Vallejo (and Other Paint) Observations (and Frustrations)

A hobby rant follows:

So I guess this all stems back to 1983, when I started using ModelMaster enamel paints on micro-armor.  Somewhere around 1994 I noticed that my Soviet tanks, all painted Medium Green, were nearly as many shades of green as I had Russian tanks.   The colors were everywhere, some colder, some warmer, some darker, some lighter, again, all painted the "same" color, ModelMaster Medium Green.  I was quite surprised at ModelMasters quality control, or lack there of.

Not too long after that, Vallejo paints made their way onto my paint bench, and I switched over to 894 Russian Green.  It was reasonably close to some of my earliest MM medium green tanks, and I just went with it, without much concern for the overall accuracy of the color.  What I wanted was consistency, with the expectation that I could match the color from the same manufacturer 5, 10, or 20 years down the road.

Now this was naive of me, as I had already seen the disappearance of the Polly-S, Humbrol, and Pactra's Military lines of paints, but I was still young enough (and hopeful enough), that I expected some stability in the product lines.

I never used many of the old Humbrol's, and only a selection of the Pactra Military's, more of a loss was the transition of Polly-S to Polly Scale.  At least there, colors were still available in some cases (I just used up the last of my Polly-S Light Yellow about two weeks ago).  There was more frustration over the Polly-S change, but the ModelMaster inconsistency really caught me by surprise, so I went heavy into Vallejo after giving it the initial try, and reading a lot of good stuff about it.  

Flash twenty some odd years later, and I find myself in a similar situation with Vallejo.  It started a couple of years (or so) back, when I discovered that my 894 Russian Green, had become 894 Cam. Olive Green with a slight change in color.  More recently, I've noticed a bunch of changes if names and/or colors, which I'm guessing has been all over the model forum for some time, but I don't frequent any of those, so I'm whining about it here.

Earlier this year, I had trouble finding a new bottle of Vallejo 887 Brown Violet, after some time, my local shop finally got in some new bottles of 887 US Olive Drab.  The color seemed to match pretty well when dry, just the name was particularly different.

More recently, I changed over to newer bottles of 890 Reflective Green and  892 Yellow Olive, neither of which changed names, but the colors are noticeably different.  One bottle of Reflective Green is much yellower than the other, and the same is true of the Yellow Olive.  The last of the recent bunch is 889 Olive Drab, which is now 889 Olive Brown and is much darker and less green.

I remember years ago on TMP, when during a discussion about how many paints we had (many were in the 100s of bottles), member Scurvy Bartella made a comment that he had relatively few paints, and basically that we all needed to learn to mix colors.  At that time, I often added figures 5, 10, 15 years after painting the original figs for an army, sometimes many hundreds of figs (multiple times even), and preferred being able to save time and match from a bottle, whenever possible.  It is faster and more convenient.  To me, this didn't seem like an outrageous request or expectation. 

ModelMaster's pseudo demise with the sale to Rustoleum (who I have been in touch with, and who doesn't seem to know what it is doing), has been frustrating as I depended on the enamels for specific applications, where acrylics were less favorable, or not well suited.  This has also increased my dependence on Vallejo, which now seems to be in the same boat as the other hobby paints before them.

I know that there are other brands out there, but my needs are such that the internet isn't fast enough, particularly with respect to work projects, where something comes to me in the morning, and has to leave that afternoon.  It is equally frustrating with respect to hobby projects, as I usually find that I have hobby time, at the moment that I find myself with hobby time.

Not sure what I'm going to do at the moment.  The local shop invested in a Vallejo rack, but has had trouble getting new stock  almost since the day they bought the rack.  I hate to drop the line from use, and turn my back on the local guy, but not being able to depend on consistency and availability is a problem for me, both personally and professionally.

I'm considering switching to a line that I have to order over the net in hopes of relieving the consistency problem, but that will increase the availability problem.    I find it funny in the age of technology and instantaneous gratification that I have a much harder time finding paint, glues, brushes, plastics and virtually all sorts of hobby supplies, than at any time since the late 1970s.

Anyway, here are a few pics of the bottles, showing the differences. 

887 Uesd to be Brown Violet

Differences in Yellow Olive

 and Reflective Green

The Change to Olive Brown and

difference in 894, formerly

Russian Green

Rant over.

And on a side note, I did mange to paint 119 stands of 6mm US Cold War infantry this weekend.  Cold War progress continues.

Busy Weekend for a Change (6mm Soviets)

It's funny how it comes and goes; for weeks I get almost nothing done, then this past weekend,  I painted 272 stands of 6mm infantry.   Soviets, spanning the 1958-1982 time frame.  Not much to look at, but amounts to about a third of the Cold War infantry that I yet needed to paint.

They still need flocked, but the paint is done on them.  Next will be East Germans, then US forces, the next largest group of figs.

Four Weeks, Six Figures

Yup, took me four weeks to paint six figures.  At this rate, I only need 220 or so more years of lock-down to finish my figs.  

Anyway, here's what I got, a few figs from another post apocalypse faction, "Mama's Crew".   Mama runs a farm, and along with a few women of the wastes, takes care of some children of the wastes.  You'll be seeing more of her in the future.

Top photo above, "Mama" (the first fig) is "Madge" from Hasslefree, and the other two are are from Brigade Games Post Apoc line, I think named "Helga" and Poppet".

Bottom photo, the first two are also from Brigade Games, and the last is a Hasslefree fig I believe.

And here are the kids:

There were painted sometime back, the first four are from Hasslefree, the last from Leading Edge, I think.

Now I need to grow some miniature crops.

Hobby Progress a Little Slow, But Steady

As work has ramped up, my hobby time has decreased greatly, being limited mostly to a little weekend work.  I've been basing and priming the Cold War infantry with, more or less, 48 company sized formations with some additional supporting stuff based, and about 30 of them primed at this point.  They don't look like much, but they take up a lot of space on my table.

Otherwise, I've been slowly painting a few figs for my post apocalypse, but nothing to really show there yet.  I also received a few figs from Black Scorpion.  My first order with them went smoothly and the resin figs are beautiful.  They are 32mm, and stand a little large among my mostly 28mm stuff, but not too bad since most of the 28mm stuff is over-sized a bit anyway.

One post-apoc fig and some old west stuff; they will all serve in my post-apoc gaming.  The old west figs will get a touch of  post-apoc-ness added to them, and will be part of a new faction.  I still need one fig crucial to the the new faction, and once found and finished, look forward to getting in a few post-apoc games.

Cold War Infantry Arrive

I received my Cold War infantry order from Heroics & Ros a couple of days ago, and here is what 1066 (or there abouts) 6mm infantry look like (plus four aircraft):

I'm still amazed that I needed that many figs to fill out my forces.  These should allow me to complete various infantry formations for France, FRG, UK, US, USSR, and DDR across four decades.

There are a small number of older H&R WWII figs (Bazooka teams and whatnot), and a mix of both old and new H&R Cold War sculpts included.  Each formation will consist of only one type, older or newer figs, as the style and height is a little different between the two.  Most 1950s and 1960s formations will be the older sculpts, with the 1970s formations made of either old or new (not mixed within a given formation though), and 1980s all being the newer sculpts.

I do want to mention that I am particularly appreciative of H&R doing French figures with the MAS49/56 rifles.  I was originally a bit let down at the idea of either using the FAMAS equipped figs or US WWII with M1 rifles for the 1960s and 1970s French.

Along with the infantry, I picked up a couple of Yak-28, an AN-12, and a Jaguar.  I really wish that I could find a source for Mi-4 helicopters, but no luck so far.

These will probably set on the shelf for a few weeks, while I finish up some post apoc stuff that currently covers my work table.

A Little More Post Apocalypse Junk

I finished another small batch of post-apoc bits.  After changes at work, this is all I've managed in two weeks.

The table of weapons is from Crooked Dice Arm's Dealer set, the barrels are 1/48 scale Tamiya, the blue-gray stacks of boxes are homemade, and the gray crate is from Victoria Miniatures.  At the rate I'm going, I should be done painting this stuff about 2178.

Lights, Camera, Action... and Dice?

Several years ago, I read what turned out to be a very entertaining biography, written by an actor, producer, and director movies.  The most curious thing about the book was how familiar some parts of it were.  I have never been involved in acting, theater, or movie making, so the familiarity of portions of the book took me quite by surprise.

The first instance of familiarity occurred, when the writer talked about the passion he felt as a child, while seeing his first theater presentation, a musical that captured his soul, and would impact the direction of the rest of his life.  He talked about this passion at some length, about what he felt in relation to the presentation, and his enjoyment of becoming involved in the process a little later in life.

It was curious, not in that I shared the experience related to theater or acting in any way, but that phrases he used to describe his feeling about the experience were nearly quotes of my own thoughts about my hobby.  What I was reading was so familiar to me, that it almost felt violating at times.  At the same time,  felt a particular joy in reading this, and at the thought of sharing these emotions and sensations with another person, even if it was with respect to interests that were so far apart.

As I continued through the book, and he went on about the experiences of his profession, there was a recurrence of this experience with respect to my hobby.  It was inviting, and comforting, and yet in some ways, still almost unnerving at times how familiar his emotional experience seemed to me.

Eventually, he talked about directing movies, about the joy of creating the sets, with attention to the lighting and sound, about trying to create the feel of a place and time, about injecting the sensations of "experiencing" the set, and how the character of the set, was so much a character in the movie.  And, again, I understood everything that he described.  It was sometimes like reading my own words with respect to creating the game.  His movie was my game.  At least in spirit.

When I create my games, create the settings for my game, there is a similar experience, starting with researching the setting, the period, the feel of being there.  I explore not just the military aspects of the environment, but the flora and fauna, the architecture, weather and seasonal patterns, the culture, the daily goings on, the psyche, what are the peoples daily experiences, what is their world view, etc.  And how the goings-on depicted in my games change, or might change, all of these things.

As I create the settings for my games, I try to immerse myself in the environment, feel and smell what it is like.  What are the sounds surrounding me in the environment.  I imagine the stories behind endless details, about the origins of equipment and buildings, or how the families came to be there.  I see the evolution of the land and buildings leading to the time of my game.

I feel the oppressive humidity of the triple canopy jungle, the ocean breeze sweeping into the coats of my island, the taste of the fine dust that permeates everything in the desert of Iraq and wastes of my post apocalypse. 

I feel the energy of the tanks engines rumble,  hear the car tires on the pavement, feel the rush of land racing by under the power of jet engines, and hear the call of the alien beast marking its territory.

There are of course limits to what I can present on my table top.  limits to finance, time, and skill, but in my mind, like in a movie, I see it all, action in living color, I feel the earth under my feet, smell the stink in my nose.  I experience the adventure of the game in every way that my mind permits.  Immersion.

At the same time, I realize that the entire experience is corrupted by my subjectivity.  I don't really know what it was like to live at the time of the Claudian conquest, or to be a native on the island before it was known as Ponape, or know what it is to be an Afghan resisting the Soviets.  

I can only speculate, try to understand, and hope that I don't insult the reality too much through my interpretation.  And while my games may have more similarity to a movie than I initially understood.  I understand too that they are the culmination of infinity less work and skill, than the movies that I now compare them too.

Afterall, as so many gamers say, " Its just a game."

But it feels like so much more.