Hallmark 6000 Naval Miniatures Review
Kommodor
1:6000 miniatures line from Hallmark.
The following link is an independent review of these miniatures with
some photos. Enjoy!
Rich
http://www.seekrieg.com/Hallmark6000review.html
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Stephen Holmes
techniques, here's what I did to paint around 180 US and Japanese ships
over 5 2 hour sessions last week.
Before I run through the numbered steps, let me emphasize the key ideas
here.
Keep things simple, the scale is really too small to permit fancy
camouflage schemes.
Washing really brings the detail of these little masterpieces to the fore,
so I used it extensively.
I used acrylics bacause of their ease for washing and the fact that they
dry fast.
I required a total of 5 colours, black, white (Lots of white), dark blue,
dark green and a wooden deck colour, I also added satin varnish for
finish.
If you have a few spare models, set these aside to check the pigments and
density of the washes, they may turn out OK, or you may just junk them.
I'll probably order an additional pack of destroyers with my next big
batch precisely for paint testing purposes.
Finally, if you're doing lots of ships at once (I was), then make up
enough of each colour to do the lot, the most time consuming part of the
job was mixing the paints.
Here are the steps, the sea base and ship can be run in parallel until
they are fixed together.
1. Undercoat ship and base. I used a very pale grey, since this gets
washed later on which will darken the overall effect.
2. Apply a sea colour to the bases (Grey, green and blue mixed). If you
have grek remaining from step 1 this is a good starter for your sea mix.
3. Wash the sea, add black to the original sea colour, thin it right down
with plenty of water and splash it over the sea base, It will sink into
the depths of the
waves and when it dries you'll have a cool seascape.
4. Fix the ship onto the base. For this I used a pack of superglue with an
integral brush. My experience is that superglue isn't terribly permanent
for metal minis, but this fixes the ship down until you reach te
varnishing stage which should make the bond much more permanent.
5. Dark Wash. Mix up a wash of mainly black, blue or grey tint can be used
to alter ship colours a little. Slop it all over the ship and base.
If you got the density right, all the details of guns, TTs and
superstructure wull suddently be picked out, it also adds a bit more depth
to your sea.
If too thin, apply a second coat later on, if too think - didn'tI warn
you to try thins stuff on a spare destroyer first...
6. Wooden surfaces. This is really a metter of taste. Use that wooden
colour and a fine brush to pick out some deck areas if you wish.
This is a good way to distinguish between members of the same class,
but take care not to put wooden walls on your hull, turrett or
superstructure.
7. White Horses - Drybrush the wavetops white Don't overdo this. I make a
very fine wash to either side of the bow, and also in the wake to the
rear.
8. Varnish - I used an acrylic satin varnish, more to protect the model
than to improve the look. Put a big coat all over. (This looked awful on
my test sample, green tint and went on really thick around detail. Good
news was that the layer thinned and cleared out as it dried.
Final note. Use big brushes except for decks, avoid bubbles in your paint
or washes, Use fairly thin paint, since a thick layer will obscure lots of
details at this scale.
And of course - have fun.
Steve Holmes