G'day Tony, been away from the planet for a little while due to wedding plans etc............this is awesome............ love what you've done with him so far, lookinging forward to seeing the finished product

Looking good Tony, I also found the background info you provided very interesting.

Roger.

Thanks Ian and Roger,

Glad you like my progress so far.

Getting nervous now Ian?? Only a couple of weeks of freedom before you get the ring through your nose.

Realistic weathering

The seat of the pants sag when we stand, and tighten up around the curve of the butt and thighs when we sit, so how you dirtied the seat of the pants is pretty much spot on.

Given hes been wading through swamps, the mud on the lower legs is realistic too.

The human gait usually involves the ankle of the moving foot passing just above the ankle of the load bearing foot (/leg), so there can be a build up of mud on the lower calves also.
If this was a figure slogging through mud (soldier, farmer, peasant) that is one of those small things that the average human brain picks up on subconsciously, and can help carry a figure.

But!! the weathering you have done, I would leave it as is, if I were you. It is just about right.

How did you do the hair on the arms? I know where I can pinch your formula for dried blood (a shouting NCO) but that effect I am trying to get on my Centurion figure.

Cheers

Hey Tony. Somehow I missed this thread until today, but this is looking very good. It seems these large scale figures are where you really excel. Looking forward to the finished product.

Jason

Morning cob.,
the lad is starting to take on a look,..like very much the hair on the arms, along with the barked knuckles...
A wee thought,the tight creases high up around his bum,his crutch, and bottom edges of the cuffs and seam lines of his trousers could perhaps be defined with a dark oil wash, a mixture 10% prussian blue and 90% van dyke brown,this would show that continous sweat and billed up of moisture in these areas, just a thought....

good stuff cob..Phil..

Hi Jamie,

Great to chat with you this morning and hope we can continue to develop our friendship.

The hair on the forearms is made by tiny strokes of wet pastel over the acrylic paint. I start with a mid brown and the progressively darken the colour as I go. If I make a mistake or get a blob rather than a thin line, I just wipe it off and start again.

Jason, thanks for your comment mate. As I get older I find my eyes aren't coping with 54mm as well as they used to. I also find larger scales offer more scope for experimenting with different weathering effects and trying to add an extra layer of realism into the paintjob.

G'day Phil,

Good idea mate thanks, I'll give it go. Not using oils anymore, but I'm sure I can get a similar result with a wash of acrylic. Thanks for you generous comments and your help, as always.

Cob., dont though away your oils, the effect of oil stains in and around your acrylics will often give a very defined statment, try a fine coat of talchum powder, brush away the eccess and let the wash creep through the powder, if you add a hairs breath of linseed oil to the wash it will give off a faint sheen looking like a very sweaty crutch....ho! ho!..

high humidity.. Phil...

G'day Phil,

I've still got my oils and will have a go at putting a stain on him, as you suggest.

I've attached some new pics, showing the Bren gun and the right hand ammo pouch attached. Sorry about the over-exposure - too much light in the room. The Bren needs a lot more work before I'm happy with it.

As a historical note, although the men of 2/2 Independent Company spent almost a year fighting a dirty guerilla war in the mountains and jungles of Timor and were riddled with dysentry and malaria, severely malnourished and physically and mentally exhausted by the time they were finally evacuated, their weapons were exceptionally well maintained and still in good working order. A sign of highly professional soldiers.

Just a webbing sling strap over the shoulders to add and then he's finished and I can start work on the base.

Hope you like it.

Hi Tony,

An awesome job on a great figure, have really enjoyed this thread particularily the historical background, those guys must have been masters of survival and irregular warfare to stay combat effective for so long in such demanding conditions, did any win VCs ?

One final question relating the history, did the Timorese civilians assist them in any way or did the diggers have to avoid them as well ?

Brilliant paint job, really wish that this figure was availiable still.


Best Regards

Kirky

Tony,

This has got to be one of the most 'true to life' dirt/mud effects I have ever seen applied to a miniature figure. Good job mate, I'm looking forward to seeing some sweat patches.

Sorry for answering a question for you but I remember reading it was the East-Timorese who were most supportive of the Australians. I'm interested to know how modern East-Timorese view the Australian peacekeepers given that their fathers one fought to oust the Japanese from their homeland.

I am also learning a lot from the historical notes you include with your progress. This is an area of Aussie history I admit I don't know much about.

Chas

Hi Kirky,

Thanks for your comments and for your interest in this rather obscure chapter of Australian military history.

No VC winners from 2/2 Independent Company that I'm aware of, but that doesn't really tell the story.

For most of their time in Timor the Australian forces enjoyed the strong support and cooperation of the majority of local Timorese people, particularly in the eastern part of the island, which was a Portuguese colony. Timorese boys and men acted as guides, interpreters, porters and intelligence gatherers in support of the Australian forces, and developed an extremely close bond with them.

After the invasion, the Japanese sought to deny the Australians local support by bombing and attacking villages known to be sympathetic to the Australians. They also fermented inter-tribal rivalries among the Timorese people, creating a vicious civil war between pro-Japanese and pro-Australian Timorese.

Many Timorese were killed, women forced to work in brothels for Japanese soldiers and thousands of civilians forced to flee to the mountains to avoid capture, imprisonment and starvation. Many died of starvation anyway as their crops were burned and their livestock stolen to feed the occupying forces. Terrible business all round.

The guerilla war in Timor was tactically insignificant, but strategically vital to the ultimate Allied victory in the South West Pacific. The 13,000 Japanese troops tied down in Timor fighting 300 Australians would have otherwise been sent to reinforce the 15,000Japanese troops in New Guinea, fighting on the Kokoda Track.

Such is the fate of history that these 300 Australian's, not unlike the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, fought a desperately heroic but ultimately futile battle against a vastly superior enemy in order to ensure ultimate victory.

Hi Chas,

Thanks for your comments. Hopefully this background information will inspire you to learn more about our military history mate.

Our troops are still in East Timor today, and many of the problems they are dealing with have their origins in the civil war fermented by the Japanese in 1942, and the long history of colonial oppression under both Dutch and Portguese rule.

Add to this 35 years of brutal repression at the hands of the Indonesian army and you begin to appreciate why East Timor is such a basket case, and why our troops are necessary to keeping the fragile peace that currently exists.

Tony great weathering of the figure!

Marcel.

Tony Have followed your thread from the start and have enjoyed you turning a good figure into a work of art. You have done a superb job and all the little extras, bruised knuckles etc, make it stand out. Then when its nearly finished Phil Walden tells me a great way to do sweat stains, an added bonus.
Wonderful figure very well painted and finished.
Don

Blood, sweat and tears

Hi Marcel and Don,

Thanks very much for your comments guys. I pleased you like what I'm doing with this figure.

Following Phil Walden's advice (Phil sculpted this figure, so it's worth listening to his advice), I dusted the figure with talculm powder then dusted off my oil paints and applied a few washes of 10% Prussian Blue and 90% Van Dyke Brown to replicate sweat stains on the shirt and trousers.

I also applied a thin glaze of Clear Acrylic Gloss over the flesh areas to simulate sweat.

I'll add a sling webbing strap around the shoulders to support the Bren Gun, and then I'll move on to creating a base.

Hi tony,

Cheers for the additional info, was interested because of Maos saying that an effective guerilla must swim through the population like a fish in water !! true pioneers of hearts and minds techniques then ay ?

The strategic significance is not lost on me, truely a good move. They must have been hellish good soldiers and real diplomats with the locals to have got the results they did, what a balancing act !

Is there a book that you could reccomend ?

Interesting how ANZAC forces are dealing with ww2 legacy in East timor similair to the Jugoslavian issues in 90s europe.


Best regards

Kirky

Excellent stuff from the Purple Patch Painting factory again

Boots Tony.

Rest of him is covered in mud, sweat and grime. Boots look good so far; would I be right in thinking you are leaving the boots till last, when you marry the figure to a base? Makes sense, no point in weathering boots if the figure ends up ankle deep in swamp mud.

Thanks for sharing your techniques.
Enjoyed the chat too, fun to talk figures with some else who is also 'hands on'

Cheers

Thanks once again Jamie,

Yep, boots are weathered once the base groundwork is done so I can marry the two together.

Kirky, one of the best books on the Timor campaign is "The Double Reds of Timor" by Archie Campbell. Campbell was a section commander in 2/2 Independent Company.

Another good book is "Independent Company" by Bernard Callinan, who commanded 2/2 Independent Company in Timor, and wrote his account of the guerilla war while he was on active service in New Guinea