More Progress

I've been on leave this week, so have actually made some decent progress, getting 12 models painted.

First up, 2 T-70 Light Tanks and 4 BA-64 Armoured Cars. The T-70s are PSC and expand my existing collection (I only needed one as a command tank, but got a spare due to a botched order). These are good kits.

The BA-64s are Battlefront, and are good except for the turret spindle, which is easy to misglue,making the turret sit oddly on some of them. With hindsight I would probably have use magnets for these instead.

Next 3 Saladin Armoured Cars for my Jordanians. Theses are Butler's 3D models, and as such required quite a bit of prep to smooth them out. However these arn't easily available from elsewhere and are cheap, so they can be forgiven this.

Finally 3 5cm Pak 38 Anti-tank guns for my Tunesian German force. Again these are the Battlefront plastic kit and have come out well.

Adventures in Speedpaint 2

Fairly quick set of models here (about 1 hour). I've been playing around with Speedpaint again and finished these Reaper Bones Beetle Swarms. Not complex, but quite pleased with the Orc skin over metallic to get a slightly irradescent effect on the green beetles. considering the cheapness they are also fairly nice sculpts.

Again largely speed paint, with the only paints being Charred Brown for the base edge, Oily Steel as the green undercoat and a couple of strokes of US Field Drab on the brown beetle shells for texture.

Here Trisha disturbs a log pile and gets an unwelcome surprise!

I quite like the Reaper Bones models for these, as they are:

1. Cheap, so not a massive issue if it doesn't work out.

2. 28mm, so a different scale to normal.

3. Fantasy, so a different colour pallete and theme to normal, allowing me to be a bit more creative, try new techniques and use colours I wouldn't usually.

Maybe putting the speedpaint techniques into better use later this year, to get some board games stuff painted. We will have to see.

M113s

 This weekend I've managed to finish some M113s for my Jordanians. Five in total, one for a commander and a platoon of four. These are Battlefront kits as per the previous M113s. 

Vehicles of the Desert

I'm back with another update. In fact I've got 10 models painted this weekend! This is significant as it picks up my progress this year, so far it hasn't been great for painting numbers.

First is 6 Panzer IIIs. These are Ausf Ls with the long 5cm gun, which is typical of the Tunesian period that these are for. They have been split into a HQ of 2 and a platoon of 4.

The models are the latest Battlefront plastics and are a nice kit, fairly quick to put together and nicely detailed.

Second are 4 jeeps with 106mm recoilless rifles for my Jordanians. These are Battlefront resin and metal models, and I think they have come out very well.

Adventures in Speed Paint

So, this month I picked up some Reaper Bones Bloodscale Kobolds (as they were 6 models for cheap), with the intention of experimenting with Zenithal highlights and speed paint on them.

I'm fairly happy with the results I got. The casts have a couple of issues, lacking crispness in some areas (round the feet being the worst case). However, making use of the zenithal highlight technique and the extensive use of speed paint, I got all 6 of these done in about 2.5 hours, about 25 minutes a figure.

The only 'proper' paints I've used are Vallejo Charred Brown (base edge), Iraqui Sand (teeth and claws),  Tinny Tin and Oily Steel (weapon metallics).

They have come out pretty well. Also painting 6 models in this time has shown me some definite advantages for speed paint, especially for items which arn't going to see the board that much or for a long period of time (critters, for example). I can see this approach getting used for more board game pieces (Rebellion, for example).

Below, the adventuring party encounter the Kobold clan in a dungeon passage way (my patio, another experiment).

Special Transport

 So I've been a bit quiet for this month. That's because I've been working on a special project. One of my employees has retired, and as his retirement present I have built him a British Railways FNA Nuclear Flask Wagon

These are easily available in OO scale, but less so in G, which is his scale. As such, I had to scratch build this one on a chassis off eBay. It was a lot of work, about 30 hours, but he was pleased with the end result, and I guess that's what counts!

Panzer IV Special

Today, after a long wait, we have 3 Tunisian period Panzer IV ausf G, the notorious "Panzer IV special". Famed for their hard hitting long 75mm gun, they are capable of knocking out any tank of the period.

These 3 are from Battlefront and are from the new plastic kit.