Painting Party 2

 

L-R. Jeff Hammer, John Kephart, John Drye, Keith Rocco, Mark Franke, Tom Karstens

The crew was reinforced today with two more workers for another successful painting party.  John Kephart continued with land infantry. John Drye loaded the boat people into LCVPs in accordance with Keith's design. Mark Franke painted and applied decals on two  Sherman Deep Water Fording tanks, Tom Karstens began painting another group of land infantry. Jeff Hammer worked on weathering the steel hedgehogs. 

Jeff is new to our group. He has experience with painting figures, mostly Sci Fi and Fantasy. Welcome aboard Jeff.

At first, Keith Rocco and I did some planning on where everything will go.  Keith approved the colors of the sand and water. Everyone liked the TP waves. So, we moved on to other work.

I dug the antitank ditch. Keith provided a photo that shows the anti-tank ditch was lined with wooden log revetments. So I painted a bunch of toothpicks to use for those.

Capsized LCVP in primer

Next, I modified a LCVP to be capsized. John Kephart made a good point about the LCVP sinking aft down because that is where the engine is. So that is how I cut it. This kind of synergy is making the project better. 

Command Villa after laser cutting

Then I drew the plans for the command villa and cut it on my laser.  The villa is reduced in scale as it will be farther from the normal viewing position and we didn't want it to dominate the hill. All of the German soldiers and weapons will be in 1/150th scale (10mm). 

Keith improving the surf 

Keith improved the surf by painting the thin layer of water that the receding waves leave on the beach. He also worked on the white caps a bit. Those simple additions really helped bring the water to life.  The next step will be to add some gloss layers.  It was a treat to see Keith in action painting. 

All in all a great day with some excellent chili and wings for lunch.

The water is looking good.

The LCVP isn't finished, but this shows the look we are trying to get.