WIP and Winston Churchill

A work in progress post plus a single completed (sans base) personality figure.

I was unable to resist the urge to get a copy of the Operation Sea Lion book for Bolt Action, and local supplier Mighty Ape (who have a pretty good range of Warlord) also provided the launch figure of Winston Churchill with a tommy gun which provided some fun (and eye-strain) painting up. He still needs a base, which will of course have to be "green and pleasant".

Aside from Winny, I've been working on, but failing to complete some Konflikt '47 US heavy infantry, and two LRDG 30 cwt Chevrolet trucks.

Various home-life related things have meant I haven't had quite the same time or enthusiasm for painting these last couple of weeks, so the US troops are still sitting there waiting for detailing. The basic colours are done, but washes and highlights are needed, and as they are almost small walking vehicles I'm planning to use some armour weathering techniques too.

I did however get enthused to start work on my LRDG patrol, which along with some SAS sections will make a Bolt Action army using the "Behind Enemy Lines" theater selector. The LRDG portion of the army will be using LRDG Chevys from Warlord, Offensive Miniatures, and Company B; starting out with two Warlord trucks that have been waiting for quite a while.  I really like the Warlord LRDG vehicles, but they only have machine guns, the Offensive and Company B trucks will be providing a Breda and 37mm AT gun portee respectively.

The Warlord trucks, and a Jeep that came as part of the same bundle, have resin bodies with metal wheels, bumpers, guns, and crew. The trucks bodies are two part: a common front end, and two different rear sections stuffed with stowage. Each also comes with three crew: a driver that is the same for both, and front and rear gunners that are specific to the variants. The crew all have separate heads, with extras to choose from, so quite a bit of variety is possible.

The trucks went together very easily - one front section had a slightly warped under-carriage, but that was quickly fixed with some hot water while cleaning the pieces.

After assembly all were primed with Stynylrez yellow primer, the wheels were left off and painted separately. (The bumper is missing from the Jeep in this shot - I found it later in the packaging.)

I wasn't sure how best to spray the wheels, so some cocktail forks and a kebab skewer got turned into a makeshift frame with the wheels threaded on. These were first primed grey, and then painted with VMA Panzer Black Grey.

I thought I might try pre-shading the trucks, so sprayed dark (VMA Khaki No. 3) and light (Reaper Splintered Bone) on areas before applying the basecoat. It was a fairly subtle effect but is visible on the models; I still need to work on applying thin coats of paint.

The trucks were given an overall spray of VMA UK Light Stone, and then freehand camouflage patches of light blue and desert pink.  I had a hunt through my paints before settling on VMA Hellblau (RLM65) for the blue, and a 3:1 mix of VGA Pale Flesh and VMA US Desert Sand for the pink.  The first attempt at pink used a 1:1 mix, and looked about where I want the colour to end up, but once weathered would I think have pretty much disappeared, so I over-painted with the more pink mix.

Currently the trucks are getting their crews and all the stowage painted, and I'm waiting on decals from Company B with "T Patrol" markings.

M5A2 Coyote & Sherman T - Konflikt '47

After getting a bit distracted by the Marmon-Herrington and X-Wing, the US troops for Konflikt '47 have finally got back on track with a M5A2 Coyote light walker and M4A9 Sherman-T medium tank completed.

The walker does need a base, but I'm still considering how to base the US troops generally and want them consistently themed, so that can wait a bit.

Both were primed in the same way as the M8 Grizzly walker with Vallejo US Olive Drab surface primer, and then base-coated with some colour modulation using VMA US Olive Drab as the base, darkening with RLM 70 Black Green and lightening with Yellow Ochre.

Decals came from the Warlord Sherman kit and from a Rubicon Models generic Commonwealth sheet. On the walker I added a US flag on the right shoulder (as I'd done for the Grizzly) to blur the lines a little between vehicle and troop markings because of the walker's humanoid shape.

For the Coyote I decided to go a bit further, and as it's a one man suit decided to add rank markings. Carefully cutting apart a German cross provided some appropriately sized chevrons which got added to the left "fore-arm".

  

The Sherman's Tesla gun was painted with a Vallejo Dark Blue and then given several progressively lighter coats by adding Reaper MSP Sapphire Blue and LED Blue, each leaving a little of the darker colours in the depths. The final colours were pure MSP LED Blue and then some fine lines of MSP Maggot White.

 

When it came to weathering I changed the filter a bit.  I was happy with how the Grizzly turned out but felt that the Dark Brown for Green enamel (intended for use on Soviet armour) was perhaps just a bit dark and decided to try a lighter tone.

Both the tank and the walker were given a wash of Ammo of Mig Brown for German Dark Yellow. This didn't darken the olive drab as much but did seem to enrich the colour. I'm very happy with that result and plan to use the same wash on my heavy armoured troopers.

Streaking grime was used on the tank particularly and I had my first go with using an airbrush to spray mud off a paintbrush to create splashes.  Tip for the novice: reduce air pressure.  After cleaning up the initial mess I gently added new splashes.

I'm mostly happy with the final effects, the weathering is something I need to practice and work on; it's all a learning experience.

I also have five US heavy infantry partially completed, but am starting to feel LRDG-ish, so we'll have to see what gets painted next.

Bandai X-Wing 1/72 - mostly out-of-box build

Something slightly different - even considering my getting distracted and working on this and that. A couple of weeks back I received a Bandai Millenium Falcon 1/144 kit as a belated birthday present from my wife.  I'm intending to paint, detail and light the kit so my son was a bit disappointed that we couldn't just dive into an "out of the box" build; he and I have built a few Bandai Gundams in past.

I decided to pick up another kit from the same same range and build it with him just as it came, not painting, using the vinyl stickers rather than waterslide transfers, and so on. A local supplier was having a bit of a sale and I bought a Bandai X-Wing Red Squadron box.

The kit comes with two X-Wings, one at 1/72 which we planned to build, and one at 1/144 which I'm holding on to and will paint up to accompany the Falcon. Like all of the Bandai kits I've seen the engineering and detailing is superb, and the kit goes together without requiring glue. In many ways they're more 3D puzzles than traditional military kitsets.  

The kit is branded as "Rogue One" and the supplied stickers have squadron markings for Red 1 through 5 (by adding additional red flashes to the wings). The pilot was supplied in white plastic, with some helmet stickers, and the astromech came with gold stickers.

My son however was keen on Luke's "A New Hope" Red 5, which is where a little painting came in. He was happy with the vehicle markings as supplied, but wanted the pilot to be more like Luke and the astromech as R2D2.

So, orange jumpsuit with white harness, chest panel, etc., and a blue and silver droid. I also decided to paint the cockpit too in a very basic scheme as I'd some problems with the cockpit stickers. The large stickers are fine, and nicely detailed, but the the small stickers don't have much surface area for adhesion, and when you're trying to affix them to complex shapes it can be a little frustrating.

The paint-job was fairly basic, after priming the jumpsuit was painted with Reaper MSP Lava Orange and shaded with Army Painter Jumpsuit shader. I had intended to use AP Prison Jumpsuit (from an AP Zombicide paint set I'd picked up) but the AP orange was watery and useless. All of the other AP paints I've used have been great; I don't know if this is just an isolated case, or if the Zombicide sub-brand are different. The shader was fine, I'll have to try out the other paints in the set. The rest of the painting was mostly Vallejo this and that, and the helmet got the supplied waterslide red rebel symbols.

One warning for kit builders: the pilot cannot be fitted into the assembled cockpit. While the pilot and droid were being painted the build continued. The droid can be put in by removing a single part and sliding another (no glue remember), but after the pilot was ready we discovered that a large proportion of the fuselage had to be carefully disassembled to get his feet under the dashboard.

After finally getting the pilot in, many, many more stickers were added in order to get Red 5 ready to make that one in a million shot.

And now back to Konflikt '47 US troops... probably...