Painting the Minis!

[LordOfGood]

Hi,

Ok so most of my gaming life ive concerntrated on warhammer or lord of the rings which are both very fantasy orientated games.

Obviously they have very different colour schemes than those of the great escape and i was just wondering has anyone got any tips or ideas to help me in painting my newly aquired GE minis?

[Ebob]

Good Question.

First of all, I would recommend obtaining the movie on either VHS or DVD for inspiration, but I shall outline the basic colours for you - you should also examine the colour images of the figures on my product pages.

The Germans are all Luftwaffe (airforce) therefore their uniforms are blue/grey - with black belts and boots.
the gas mask cylinder on one of the guards is a darker grey as are the helmets.
The water bottle is earth brown with a metal cup on the top. The dagger on the dog handler is black with a silver hilt.

The POWs are a mixture of earth brown army uniforms and Blue/grey (a bit more blue than the germans) RAF uniforms, white jumpers and scarfs, black boots, caps can be either brown or blue.

The penguin with the peaked cap and the scrounger are wearing officer's RAF uniforms and must be painted RAF blue.

[LordOfGood]

I have the movie on DVD and i have a rough idea of what colours to use now you give me that list.

What range of paints did you use ebob?

[Ebob]

Actually I just used paint from GamesWorkshop because I do a lot of LOTR stuff.

I just mixed the colours.

German uniform = Black + white + enchanted blue

Brittish Army battle dress = Graveyard Earth

Cooler King... Scorched earth for his jacket, Kommando Kahki for his trousers, flesh is Elf flesh washed with bestial brown, T-shirt is a pale grey/blue.

You can get authentic military colours by Valejo - they have a massive range - but I'm told the only colour they don't do is RAF uniform blue.
Someone gave me a Valejo Luftwaffe blue - and it is an excellent mix - I used it on the vehicles which are all that colour also, so I can recommend obtaining the Luftwaffe blue colour.

[Ebob]

If you have the movie you should be able to identify a couple of the minis.

[LordOfGood]

Yeh i did notice the resemblence between some of them the ferrets, Scrounger and Surveyor.

[tunnelking]

LordOfGood said:

Yeh i did notice the resemblence between some of them the ferrets.

The ferrets used for the game are different to the ones in the film as they are based on the ferrets in the book but with the uniforms they all look the same from a distance.

I also collect a heck of a lot of LOTR stuff and i wonder if you make any boards for them??
Ive made Helms Deep with the limited edition model and would like to make mount doom, have you any tips??
Also the paints i used were enamal as they give a much better effect.
My models at the moment are converted 1/72(28mm) military figures. the RAF pilots are perticulary good as just normal POWs.
Also some of my other figures make up perfectly any other greman, such as:

MP-40 holders aiming at the trucks when the new arivals enter the camp, more sentries or i like to use some to guard the cooler on the outside, and even to escort the Kommondant around.
And german mechanics at airfeilds(refulers ect,ect...) look good to come in the compound when the POWs mess somthing up.

The military vehicles make good use as the have german BMW bikes to escort the trucks into the compound.

[Ebob]

You could make a 1/72 or OO guage camp - but don't mistake 28mm for 1/72 - it isn't. 28mm converts to 1/60th - a vehicle that's 10cm long in 1/72 would be 12cm long in 1/60th.

You should print the buildings out 83% normal size to get 1/72 (if my maths doesn't fail me).

I used to use enamels (Humbrol) but much prefer the cleaness of water based acrillic now.

[tunnelking]

Oh my mistake i was told that 1/72 was the same as 28mm any way .

well the models look like the right size for the game

and i only use enamals on my plastic figures as they dont crack if you degrease them first

[Ebob]

Stand your 1/72 scale figure next to Legolas or Aragorn and they'll look like skinny hobbits.

[tunnelking]

yes i know itas really quite funny
AN ARMY OF HOBBITS WITH GUNS!!! ;D

[shnar]

Most people will say that 28mm is "roughly" 1/72 scale. It's not exact, but a lot of people aren't used to spotting the difference. Isn't 1/72 something like 25mm?

-shnar

[Ebob]

no - no - most definately 28mm is not 1/72 or anywhere near. If you stand an Airfix 1/72 figure next to a 28mm - the 28mm with look twice as big.

The two are not compatibale and can't be mixed.

1/72 is not 25mm. 25mm is slightly larger. the mm measurements are to eye level not to top of head - so a 25mm figure actually stands 27mm tall. Anyway, it all sounds like small differences - but the fact is stand the two together and the argument ends very quickly.

It's like the difference between 1/35 and 1/32 - or 1/48 and 1/43 - they are very distinct scales.

[Leon]

forget about little details and just paint them the best you can. when it all comes down to it models are models.

[mikey]

i whould like to remind everyone that LOTR miniatures are 25mm, everything GamesWorkshop produces is 28mm, as for little difrences, might i remind you that i happen to be 190cm and other go as short as 160cm, so i finds thathaving an aray of difrent hight in models looks more real, as long as theres not a very big difrence.

mikey