New additions to the stash

I've never been one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, so when my mate Iván said he was having a clear-out and that he had some modern stuff in 1/72 for me, well,.... I just couldn't say no.

A partially built Esci T-62 - very nice indeed. This MBT can be used by a variety of nations in a multitude of game scenarios.

 

A new unbuilt Trumpeter Zil 157 Fuel Truck -  will be a nice addition on the table for modern game scenarios we've got in preparation.

Two BTR-70 in resin. The box looks home-made and the parts look like resin copies of resin copies. God only knows where Iván got this, where it was actually made, or how it will go together. Resin kits are way down on my favourites list, but I'm game to give it a try and see how it goes.

And finally, (DRUMROLL) the icing on the cake - "UK Falklands" it says on the outside of the box !

I'll unbox these in another post, and they´re well worth waiting for - all very nicely painted up by Iván.



Cheers till the next time,

John

Old Panzer wrecks re-hashed

A few old wrecks on the workbench that had been hanging around.

They are are being fixed up and some home-made steel plate schürzen have been added.

The finished model just to the top-left of the re-hash above is a Corgi Die-Cast model I bought in a hobby shop in Brighton in the UK about 10 years ago (the shop was like an Aladdin's Cave, full of hundreds of old second-hand trains, toy cars and figures). It was weathered to make it look rough and war-weary.

Nearly finished now, the foliage has just been plonked on to see what the final effect should be like.

Hopefully these will be finished over the weekend together with  weathering those two die-cast Flakpanzer IV's  above.

Toy Tree Upgrade

These are Spanish copies of Britains Deetail toy trees.

I've had them in a box since last year, just before Christmas, when I got them in a department store where they were selling shiny plastic plants and trees for Nativity scenes.

As I'd been working on some other scenery stuff over the weekend, and after seeing that the shops are stocking up again on Nativity scene stuff, I remembered I had these hidden away and so I dug them out of their box.

The trunks and branch structure are basically really good.

The only things that needed changing are the radioactive green shiny plastic leaves.

I gave the trunks a drybrush and added some dark foam foliage.

They just need the bases flocking and they'll be finished.

Altaya Sahariana

This is an Altaya Sahariana currently on the workbench that was given to me by my good pal Carlos.

The Waterloo 1815 Italian drivers he stuck in there look really cool.

This is a first test post I'm uploading by email from my mobile.

So if you are reading this and can see the image ok, then it has worked !


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Sent from my mobile

Strelets Colonial British Infantry

Strelets 1-72 20mm Colonial British Infantry

The figures  had practically no flash and are quite easy to paint up and are made from a sturdy semi-hard plastic.

I can’t say I’m 100% keen on this type of sculpting, but after painting them they do have a kind of charm and they fit in well as opponents to  the Strelets Boers.

Italian Infantry Support Group In Progress

A box full of Italians on the go right now and they need a few 47mm guns - which I don't have.

What I do have though are two very old Hasegawa US 37mm guns, plus an unmade one which should (I'm hoping) make some fairly good substitutes for a "Cannone da 47/32"



Inspiration came from a photo from an old Airfix article by Gerald Scarborough.



Two of the ex-Hasegawa US 37mm guns now based and the third unmade kit has now been put together to represent a towed weapon.

The guns, minus their breech blocks, now need painting up. I also need to put together a suitable crew.



I have no Italians with mortars or heavy machine guns but this was solved with some head swaps - a mortar figure from the Esci WW2 French Infantry set, a crouching Esci WW2 US infantry figure and two figures from the Waterloo 1815 Japanese Infantry set.



The Japanse HMG is "supposed" to represent a Breda M37. It's not perfect but it's not too bad either once painted up and when I've got the bases flocked it shouldn't be to obvious.



And some of the Italian figures that are currently WIP.

WW2 Russian Infantry WIP

Some pictures of the Russians I've been trying to finish off.  They just need matt varnishing and basing.

There's a mixture of figures here, mostly Plastic Soldier, with Esci and Italeri figures plus a Pegasus and Hong Kong figure in there too for good luck :-)


Anyone familiar with the Plastic Soldier figures will probably make out that I replaced all their heads, and did a fair bit of head swapping too with the other figures.

WW2 British / Commonwealth Infantry Conversions

The old Matchbox British Infantry and 8th Army sets have a good all-round mix of figures, and greatly inspired by the pictures of converted Matchbox figures posted by Paul on his 20th Century Wargames Blog, and Al on the Plastic Warriors Blog, I decided to try my hand at adding more variety to the poses offered in these sets.

So, armed with a scalpel and geared up into a Dr. Frankenstein mode, I chopped and swapped various plastic body parts and came up with the following results.





These are really bad pictures by the way. I took these snaps in the evening with my mobile, and the yellow light from an "energy efficient" fluorescent bulb is nowhere near as bright or defining as a good old 100W tungsten filament bulb.



The different coloured figures come from sets spanning around 35 years.

The radio operator with the beret conversion above is the oldest and was very brittle - his original head didn't even need slicing off, it just snapped off.

The dark green officer figure in the middle above and the olive-green figure below are about 20-25 years old but no brittleness to be found, and the beige figures are new Airfix/Hornby re-releases.



The head on Jack the Knife on the right there is a copy I made from a 2nd version Airfix commando. The arms are off a Matchbox crawling British Commando.



Quite pleased with the way this one turned out. The hand-gun that the original figure was holding looked more like a water-pistol, so I replaced it with a revolver from a pistol brandishing Esci British Infantry officer.

The final batch of WWII British / Commonwealth figures, a mixture of Airfix, Caesar, Matchbox and a couple of old Hong-Kong rip-offs (in dark green).









And what a difference a nice bit of sunshine can make- it makes the first lot of photos look abysmal.

Hawker Weather Event Group Build

22 April 2012

Hawker "Weather Event" Group Build - Part 1

If you click on the links below to the following blogs, you'll see they've organized a group build based around Hawker aircraft, specificaly those named after particularly bad weather (Tempest, Hurricane, etc.)

• Nick Grant's "20mm Gamer"
• Paul's "Plastic Warriors"
• Jacksarge's "Wargames Ramblings"

The group build is limited to 1/72 aircraft only. What a pity I thought, the only unbuilt Hawker kits I have in my stash are these two 20 year old Revell 1/144 mini kits........

BUT..... using Nick's logic that 1/144 x 2 = 1/72, and under the condition that I build both, well the lads have graciously allowed be on board for the group build !

I dug the two kits out of the cellar this morning and will post a few WIP pictures along the way once the group build begins after 01st May.



You can join up on the group build by contacting either Nick, Paul or Jacksarge on their respective blogs.

The deadline for signing up is 30th April.

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05 May 2012

Hawker "Weather Event" Group Build - Part 2

I'm falling behind the other fellas out there who have been steadily progressing with their respective Hawker "Weather Event" group builds, so following on from the first post (Part 1), I've uploaded some pictures here of the sprues of the two Revell 1/144 Typhoon and Tempest kits I'll be putting together.



After opening the old dusty 20-year-old boxes, the instructions look and feel like old yellowed parchment, but the kits are in perfect shape, no missing parts and they look two nice and simple models.

No pilots are included though unfortunately.






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13 May 2012

Hawker "Weather Event" Group Build - Part 3

Moved on a little with the 1/144 Revell Hawker Tempest and Typhoon kits this weekend..

Once I put the kits together I found that the parts fit more or less OK, but there are a fair few big gaps that needed filling.



I wanted to build these with the undercarriage up but the raised wheel assemblies are a terrible fit, so much so that on one of them I gave up and chucked the bits in the bin and covered the hole with filler.



I also had to dispense with the propellers as the blades broke off from the nose cone as I took the parts off the sprue - so no choice now, I have to make a spinning prop whether I like it or not and will have to cut out a disk of clear plastic and stick it on later.

As far as the cockpits are concerned, I did a dry-fit to see if I should paint the model first then stick them on, but they didn't fit very and it would have left huge gaps, and as there were no pilots anyway, I just stuck them on, filled the gaps and decided that I would paint them black when I finally paint the models.



I used a GW white spray primer (skull white in the background) which is a pretty good base colour for hard plastic models and doesn't swamp the detail.

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26 May 2012

Hawker "Weather Event" Group Build - Part 4

Spent an evening earlier on this week on the Tempest and Typhoon kits.

On the photo below, the model on the right was my first attempt at painting on the cammo. I used a GW "Catachan" green and a shade of Vallejo grey (can't remember which right now), but neither of the colours convinced me, especially as the GW green was too transparent and didn't have enough pigmentation.

The second attempt convinced me more - GW "Codex" grey and a Vallejo Panzer Aces "Feldgrau" green.



After painting the cammo, I painted on a yellow band on the leading edges of the wing using a couple of strips of Tamiya masking tape.



The rockets should be, I suspect, dark green or some other drab colour, but I wanted them to stand out so I used my wargaming artistic licence and used white.



And finally the decals

Arrrgh..... the damned bloody decals.

When I stuck them in water the first problem was that manufacturer's text on the decal sheet broke up into thousands of sticky little pieces. These little pieces invariably got transferred to the kits when I put the decals onto them.

The decals themselves also cracked when I put them onto the kits and when I tried wiping them down to avoid silvering they cracked even more.



Anyway, all good fun and a valuable lesson learned - don't use 20 year old decals.



I'll touch up over the silvering and try a little handpainting over the decals to fill in the cracks and then maybe add D-Day stripes and cut out some transparent disks for the props and add the nose cones and finished.

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30 May 2012

Hawker Weather Event Group Build

Finally finished the Revell Tempest and Typhoon kits over the weekend !



I mentioned in an earlier entry, the propeller blades broke off when I took the parts off the sprue so I made a "spinning" prop by cutting out a plastic disc.

I should have spent a little time sanding down the nose cones really as there are visible marks where the blades came off, but too late now and I suppose at this small scale it's not too noticeable.



After the disaster with the decals I had to hand-paint in over some cracks and bits of decal that were missing, and touched up over the silvering on the edge of the decals.

I painted the D-Day stripes on the wings but didn't bother with the rear fuselage as it would have been a nightmare trying to paint in and around the aircraft ID and roundel - in retrospect I should have painted them on before adding the decals (it's amazing how I realise how dumb I am after the event).



So there we are, finished at last.

I must say I really enjoyed participating with all the other fellas who were involved and have had a good time reading the updates on everyone else's respective blogs.

Thanks all, John