Back to the Sands of North Africa

There must be some trouble brewing up amongst the sands of North Africa. After the British RHA Battery I did some time ago, and the Afrika Korps Panzergrenadier Company that followed, this time,  Editor in Chief Bill  sent me a British Motor Company to paint for that very same theater. Having reviewed all the bits were okay, I set myself to work.

Having cleaned, assembled and primed everything, I decided to break down the load in order to speed the process. Painting first the vehicles, then the figures, and finally the objectives included in the pack.

Painting the Vehicles

Being a Motor Company, there are quite a bit of vehicles included:

• four three-ton lorries to carry the infantry platoons
• three Jeeps, for the platoon leaders and company commander
• a 15 CWT Lorry for the second-in-command
• three Universal Carriers for the scout platoon
• five HMG carriers for the HMG platoons

Surely, this force likes to drive around in style…

When painting vehicles, I find that to obtain the best result, one should have the large, flat surfaces. You inevitably have to have some slight variations, while being obviously all painted in the same uniform color. Clearly, we are not aiming at having a mottled look, but to represent the natural fading of the painted metal due to weather exposure, especially in extreme conditions like in the desert. In order to achieve this effect, my recipe is to work with successive layers. I drybrush quite heavily at first, and more lightly afterwards.

I started by basecoating the metal parts with Brown Sand, and slowly built up the color with layers of Dark Sand. I drybrushed one over the other, until it seemed about right. The tarps were painted in Khaki, while I used Black Grey for the tires and the tracks, and picked up the tools with Beige Brown for the wooden parts and Gunmetal Grey for the metal bits. I added a general wash with very thinned-down Peat Brown ink to add more depth and bring everything together. Once the decals were added where relevant, each vehicle was dusted with a very light drybrush of Buff, and then sealed.

Painting the Objectives

This part was fairly simple. The two objectives are a disabled Crusader tank, which was painted just like all the other vehicles, and an ammo dump with a stack of crates. The crates were painted in Beige Brown and Brown Sand, and washed with diluted Umber Shade.

The Bases

Over the years, I have tried several techniques for desert bases. These are, in my opinion, less forgiving than others, since the general lack of grass tends to leave any problem quite visible. The method I am using currently gives some good results, I think.

First of all, I prepared the base by using DAS modelling clay to build it up, in order to hide the step that the metal base of the single miniature has. Over this, once dry, I used PVA to cover it all with sand. I used regular sand I got at the beach, nothing too fancy. I just passed it through a sieve, so it was a little more refined, that was all.

I used very diluted English Uniform to paint the sand, and I mean extremely diluted, so that the paint runs everywhere almost by itself. When everything was dry, I drybrushed it with Desert Yellow first, and with Buff as a final stage. Some Noch tuft was glued on some of the bases, but very sparingly.

After having sealed everything with matt varnish, the Company is ready to fight!

I can sense some trouble is about to happen in North Africa…