... cheered on by DaveM, I went for the ochre look for the PSC Pz IVHs:
Here they are with the base coats in place. I used Revell acrylic ochre, which, like all the Revell acrylics is pretty thick, not far from being a paste - rather apt I suppose for German late war tank painting. So, this is what three pretty heavily diluted coats looks like over the black undercoat. Reasonable, I'd say, and, yes, I really do think I prefer the more yellowy look to the greeny hue.
And, being Friday, it was time for a beer:
Brakspear (pronounced brakespear) Oxford Gold. I'm an Oxford man myself (
Nuffield and
Wolfson), so I'll have to say it is a fine beer - and it is! Light, clear tasting. Good stuff.
And I like the bee emblem too. Bees and beehives have a long history as symbols, of course; first because of sweetness - 'out of strength came sweetness', and then of a native, English, socialism. By the early 19th Century, the English working man and woman used the beehive as their political symbol - much, much more useful and gradualist a symbol than that which emerged from the twisted imaginings of German philosophy. The hammer and sickle was little but a threat, but the beehive and the bee - good enough to adorn an ale.
That Corsican Johnny was fond of the bee as well, if memory serves. Nice work on the panzers, I had wondered if you'd invested in an airbrush as it seemed such a neat job and the coverage was so good.
ReplyDeleteNow was he, the rascal? I'd thought that he stuck to the 'N' with laurel wreaths. Was it the implication of industriousness that attracted him?
DeleteNo, no airbrush - although I have often thought about one, only they seem so expensive. Just a lot of thinning of the paste like Revell acrylic, then gentle brushing.
Always a bit hard to judge from online pics, but that Revell colour looks a tad "sandier" than the Humbrol ochre. Darker disruptive colours (3-colour scheme ?) and maybe a filter will certainly tone down the whole effect.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Dave
Hi, Dave, yes, in the flesh, as it were, it looks less sandy. It might also have been that I used three coats of pretty heavily diluted paint over the black. While searching through my paints tonight, I came across a Games Workshop paint with some utterly stupid name that I thought might do for German ochre. But, that way lies even more madness!
DeleteNothing to do with bees or ochre but since your sidebar mentions "Sapper" you might like this
ReplyDeletehttp://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/the-making-of-an-officer/
Hi, Michael. Yes, I've got that blog on 'favourites', although I have to confess that I don't visit it often. I was, in the past, very taken with the history of the Great War (I also wrote my D.Phil. thesis on British combatant writers and the Great War), but, as I've got older, I find myself shying away from it all. Odd.
DeleteNot that odd at all, really, my dear chap. I did my DPhil on late medieval English chivalric literature, and at the time I couldn't get enough of the Middle Ages. At some point I had my fill.
DeleteTanks look great and a good choice of beer. Does the copy of Funnybones suggest you are doing research for a skeleton/zombie army perchance?
ReplyDeleteNo, but I do love 'Funnybones' - now on the second generation of small boy bed time reading - we love it, '"Good idea", said the big skeleton'...
Delete