It's the Flames of War Friday before the Battlecry Convention so its full speed ahead here in the Hobbies Jungle. But I've still found the time this week to continue with my Japanese test models

Painting Japanese Infantry Part 2

In Part 1 I covered painting the uniforms and most of the detail bascoating. This week I painted the bayonets with Vallejo Model Air Steel, to give a nice, polished metal finish and also painted the bread bags a 50/50 mixture of Japanese Uniform and Khaki.

I also painted a very small rectangle of Blood Red on the each collar of the uniforms, to represent the Japanese red infantry badge.

Time for a wash

With the basecoats complete its time to give the whole model a wash. I used Agrax Earthshade and liberally applied it over the entire model, followed by a more targeted Black wash on the guns and in the deepest recesses of the uniform.

Once these washes were dry, I used a hair dryer to speed the drying process up, the brighter yellow Japanese Uniform paint I'd used for the uniforms was nicely toned down and the details on the model were much more defined.

Finally I used a small amount of Sepia Wash on the flesh areas, to give represent a slightly darker Asian skin tone.

Highlights

Once the wash stage is complete the infantry are looking pretty good but I wanted to bring out the details a little bit more by adding some quick highlights. Using a fine detail brush I spent a minute of so adding some Japanese Uniform to the raised edges of the uniform tunics, trousers and puttees.

Don't forget to Varnish

The final step of painting metal models is giving them a varnish to protect all your hard work. Even when you've used a good primer, the paint on metal models can come off when you transport and handle them, so you need to add some protection.

A Gloss Varnish will give the most protection but not everybody likes the very shiney finish which it leaves. I'm planning on airbrushing a medium thickness coat of gloss varnish, followed by a Matt Varnish to tone down the shine.