Painting Challenge entry 7: Grenadier Guards Armor

Finished these guys late on a saturday just in time for the vehicle Fortnight challenge. Definately not the most imaginative choice compared to some of the others, but I needed to get these done to get some support for my US Airborne troops.

The minis are the Shermans (and Fireflys) from the Open Fire box that I got about a year ago. Finally gotten most of them done, with only a platoon of Germans and 2 Pak's left. These were a bit of a pain to build up to be honest and there are a lot of seams that probably should have been filled, but I was lazy :)

Painted (or decalled) them up as Grenadier Guards. Decalling took a lot longer than I anticipated as there are alltogether around 70 decals on the 8 tanks. And I did skip adding a few recognition stars... Not 100% sure about the positioning of them, as most of the reference pics show all the unit insignia etc. in different places. Paintwise I decided to take a bit of artistic liberty and paint all the tracks etc. rust colored just to add some variety and color to the paint job. In reality a tanks tracks don't really rust when it's in constant use, but it just looks better than black with metal chipping.

I went for a heavily weathered look with a lot of chipping, oil washes and dirt added to make them look like they've been through hell. Probably not the most realistic look as I have a feeling that muddy and beat up looking tanks wouldn't be tolerated, especially within the Grenadier Guards. Turned out quite nicely, eventhough I think adding oil streaks etc. at this scale didn't work out as nicely as I had expected. Thin lines don't show and thick ones look out-of-scale. I only went with one coat of dirt on them as I was getting too tired after fridays partying :) Laziness taking over as they aren't meant for showcase anyway.

 

My next entry is nearing the finish line. The final part of my Norse Gaels just needs some decals, a few washes and tufts on the bases to be ready to go. Next couple of evenings booked for other things though, so might end up being weekend before I get them sent to Curt.