Wehrmacht in Winter

I just finished up a commission of some Germans all decked out in their winter finery.  My customer is working on getting together a 10.5cm battery as well as a 15cm bettery, both fully decked out with all the tow vehicles everybody tends to ignore since they're not used much in-game.  He wanted to paint the crews himself so I just had to paint up the guns, vehicles, and do the base-work.  This time I painted up a full 15cm battery, two Kübelwagens, four Sd Kfz 7 halftracks, two Kfz 68 radio trucks, four Sd Kfz 11 halftracks, two Opel Blits 3-ton trucks, and two Maultiers.  He hadn't quite finished the crew for the 10.5s so the guns will have to be painted and based up once I have the crew.

The Radio Trucks.  The antenna assembly was a freaking nightmare to put together but I think they came out pretty well and feel sturdy enough. 

 Sd Kfz 1 halftracks.  I was unsure what to do about the whitewash on the canvas but after some researching I found that the crews would usually apply the whitewash on the sides of the canvas covers.  

Sd Kfz 7 halftracks

Kübelwagens.  I decided to do an ambush pattern under the whitewash but it doesn't show through particularly well under the whitewash.

The 15cm battery.  This was my first time painting up the sculpted artillery bases and they're pretty great. Unfortunately I didn't think ahead to the snow stage and much of the painting I did on the various details sculpted onto the bases was covered up.  

Opel Blitz Trucks.  There are supposed to be four but I was accidentally sent two of these and two Maultiers.  The proper trucks should be coming with the next batch of stuff.

  

Opel Maultiers.  These aren't painted for winter because they were sent by mistake and my customer just told me to do them like the rest of his Germans rather than send them back.

This project taught me a lot about winterizing stuff.  I played around with how to give the impression of the churned up, sticky mud on the vehicles and on the arty bases where the crew have been slogging around.  I decided to sprinkle some snow flock on top of the mud to suggest that it's still snowing.  I also think I've gotten down my whitewash technique.  I used to paint the underlying color and then gloss the vehicle before hitting it with hairspray and airbrushing on a coat of white.  This is a pretty well known way to simulate whitewash; the hairspray lets the white coat be scraped away to show how the whitewash would gradually be worn off.  This time I skipped the hairspray and just did the white right over the gloss coat.  In the past I've had problems with the hairspray making it too easy to wipe away the white and leaving me with too subtle an effect.  Scrubbing a stiff, wet brush onto the still drying white layer gave me a far more controlled effect.  

Thanks for checking in.  Next up are some 15mm platoons for Chain of Command