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07 June 2013

A Desert Diversion in 1:48 Scale

Occasionally I like to try my hand at figure painting, usually while waiting for another project to set or dry. Recently I was given an almost complete Tamiya 1:48 Africa Corps set, for free, by a generous eBay seller. I've been thinking that Tamiya's figures at this scale fill a gap in the market and have wanted to try painting them for a while.

So now I had the chance, my first thought, they're a bit smaller than the figures I'm used to. (I always forget to put something in the picture for scale when photographing models, head to foot this figure is about 30mm / 1.2")



My background is that of a figure painter in heroic 28mm and 54mm scales, which I've been painting the best part of 20 years. In this time I've developed a preference for paints from Games Workshop's Citadel range while finding Tamiya paints rather frustrating to use for brush work. So with an infantryman picked out it was time to overcome my Tamiya nemesis.

I started with an undercoat of Tamiya fine grey primer (which is fantastic stuff) and then airbrushed a light coat of Tamiya XF-60 (Dark Yellow) as I wanted a clean base colour to start with as shown above. This was a mistake, I'd picked up the wrong desert colour... So I brushed XF-49 (Khaki) which was meant to be my original base colour before highlighting with XF-59 (Desert Yellow), XF-60 (Dark Yellow) and XF-57 (Buff). Citadel paints were then used for the skin and some of the finer details.


I did wonder if painting the face and eyes at this scale was possible. Originally I decided not to but it was just getting to me, I couldn't leave him with no eyes! My experience at figure painting has taught me the face makes or breaks a model and so eventually I had give him some eyes (and some soul, I guess). I will probably dust him up a bit with some weathering powder later but for now I'm really pleased I managed to paint a figure at this scale. For a first attempt, I think it turned out reasonably well.

Overall a fun diversion, I'm sure this Infantryman will have others joining him in the future.



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