Into the Void Part II

When I planned out this vignette, I imagined the section as part of an advanced patrol moving through no-man’s land or scouring a recently vacated enemy position. The lead NCO chewing tea leaves beneath his breathing hood to counterbalance the acrid smell of the filtered air. The weapons of the section are close-in .10 gage revolver action semi-auto shotguns ideal for self-defense. I thought about the drab pallet that I would be using in throughout the scene and wanted to add small touches of oddly vibrant colours. To this end, I added blue and red bands to the cylinders on the weapons; blue for solid slugs, used by most of the section because they would want to be able to react to a close to mid-range threat and red for buck shot used by the NCO as he was on point and would be the first to spot trouble in the trench.

The simplicity of construction in the base design meant that I would need to use a lot of variety in my weathering and highlight techniques when painting it. I went through half a dozen basic highlights before beginning to add consciously random streaks of thinned dark brown on the floor and tan on the walls. These streaks were meant to be covered lightly by successive layers and would provide some variation in the monotony of brown. The decision to add turf, especially such vibrant green stuff, was based on a pile of leftover lawn rubbish outside of my apartment building. I had to walk past this small heap every time I left the house and noticed how the soil beneath the grass would become dark or light depending on how recently it had rained but the patches of grass were consistently bright and “happy” looking. I realized that even though the trench system would have been hastily dug and churned, there would still be some life in the soil. I also wanted to keep the whole thing from looking like and exercise in mud texturing. Hical, James