Video Review Charging German Infantryman 1915, 54mm - Andrea Miniatures S3-F14

[Stelios Demiras]

Charging German Infantryman 1915, 54mm - Andrea Miniatures S3-F14
Here we have a detailed Open Box Review of a classic metal 54mm figure of WWI, A Charging German Infantryman 1915 at 54mm from Andrea Miniatures (S3-F14). Within the work of a new edition in WWI I decided to include also a How to Article on Cleaning, Assembling and Painting 1/32 (54mm), 1/35 figures. Taking the opportunity, I made a small video to show the high quality of this metal figure and to see that it is very easy to work with metal these days. We must thank Andrea Miniatures and Alejandra Fernandez that support our efforts from the start of our publishing company and we have a very good collaboration all these years! Andrea Miniatures website has unlimited themes to choose from so take a visit at: www.andrea-world.com. More for painting miniatures, Scale Models, Dioramas, Vignettes and more at Mr Black Publications website: www.mrblackpublications.com

 

[OlegGalagan]

nice miniature and good work by the painter

 

[PropBlast]

Stelios - I have a few Mr Black Publications books and was wondering when it comes to paint mixes stated if they are always equal mixes of the paints specified?

 

[Stelios Demiras]

Dear friend,
I have receiving a lot of these questions and I am going to make a video or will try to explain the way that the artists presented the mixes. What is behind of the mixes...
I know the matter but it is really very difficult for the artist to write down the exact proportions as in most cases the painter is making the mix by adding little more from one hue, little more from other..etc. In most cases the bigger in proportion hues is the one HUE that is near to what we want to succeed in our days most of the companies are offering a lot of different hues that at least one will be close to our liking. Then we add specks from the others to complete the mix. For example for the Base mix of skin tone on a bust we have:
BASE MIX SKIN TONES: Beige Red 804 + Scarlet 817 + English Uniform 921 + Beige Brown 875 (the 804 is the dominant hue and the others are specks, probably the 917 must be added sparingly as the 921)
Highlights: BASE + Beige Red 804 (the 804 is adding progressively to the BASE mix...making 6-8 STEPS that covering smaller and smaller surface from the face going upwards). Add Ivory for the High highlights..
Shadows: BASE + English Uniform 921 + Scarlet 917 + Beige Brown 804 + Black 950 (the 921 and 917(sparingly) are adding progressively to the BASE mix...making 2-3 STEPS that covering smaller and smaller surface from the face going downwards and the 950 is adding for the darker areas of the face).
As you can understand the artists are giving the hues that you must use so to start a BASE mix but the final result is also depending in our TASTE and the final HUE we wanted to have so we can play with the proportions. When someone is painting is really little difficult to keep records for each small alternations....that he added.
For uniforms the things are simpler as in most cases for the Shadows we add progressively Black (and little brown) to the Base color and flesh, white or ochre for the highlights.
Writing down the mixes we are giving big help as I have noticed that a lot of modellers came to our hobby for the love of military history and have little knowledge on Color theory. I remembered my frustration when I was added Raw Umber to the flesh mix instead of Burnt Umber and the face turned up to Green....
So what we are doing...we tried to offer basic color mixes for specific paintings but the exact proportions must be done by the modeller with try and error and to his liking.
For instance I had a question: for Field Grey Uniform in 1/35 scale.
Base: Field Grey 830 + a speck of Blue Violet 811
Shadows: Base + Black 950 (the modeller was asked if he must add 50%base + 50%Black)...as you can understand that by adding so much Black in the first shadow step the result will be just black...
Highlights: Base + Flesh 845 ( the modeller was asked 50%base + 50%845)...as you can understand that by adding so much Flesh the result will be very light and no successively contrasts)...
So to continue in shadows we must add progressively Black and for the highlights progressively Flesh or yellow...

I hope that this helps.

All the best

 

[PropBlast]

Thank you for explaining the process so well.