For those of you who have been reading my blog the last couple months, you will have realized that I am participating in the 12th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Within the past weeks I took on my most ambitious painting effort to date, and probably my largest for the foreseeable future. As part of the challenge I was given the task of painting something that had a desert theme. So, of course I needed to do something to match this sandy and lofty challenge, but what?
“Remember the Alamo.”
Oh yeah, I have one of those! Purchased nearly a year ago from Old Glory Miniatures and languishing on my “to do” shelf.
Why languishing you say? Well, the whole thing, when put together is 40″ x 58″ (see below). Even when piled up, and not laid out in it’s proper configuration, it fills a 44″ x 18″ shelf. Most of the buildings and walls are 2.5″ tall, but the largest piece, the Church is 3.75″ tall.
I started out laying it out as you see above, just to see what I am getting myself into. Next I used a Dremel to grind out windows and doors/entrances that should be open, and made some minor repairs to cracked pieces. This is going to be fun to paint.
You know, one good thing about the pandemic is that I now have plenty of disposable masks laying around that I can use when grinding resin. Nasty stuff, but oddly enough has a rather sweet, almost apple-like smell when grinding. How odd. Once I was satisfied with opening up the windows, doors, and other entrances that I wanted I gave everything a quick bath to clean up resin dust and mold release agents. No pictures here; too wet.
The next couple nights, and a few early mornings before work, I ended up priming ever piece in Krylon Colormaxx Paint+Primer Matte Sand Dollar (5600). I went through an entire can of primer, plus part of another before I was finished with the job. There are a few spots that only got a light coat, but I figure they will look just fine once I started with the dry-brushing.
Since I had much of Thursday devoted to, yet again, another online training where I primarily just had to listen, I decided to go ahead and start on the dry-brushing. I am using both George Nelson’s “The Alamo: An Illustrated History”, as well as my own photographs from visiting the Alamo multiple times during my many TDY’s to Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio.
The first step was tackling the church interior, going from the lightest-to-darkest. The interior walls were slathered on with Folk Art Vintage White (4646), and the areas of rubble also got a light dry-brush coat of the same color. The wooden ramp was painted/dry-brushed with Apple Barrel Brown Oxide (20511), and more of the same color was lightly brushed onto the rubble to provide more depth and variety. The exterior brick was all dry-brushed with Folk Art Linen (879). The marble columns and sculpture at the front of the church were also brushed in the same Folk Art Vintage White as above. I finished up the rubble with a very light dry brush mix of 2:1 Folk Art Vintage White and Pure Black (2957CA/4656). The last bits were dry-brushing the wooden door with the Apple Barrel Brown Oxide, and highlighting over that with a bit of the Folk Art Linen mixed 1:1 with the Vintage White, painting the bricked over windows with Vintage White, and finally the sand bags with a 1:1 mix of Folk Art Linen and Vintage White (then hitting them with the lightest dry brush of 1:1 Folk Art Vintage White to make them pop).
That church looks like it was properly weathered in the desert if I don’t say so myself. There’s great detail, even on the interior of the model. The entire piece took me a whole night to paint, it’s so large.
Saturday was the main day for painting for me. After fortifying myself with coffee I decided to simply work around the Alamo and just knock out as much as I could. Wooden parts, like the artillery battery positions were dry-brushed with more Apple Barrel Brown Oxide, then given a light wash of Vallejo Sepia Shade (73.200) before being highlighted with a 2:1 mix of Brown Oxide and Folk Art Camel (953). Areas of exterior brick were still dry-brushed with Folk Art Linen, with plaster being painted with a 1:1 of Linen and Vintage White. Thatched roofs were brushed with Folk Art Camel, and given a Sepia Shade wash to give depth, and then a Linen highlight. Areas of rubble were dry-brushed with a mix of any of the aforementioned colors, or mixes thereof, to give depth and an interesting visual look to each.
And here is the entire thing in al its glory! Took me about a week and a couple days of working every night, plus all day on an entire weekend to knock it out. I think I’m done with terrain/scenics for a while…
The entire piece did come with two small scenic pieces in metal/wood, the well, and the rubble and flagpole.
I love the fact that one of the details were the outside latrines!
This is a great model. My only gripe is the some of the buildings don’t quite like up like the should. If you see in the above overall images the long barracks don’t quite line up all the way. It’s fixable with how I’ve laid things out, but still annoying. Other than that, a great bit of kit.
Until next time, folks. Where I’ll be painting something… smaller.
Slaughter in the Woods, or Massacre in the Forest