For this week's Flames of War Friday I've been working on the US Parachute Rifle Platoon from the Open Fire Starter Set.

Firstly I made sure I had all the tools and paints which I was going to need. As far as tools go you'll want a good set of clippers and hobby knife to clip the models off the sprue and tidy up the small mold lines. I'd also recommend grabbing some popsicle sticks to glue batches of 4–5 men to. This makes it easier to paint the small infantry models as your fingers won't get in the way.

I also recommend at least 2 different sized brushes, a medium sized brush for doing base coats and a fine detail brush for the smaller detail work, I used the Army Painter Insane Detail Brush.

Once again I'm using the Vallejo Model Air and Model Colour and have used the following colours on these US Paratroopers:

• Grey Primer
• German Camouflage Dark Green
• US Dark Green
• Green Grey
• Light Brown
• Khaki
• Chocolate Brown
• Flat Flesh
• Gunmetal Grey
• Black Wash
• Flesh Wash

Step 1: Prime & Base Coat. As always the first step is to use a primer, whether by brush, airbrush or spray can. This bonds strongly to the plastic and subsequent paint coats will adhere better to this foundation. I airbrushed Grey Primer and then gave a base coat of German Camouflage Dark Green.

Step 2: Uniform. Next paint the uniforms with US Dark Green, leaving a small amount of the previous green in the recesses. I did this by the zenithal highlighting method across the entire model, firstly with US Dark Green and then a 50/50 mix with Green Grey.

If you're painting using a brush then I'd recommend drybrushing this lighter mixture.

Step 3: Details. Now it's time to paint the details and for this you'll need your fine detail brush. Paint the boots and wooden parts of the guns Chocolate brown. Then paint the webbing and backpacks with a 50/50 mix of Chocolate Brown and Green Grey, as well as the helmets and hand grenades. Then go over the webbing with Khaki and also give the helmets a light Khaki drybrush.

Step 4: Metal and faces. Paint the metal parts of the guns with Gunmetal Grey. The hands and faces get a base coat of Light Brown, followed by a coat of Flat Flesh

Step 5: Wash. The best way to add shading to the model and smooth off the transition between the colours is to use a wash, especially on small scale figures like these. As an added bonus the wash will also cover up any small overlaps and mistakes you made in earlier steps. I gave the models a wash using Black Wash over the whole model and gave it plenty of time to dry.

Step 6: Highlights and Extra Detail. The last stage is to go back and pick out the raised areas of the model with a highlight of a lighter paint mix and a fine detail brush. For the uniform use a 50/50 mix of US Dark Green and Green Grey; for the wood use 50/50 Chocolate Brown and Light Brown; for the webbing and back packs use Khaki; and for the face and hands use Flat Flesh mixed with a little bit of white. You can also shade the faces using some Flesh Wash painted directly into the recessed areas.