More men in blue and a Tank Commissar

Hi folks, last time we were showing off a couple of Death Korps in their WW1 French/Belgian-inspired scheme (blue grey). Today we have better photos and another pair have joined them!

Eagle-eyed readers will have noted the deliberate mistake from last time. The green sash that has been a unifying spot colour across a lot of the guard I've painted for this client were absent. Oops. Meant to do that obviously. Fixed now. The remaining two DKK are minor conversions of the command packs from Forgeworld and more evidence for me that DKK really are the way to go for Imperial Guard if the wallet will bear it. The faceless thing means that twinned bodies impact far less than in other armies. Just swap out the arms and you have a new feel of model.

Truth be told, there isn't a lot to say about these that wasn't covered in the previous post. One thing I forgot to say last time though was about the choice of the grey areas. I could have used two separate greys - German Grey would have been a great choice for the darker areas - but by using the same grey and just darkening and lightening it for the two areas you get two apparent colours without having two different hues. This doesn't matter much but it helps if you are going to introduce a strong fourth spot colour like the green. Technically the eye sees the four different colours and should be starting to twitch (three is pretty much the limit before you have to be careful about clashes and garish-ness, totally a word). Instead, the eye sees two shades of the same hue and two other colours. Much happier. This is a finicky thing but an example of the kind of oft unconscious thought processes that go into making colour choices when you have a decent grasp of colour theory.

In a similar vein, this tank commissar was driving me nuts. The gas masked face was simply not working in the same rubberised fabric as the others. It just disappeared into the other black tones (note the Val German Grey uniform and German Camo Black-Brown leather trenchcoat). Frustrated, I ignored it while I worked through the other areas of the model. Finally it was finished and I had to face facts that the face wasn't working. The whole thing was just a null area. Then I remembered seeing a photo of WW1 German storm-troopers who had painted stylised skulls on to their respirators. The mask was kinda skull shaped anyway so I went with it. Really helped. Finally he had a crude face and a point of interest in the model. Plus, y'know, an actual death's head will help his terror-cred no end, right?

That's all for today folks

TTFN