Who would have thought that a long distance shot of some speed painted microarmour would elicit not one but two queries as to how they are painted? So, Benoit and BartD, this entry is especially for you :)

First up, a close up (really close, I used a macro filter on the lens of my camera) of an infantry stand and a Challenger I. In their neighbourhood on Flickr you can find two extra pics of three stands each for comparison.

These pictures link to the Flickr photo pages where, as always, you can select ‘All sizes’ and then choose the ‘Original’ view for a really embarrasing close up view of proceedings.

Both the tank and the infantry have been painted with literally only three colours. Of course, I cheat a bit and take up some of the colour of the base onto the tracks of the tanks and onto the infantry, so I guess there’s four colours :).

For the infantry, the colours and mode of application are:

• Foundry 27A Storm Green shade. Heavy drybrush with a brush easily twice the size of the figure
• Foundry 5B Fleshtone. Dab on the faces and hands
• Foundry 34C Charcoal Black highlight. Paint on the weapons

For the armour:

• Foundry 27A Storm Green shade. Heavy drybrush.
• Foundry 34A Charcoal Black. Paint on camo streaks - about three to four per vehicle, fairly large
• Vallejo Beige (the number has worn off the bottle :) ) - light drybrush all over

When I do the bases, I use the dark brown for a heavy drybrush (well, wet brush actually) across the tracks and suspension of the armour, and take up the final drybrush colour of the bases (Decoart Hobby Karamel, a beige-ish colour from the local crafts store) in a light drybrush across the infantry.

And that’s all. That’s how to paint half the world’s firepower in a few hours.

As to base sizes (Benoit’s question) - I base everything on 1” square bases, except stuff with long barrels, which I base on bases long enough so that the barrel does not overhang the base (to try to avoid the all too common spaghetti barrel problem). In the case of the Challengers and Bravehearts, that’s a 40x20mm base from my DBM days.