Dynasty Models 1/9 U.S. 82nd Airborne

by Dino Krafczyk

Okay, this is my first attempt ever to write for a blog. I hope I don't screw up too bad.. ;)

I found this nice resin bust of an U.S. paratrooper in the special offers corner of my local hobby shop. Normally resin products, especially that large, are quite expensive, but I got this one for 2€ - too good to be true!! It was made by Dynasty Models, a korean company, and the quality is superb. I like the expression on the guy's face. Somewhat heroic and somewhat ticked off..

First I washed the resin with a mild soap and lukewarm water. There are chemicals or something in the resin that will make the paint come off very easily if you don't wash it first!

Then I painted the face. Normally I would have started with a light flesh tone enamel base colour, but the bust comes in the typical, light beige resin tone that is just perfect. I applied a rather thick coat of a good quality burnt sienna oil colour and immediately began to carefully wipe it off again with a wide sable brush, cleaning the brush with a piece of tissue paper between wipes. The most important thing with this technique is to not use any thinner or turpentine on the brush!!! Otherwise there will be just a big mess.

When done correctly, the oil paint will leave only a subtle and transluscent coat on the raised areas of the face where the base colour will show through and it will stay dark and opaque in the recessed areas. After that the face should already look quite impressive and have a lot of depth. After drying (which may take a long time!) I painted the beard shadow with a subtle coat of dark umber oils, let that dry, and then followed a very careful drybrush run with a flesh tone. The cheek bones were painted with the most subtle coat of red oil paint and can barely be seen, but that's exactly what I wanted. The same red colour was used for the lips.

As you can see, I use the word "subtle" a lot. The steps I discribed above can easily be overdone and then the face will look scruffy or like a clown! So subtlety is the key to success..

After having painted the eyes, eyebrows and hair the face was finished and I painted the uniform and the helmet using enamel colours. For the uniform I used a light khaki tone and the shading was done with olive drab oil colour that I mixed with white to match the tone of the khaki. Since the bust is quite a large scale I used less contrast than I would on a figure in 1/35 or 1/72. Then followed a drybrush with a lighter khaki tone and the details were painted. The helmet was done using dark olive drab, drybrushed with a light olive tone.

That was my first time to paint something in a large scale and I'm very pleased with the end result. I hope I could give you some hints on how to paint a face with oil colours and maybe you wanna try it yourself. I only wish I would have taken some pictures during the painting process.

Maybe next time... :)