The Black Devil - Soviet Naval Infantry WWII Bust

The Black Devil - Soviet Naval Infantry WWII

Youngs Miniatures, 1/10 scale, Bust

Painted by 10 ball, July 2014

All painted with acrylics, VMC & GW. W&N series 7 brushes, sizes 0 / 1



Hello,

Thought I would do an article for beginner’s on a larger scale. When I say beginner’s I mean experienced painters who havent moved up to over 54mm scales.

This is also an exercise for me in painting black, which is a challenge.

If you don’t fancy painting this bust, the techniques will apply to any.

As to avoid repeating myself though the whole guide I will say this at the beginning –

1. WATER DOWN THE PAINTS TO AROUND A MILK CONSISTENCY.
2. LET EACH LAYER OF PAINT DRY BEFORE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT LAYER.
3. REMEMBER CONTRAST, CONTRAST & MORE CONTRAST.
4. TAKE YOUR TIME & ENJOY !


STAGE 1. – PREP & CLEAN UP (Approx 1 – 2 hours)

Vital to get a good finish is good preparation. Take your time and get all those pesky mold lines and resin marks off. Is also a good idea to wash the resin
with dish soap to remove any grease etc








Get a good join between the parts, file to get a good fit. Assemble to see if all is ok but don’t glue yet. I always get the metal rod attached at this stage as to avoid drilling the painted miniature.




Be careful with the drill !!!!!


Undercoat; as he is mostly black I have sprayed all GW chaos black with the face separate sprayed bleached bone. (The head is still not glued in place yet)






STAGE 2. – EYES (Approx 1-2 hours)

COLOURS: VMC Ivory; VMC basic skin tone; VMC camo black; GW shadow grey
+ a red / burnt umber.

Now the eyes are the soul of the mini, take your time with them.

1. Basecoat with 50/50 VMC ivory & basic skin tone.

Highlight with more ivory towards the centre of the eye.
Shade slightly with a little burnt umber towards the top of the eye.
Add a little red to the skin tone mix for the inner corners also.

1. Paint the iris in with the shadow grey. Try and get them centred.

With the eyelids cutting both the top and bottom off.
Highlight the shadow grey by adding a little ivory to the mix.

1. With the cam black I added the pupil, add a small dot of ivory at the opposite edge to the iris highlight.

I added a very thin glaze of gloss varnish over the centre of the eye.






STAGE 3. – FACE (Approx 3-4 hours)

COLOURS: VMC Brown Sand; VMC Buff; VMC Ivory; GW Bugmans Glow;
VMC Orange; GW Dark Flesh; GW scorched brown + purples / blues / greens for various washes / glazes.

1. Basecoat with VMC brown sand over 3 to 4 thin layers.

A few washes with dark flesh, control the wash don’t just swamp the face.

1. Then start building the highlights up by adding the VMC Buff to the brown sand.

1. don’t worry is the highlights look harsh, tone them down with glazes of orange / reds and greens.

Note: A glaze is like a wash but even thinner, with hardly any colour pigment in the water.



Drag the glaze away from the highlight ending in a creases of the face.



This process with take time, highlighting and then glazing back.


The result after around 2 hours of glazing.



You will notice ive added more red glaze around the lips, nose, ears and eyes.

TIP: After each paint session take a photo and study and check your work.
Keep in mind that white will reflect the light big time on the photo so the highlights will look overpowered like on his top lip.

1. A few more tweaks. Added a slight unshaven look by adding a glaze of the skin tone with shadow grey. Go easy with this it can look over the top real quick.
2. Added a little camo green to the glaze – its surprising how much green there is in pale skin.

A few more glazes under the cheeks to smooth things over. Tweaked some highlights also.
Think that’s it for the skin for now, Ive really tried to get expression in the face, rather than just a painted face.

STAGE 4. – HAIR (Approx 1 hour)

Base coat with GW balor brown, washed back with VMC burnt umber and some dark flesh.
Add VMC buff to the brown and pick out the hairs making the outer hair lighter.
Always trying for more contrast.

Also used the same colours for the letters on the hat.






STAGE 5. – White Vest (Approx 45mins)

Base coat of a light grey, slight highlights with white.
Ultra blue lines with highlights of light grey.









STAGE 6. – BLACK (Approx 4-5 hours)

COLOURS: GW black, GW shadow grey (the fang), GW karki

Now to start with the actual jacket of the Black Devils are cloth not leather but I thought that looked boring so went with a Mad Max style leather jacket, cool !

Layer the shadow grey on the raised highlight areas and shade down with black. Easy?
How wrong I was, NOT easy, not easy at all!!!!! This was a right PAIN to paint.
Go real easy when shading down to black, to much and you wipe out the grey, to little and you get a horrible ‘line’ between the colours.

1. As with the face drag the washes from light to dark, at first I tried to blend the colours but I soon realized it would take days of blending. So wash / glaze from light to dark worked at half the time.

Fours stages of washing the shadow grey down with black.




a; Shadow grey layer on top b; more added c; wash down with black d; more glaze with black of black undercoat.

1. Didn’t want the edges to strong so went with khaki . This takes a steady hand.

Toned down the blues with a matt glaze with a tiny spot of black added.

NOTE: Ive also done a few orange glazes over the face, it was looking to pale
once I had added the black. Tweaked the eyes also on the blues.





STAGE 7. – BRASS / AMMO / GUN (Approx 2 hours)

COLOURS: VMC Brass, purple wash, VMC gold

1.Heated ammo belts with hair dryer to get a curve shape.
Then based coloured the brass before attaching to the mini.

1. Highlight the brass with VMC gold then wash back with a purple.
2. The webbing was base coated in kharki the using a chalk pastel as a pigment

I brushed on with a make up brush some browns & tant.



The edges were re highlighted with the kharki.

The pistol was washed back gunmetal with black and blues. Edge highlighted with silver.




Brushed on a watered down matt varnish over the ammo belts to lock in the pigments.

That’s about it, finished off base with a pin badge I got off ebay.

I hope you get something out of this little article and give a larger scale mini a try.

MASSIVE THANKS TO MILOSH FOR THE GIFT
10 ball