Tank (Spanner) Girl

Hi folks, today we have some of the wo(men) behind the armoured might of the Imperial Guard. A mechanic to keep them running and a commander to aim the gunning (I'll stop that now). First off, the mechanic, or Tank Spanner Girl as I'd named her:

I wound up painting this model twice. The first time I was just not happy with the result, so I thought "what the heck, I'll have another crack at her". Stripped, repainted. Still not happy. I figured I couldn't possibly have cocked up such a simple figure twice in a row. The commission brief was simple enough (to fit the brown Krieg I've painted before) and the colour scheme was sound. So what was wrong? Then it hit me. She didn't look like a mechanic. She looked like a pin up from a car mag "'Ere luv, 'old that big spanner and we'll take some shots...". Clearly she needed more mechanic cred. Nothing I could do about the sculpt (she must have been warm in the workshop or something) so I gave it more thought. Grime! Was the result of that thought. Proper mechanics are dirty. Initially I tried just using the Ammo Oil Stains paint. This was way too shiny (model is much, much more matt than the photo indicates) and too brown. It's designed to indicate spilled fresh oil. So I mixed some black dry pigments (forgeworld ones) into the oil stains and tried again. This time it was entirely made of win. The right consistency, the right colour everything. I softened each stippled layer with odourless turps and overall applied 3-4 layers. I now realise that the reflectiveness in the pictures is the microscopically thin layer of the turps that still hadn't cooked off reflecting light. Doh!

Anyway, this fixed her. Win! On to a friend, a dismounted tank commander (possibly destined for the leviathan, possibly just a disembarked chap for when tanks become sad and explode mid game:

The model is a cut and shunt conversion of a tank commander body and a cadian set of legs. The sword he came with had such a bad miscast (hollow) that it just disintegrated on assembly. Fortunately I had a perfect alternative in the form of a cutlass from the Free Company box. I figured that like sailors, tank crewmen would appreciate the easy-to-draw-in-confined-spaces curved blade over the normal straight guard sword. Maybe he's friends with a navy armsmen. Who knows. Painting wise he's nothing special. Dark grey and gloss black to fit with the previous tank crew I painted for the Krieg. The pink flashes on the cuffs and epaulettes are to finish the WW2 German tank crew vibe (yep, pink, it actually works quite well).

And that is all! Short one but at least there were shinies!

TTFN