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1/48 Pz Kpfw 38(t) Mini Diorama – Part 4 – Painting the figure

So another long break due to holidays. However, in this installment we are painting the figure from base coat to ready for mounting in the cupola. Last time, we finished just before priming. After a simple black primer coat with the spray can, I started with the face. But first of all let me take you through the preparation of my wet palette.

1/48 Pz Kpfw 38(t) Mini Diorama Series
Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Skin

Apart from the figure, I prepared a nice clean tissue and a brush. On my wet palette I gathered the basic colors that I assumed I would use. I used a mixture of different brands: Citadel/scale 75 & Vallejo, but in the end it’s the colors that matter: black, white, a dark red, a dark brown, a medium flesh tone, and some yellow and beige as I wanted to create a sunny atmosphere.

I mixed the shade and base for all flesh-colored areas and started to apply a couple of thin layers to get a good coverage. All mixes were mixed with water to allow for thin coats, but still with enough coverage power in mind. I’ve shown the mix with some fancy arrows on the palette picture. It took me about 2-3 layers. Let’s get going with some consecutive highlights. The covered area becomes smaller and smaller. Always more and more focused on the areas of the face/hands to be hit by a zenithal sunlight.

The first highlights reveal the shapes of the face so I’ll continue with brighter and brighter tones. Occassionally I go back with the previous color but thinned down a bit more to partially overlap the transition. More blending is not required in this scale.

So before I finish the details of the face (eyes/mouth), here is a trick I learned for bringing the face more to life.

I split the face in 3 zones: the top with very thinned down yellow, the mid section with red to give it life, and the bottom part with blue for shading/ 5’o clock shadow.

Now let’s put that theory in practice.

Some final touches to the skin area and we are ready to paint the uniform. I mix an off-white for the eyes and a light blue for the iris. Not the best picture but my camera does weird stuff when zooming in this far.

Uniform

Let’s start on the uniform. I did not take that many pictures of the palette I used. I started with a basecoat of black tinted with a little blue. The highlights were created with the addition of the bone color. Pure white has the risk of turning the highlights very chalky. Of course this has been highlighted with ever more adding of this light beige and finally some pure white in the mix.

The black uniform needs some toning down of the highlights, so a thinned down version of the base color is then used to reinforce the shaded areas and smooth the transitions. It’s also time to start to paint all of the small details and decorations. Like some pink edging on the lapels & shoulders. I stippled the edges of leather belt with an offwhite. You can also notice how I used some lighter pure grey to simulate the metal shine of the eagle on his chest and cap, the skull markings on his lapels and the belt buckle

I’ll wash in some very thinned-down brown to create the illusion of leather on the belt and pistol holster. After some research, I’ve blocked in the wires of the throat microphone with some tan color. This also helps in getting them noticed.

Finally I’ve created the impression of hair by gently stippling in some browns, gradually highlighting to a light tan color. So before showing the final picture I want to thank you for reading this article. I hope you liked it and maybe learned something from it. As always, if there are question or there is anything that I should elaborate on…let me know!

Next time, we’ll get some color on the Pz 38t. I’ve got some new colors/brand to test out so I’m looking forward to telling you about my experiences.

1/48 Pz Kpfw 38(t) Mini Diorama Series
Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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