"How dirty are you?" Topic

How dirty do you like your miniatures when you paint them? Do you like them parade ready and inspection clean? Or do you like them looking like they've been in the field so long that the dirt is more visible than their uniforms?

I figure this could be a poll, but let's discuss.

As for me, I like my figures looking like they've been through the dirt and the mud, my vehicles with some rust and exhaust stains, and my units muddy and worn. I don't think my figures look done until I've weathered them thoroughly. How about you?

I'm not good enough for parade ground uniforms that were issued on Monday.
They already look grimy. 😄

Seriously, I'm a huge fan of "campaign dress".
Whenever anyone asks "What shade of Vallejo Green is appropriate for Baden Camel Grenadiers in the 1847 Phumpha Expedition?" I always say"The bottle that is closest."

I started out on 15mm ACW. I painted them full strength, then dry brushed them lightly in a dusty beige'y brown. After allowance for drying time, I then thin washed them in black.

Filth.

After I've gone through hours of trouble of painting them up, I'm not going to ruin the paint job with a "dirty" wash…

For WW2 and Moderns I tend to make vehicles very dirty, covered in a light brown dry brush and a black wash then highlighting on exposed areas.

I even dry brush brown over infantry boots but tend not to use a wash on infantry.

I find a wash looks best on vehicles with a solid base camo colour, eg WW2 US and Brit tanks as well as WW2 Russian tanks. A wash appears to have less effect on camouflaged vehicles, eg WW2 German tanks.

I use GHQ 1/285th scale tanks where I can and they are very detailed including tracks with individual track links. I paint the vehicle's base camo colour first, then the tracks a dark brown, then black wash, dry brush light brown mud over everything with final metal highlighting on a few individual track links. This gets it close to what I have seen actual vehicles in the field as showing.

I apply The Dip Technique to 95% of all of my painted figures; the other 5% get Magic Wash. Put me in the, down & dirty, column.

I paint, and game with 54mm plastic Army Men figures, and these get paint on their non plastic colored bits and bobs (some equipment, skin, etc.), only, followed by The Dip Technique and a matte clear coat. In the end, they look surprisingly good for what they are. It gives them a, "fighting in the dirt," look, which I really like. Cheers!

My vehicles get a lot of mud and dust, because that is what vehicles look like if they have driven around outside for any time at all. My figures less so, apart from a wash and a dry brush.

It depends.

Military ground vehicles of any scale usually get some dust, typically by dry-brushing light brown, light gray, or both.

I don't usually represent any dirt on flying vehicles (aircraft, grav vehicles, spacecraft). I have put re-entry scorch marks on spacecraft as seemed appropriate.

I don't do anything to represent dirt on personnel, but I usually paint them in camouflage, so it's hard to tell.

It varies.

I block paint my figures and give them a black wash. The wash picks out details, shades folds in clothing and grubbies-up the troops to a degree I'm happy with.

I just paint them. Sometimes they get a wash; most of the time they don't, especially if I primed them black.

For me it depends on the miniatures themselves, how they're dressed & whether the game is at the start of a campaign or after months or years of battles.

I lean toward parade ground. This is partly because I don't do "moderns" larger than microscale. (How can you tell if my 6mm WWII have patched uniforms or are unshaven?) But it's also that horse & musket soldiers are trying for a parade-ground best even on the battlefield, and that I really like to tell sides, regiments and troop types apart. Not much for the overcoat, covered shako and cased colors school of army prep.

"Down And Dirty," has been my preference pretty much since I painted my first figures for wargaming.

Not to say I was ever very good at it, but I think making troops and equipment look worn and used humanizes the figures a bit.

But an absolutely brilliant, "band box" look, especially for elite horse and musket era units, can be inspiring as h…eck.

TVAG

My Napoleonic figures are spotless. My WW1 French are dirty as dogs, as they should be. Depends on the period.

I generally am too worried I will mess up the OK paint job by trying to dry-brush or wash a little dirt or "character" onto it.

I often thought to paint patches and holes in uniforms but never have.

I go for the factory fresh parade ground look. I don't always achieve it. But it helps with identifying the figs from a few feet away in larger battles.

Army Painter Soft Tone is as dirty as I get…

Dave

I frequently paint them parade ready…then add the grunge of realism. Brown washes on pants, specks of a different brown, sonetimes a thin black….

I frequently paint them parade ready…then add the grunge of realism. Brown washes on pants, specks of a different brown, sonetimes a thin black….

Yes, I wash and dry brush always. I also paint varying shades within a unit. i.e. British AWI red. I will paint a quarter of the unit out of the can, another percentage alittle darker and a percentage lighter. I like the non-uniformity for horse & musket units.

Somewhere in between.

When I started, forty-odd years ago, I went for parade ground. Now I thrive on campaign dress for all periods. Weat their stains and scars with pride.

It depends on the subject matter. I paint mostly fantasy and mostly use techniques like black or brown wash that can give a dirty look. But I also use colored shading and blacklining.

When I painted Warhammer Bretonnians, which is a fantasy Arthurian army, I thought the peasant infantry looked good with brownwash dirty techniques. But the knights themselves didn't look right with a realistic dirty look, so for them I used colored shading and black lining.

I rarely go for a "dirty" look unless it seems integral to a figure or unit, but I tend to paint lots of historicals and pre-20th century, no vehicles much, so it's easier to get away with nice clean paint jobs on the whole. I'll do 5-o'clock shadows on pirates, Foreign Legionaires, Jacobite clansmen, cowboys; I'll dirty up cowboy chaps and traildusters and things like that, but that's generally about the limit.

On the whole, I like my toys colorful and bright, that's part of the attraction of the tabletop to me, a lot of soldiers in their battlefield full dress. At least in the pre-Modern era.