of the bag.

Nebelwerfers

Hi guys, I wanna show you some nebelwerfers that I am painting. They are a support platoon for a Normandy army, so the scenery I am making for them will be a french style one.

The african graveyard

This autumn I am not painting only a Bersaglieri army for Flames of War, but also an Afrika Korps army.
I am using more "summer tufts" than never in my life, two compelte armies full of dry and sandy bases!

I love doing different bases. Flames of War bases have free space that let you add some little scenery. This time I talked with the customer and I proposed him to represent the infantry plattons advancing in a north-african graveyard.

Copying the tombs that we can easily find in North Africa, I did 15mm representation using Mc Donald's coffee sticks and DAS putty. Finally I added a ruined wall and a horsseshoe arch. I like the result, I think that this special scenery gives to the armies more personality.

Welcome to my blog

Dear all:

Until now I have been writing in http://paintingflamesofwar.blogspot.com.es/ but I have open this blog because here I dont want to show you just Flames of War miniatures, but also miniatures of other periods of the History. I use to paint as a commision job WWII miniatures, but I also use to paint other miniatures for me, specially ancient armies, my favourite period of the History.

I have chosen this name, "The darkest years", because it sounds quite epic. The darkest years of a country can be that years where they fought for survival, the fought aganist themselves of even they did horrible acts. I am going to model and paint about that years where we can include the Spanish Civil War, the World War II and the Cold War. But we can even talk about other periods as the Punic Wars or the Fall of the Roman Empire. Along the History there was lots of dark years for every kingdom and nation in the world. Wargaming is about bringing to life that struggles, that fights, trying to change the History (or not) just for fun.

I hope to keep this forum updated, show you some of my painted miniatures and some painting and modelling tips.

Today I want to show you a WIP Elefantino platoon that I a making for a huge Flames of War Bersaglieri army. There is a lot of work painting the italian african uniforms. As many of you know, yellow is probably the worst color to deal with. But I am fighting aganist yellow and I am having sucess.

More posts soon! I hope you like it! :)