Help Required.

No, I'm not trying to employ anyone! Unless anyone wants to be my full time, personal motivator. I am, instead, coming to you, model makers of the internet, with my conundrum.

Below, you can clearly see that the German cross is a decal. There are no two ways around it. I paint with enamel, and the decal is simply attached using old fashioned hot water, then I sprayed the whole thing with Humbrol Hobby Spray in an attempt to seal it on. But it just looks bad.

On the Puma, where I want to attach the decal, I applied a layer of Humbrol Gloss Cote, let it dry, applied the decal using hot water, then coated it again with Humbrol Matt Cote. It looks pretty decent in this photo. But I am not pleased.

Below is a photo taken with flash. It is still somewhat shiny, and is a slightly different tone to the rest of the model.

Below is a photo just under a normal light. Still shinier than the rest of the model.

I am loath to paint the whole model in Matt Cote, because then it will have a slight shine to it. Shine is something I don't like. But it looks weird having just shiny turret sides.

Does anyone have any other ways to apply decals without it being noticeable that they are decals?

From back in the Day.

At the moment, alongside painting up my soldiers, I am trying to decide how best to tackle the painting of my vehicles. I paint in enamel. I dabbled with acrylics when customizing my Star Wars Miniatures, but still feel more comfortable with enamels. This is proving a bit problematic with a couple of things. I may post about them later. But it means I am not finishing any vehicles any time soon.

As part of my clear out, the one that led to my getting back into modelling, I consolidated a lot of our soldiers into plastic containers. While I figure out what to do about my vehicles, I have decided to just paint up a whole bunch of the men. They have been lying around for over ten years, so why not!

Those commandos need a desperate repaint. They are next on the list.

That took longer than it should have!

They are finally done! Today, as it snows (for the one day per year it snows here) I decided to take the time to figure out how to properly photograph my figures. I think I did okay. 

I base them on pennies and use multipurpose poly filla to build it up. I paint them Humbrol 98, then lathered them in PVA, and dipped them in flock.

SHQ figures

SHQ figures

SHQ figures

I am fairly sure these and the next ones are Britannia figures.

German Recon Unit.

I finally finished my Airfix German Recon set. I painted it up for my early war army and am very pleased with it. The men had the dubious honour of being the first German soldiers to be successfully painted and quickshaded. While I love this era, I am struggling to find rules that give me stats for the early war. So while I have a bit of armour, about 30 infantry, and now a recon unit, they will probably sit around waiting while I figure out what to do. 

Things on the bench.

Happy new year guys, I have a few things going on, but no complete projects to speak of. The first thing to show is my Christmas haul. 

This was a present to myself. I have always wanted to get a Comet, so finally took the plunge. The Sherman Crab was something I thought would be fun to make, more so than just a boring old tank. The Chi Ha was on offer, this will go well with my other Chi Ha and five painted Japanese Infantry. 

Below is the Matchbox Puma I build when I was about 10 years old. Half of the decals have fallen off, the paint job was unfinished, and that one wheel was glued on backwards. The rest were painted black, back when I thought tires were black! I felt it needed to be finished off. I repainted it, painted the tires, changed the wheel round and changed the camo pattern.

 I am hesitant to put decals on right now. An acquaintance of mine showed me a method of application, where you paint a gloss on, apply the decal, gloss over again, then a matt varnish. This is meant to hide the fact that it is a decal. I haven't got any gloss though, so am waiting for that. I have a bunch of vehicles waiting for this treatment.