Great big whacking tanks

Hi folks, as promised, the KV-1 is finished and is a whacking great slab of green!

Yep, this is the same KV-1 (KV stands for Kliment Voroshilov, the defence commissar at the time of its commissioning) that was the focus of a workbench article about brass etch back in... wow... March. The KV series was designed to be a siege tank and it's armour and gun did indeed come as something of a nasty surprise to the Germans who found that it was just plain immune to anything but their biggest weapons. The problem came when these slow lumbering tanks were compared to the T-34 - so far beyond its time that it ought to have come with a TARDIS - and found somewhat wanting. The up-gunned variants of the T-34 (the T-34-85 - hah, just used shortcut keys to do that, ctrl+K and then ctrl+V, KV, gave me a chuckle) could hit as hard, move faster, presented less of a silhouette and be made quicker and cheaper. Soviet tactical doctrine was never going to ignore the value of having two of something in favour of one survivable something and so the poor KV-1's days were shorter than would have been in other armies.

I've already waxed so lyrical about this kit in the build log that you could make a singing candle but if you will indulge me just once more: Wow, seriously, if you have any interest in WW2 gaming do yourself a favour and join Maisey, Emma and I in choosing 1:48 as your vehicle scale of choice. The scale "feel" is better with the chunky 28mm lads and oh god. The kits. There is no contest between a 1:48 multimedia plastic kit designed for armour modellers - and in the case of HobbyBoss often a reduced version of their hyper detailed 1:35 kits - and the 1:56 resin and "wargamer grade" plastic kits you can get. No contest. I will say that if you are the sort to see your models as nothing but wound counters then stick with the 1:56's they'll go together fast and get you on the table. But if like me you love a bit of armour modelling... no contest, and the range grows all the time.

There's a real problem - well two, but I'll get to that - with WW2 painting, especially Soviet, and blogging: There are only so many ways you can say "Well, I painted the whole thing green. Yup, that's about it". So I shall mostly let the pictures do the talking and assume if you are curious about painting methodology you'll check out the T-34-85 and T-70 articles. Literally nothing is different here save less scratches and dings and subtler dust. The KV-1 simply doesn't go fast enough to cover itself too badly in filth. What's that? The second problem? Oh, painting WW2 troops with any fidelity leaves them rather drab in photos. Sure you can push the contrasts and get a better photo but then you end up with cartoons. There's a reason that high contrast is "studio style" and fetishised by some online, it makes for better photographs. However, painting for realism is my great enjoyment so sometimes I just have to eat the fact that the photos won't be great.

Just to show how big the KV-1 is I've assembled a little motor pool of my Sov armour along with happy Ivan the flag waving goon. The KV-1 makes even the T-34-85 look a bit compact and bijou, the T-70 looks like a toy! For those who are curious, these latest additions have swelled my Soviet ranks rather nicely and are now clocking in at well over a thousand points. While I won't be able to shake the Sov habit any time soon I think I need to start thinking about the next project. My problem is that I want to do too many, which to choose? Heer pioneers? Oh, but those Panzergrenadiers are really shiny... Commando raiders? But then there's the Sikh's in Burma who are an unusual project... or 8th army/Afrika Korps in the desert... you've always been fascinated by the Paras and Market Garden... but heck, there's Band of Brothers yanks too, if only they'd make plastics for either of those...

[indecision fades gently to black...]

TTFN

Using Brass Etch - KV-1s Workbench

Hi folks, I was working on the T-70 a little while ago, glueing little bits of carefully bent brass etch into place and realised that I had never actually talked about how to use the stuff! Fortunately I have a Soviet armour addiction at the moment (can quit any time I like, ok? OK?!) and so the beautiful Hobbyboss KV-1s Ehkranami on my workbench would form a nice test bed for a basic tutorial.

Now most brass etch is things like the above, very, very thin components that can't be made strongly enough in injected plastic. Compare the scale thickness of these components and similar things on the Leman Russ. I will confess that that is not a fair comparison as the Russ has been designed to go together easily and withstand the rigours of rough wargaming handling. The KV-1 here has been designed to be an accurate scale model that can also be used for wargaming. If you're careful. But this is what I am really liking about building my Bolt Action collection, there is the option for some really, really nice scale modelling as well as a nifty wargame. Most projects will never need more than the above, but the scale-modelling bug is contagious and the temptation to take things further is very real. I'll caution you that if you are the sort of modeller who rages at a part that doesn't precisely fit (been there) the next products miiiight not be for you...

The part in question is engine intake grills, you see Hobbyboss have helpfully modelled louvres leading into the darkness of the engine. This is odd though as the kit part that covers them is completely opaque plastic. On the T34-85 kit the grills were fairly straightforward and thus included on the etch sprue from the get go. On this tank (the only KV-1 I'm likely to have so wanted to go large on the modelling) I'd need to replace them with aftermarket etch if I wanted them delicate and lovely.

Hauler (along with Eduard and loads of others) make a bewildering array of enhancement products to make the injection kits more accurate, or a different version, or just more characterful. It's easier to do this in scale modelling than in sci-fi/fantasy modelling as no-one owns the design of a 70 year old tank. Anyone can make a KV-1. Parts for a Stormraven are more tricksy. Anyway, lets get on with tutorial flavour stuff rather than musings. There is nothing, nothing in the world that pings off and gets eaten by the carpet monster like brass etch. It's the combination of stiffness, springiness and extraordinary lightness that allows etch components to seemingly defy gravity with a sad little "ping" noise never to be seen again. To prevent this, simply stick some low-tack masking tape to the back of the etch sprues. That way when you cut through the attachment points it can't go anywhere, delicately remove the parts from the tape with the knife and you are good to go. As you can see from the middle image I do this even with the really, really simple components.

Once you've got the parts cut out they often need to be bent into 3D shape. Handily, this kit needed both square bends and rounded shapes so I could show you a lot. There are some magnificent tools designed to assist with this process and if you are working in 1/35 (54mm to us wargamers) I'd really recommend them as trying to get a straight edge bend on a six inch long bit of etch is beyond tricky. For little 1/48 (28mm-ish) scale you don't necessarily need them (I don't own any). I just use two single edge razor blades. These are really, really useful tools anyway and come in massive boxes for not a lot of money so you can always have a sharp one. Lay one razor across the line where the bend will go. Press down and it clamps the part down. Slide the other razor under the part and line them up. Then lift the underneath one and it will neatly bend the part into a perfect angle. Word of warning, measure twice, bend once, if you need to straighten and re-bend it will snap.

If you've never needed tweezers before you will need them for this. You just cannot do this with fingers along. For this project I needed another three semicircular supports gluing on along the frame. The easiest way to do this is tip a little blob of superglue onto a bit of scrap plastic and then holding the part in the tweezers run the edge to be glued through the blob. This controls how much superglue goes on. Get it in place, let it set, then put a dot of thin superglue on the part and give it a sharp puff of air, this will disrupt surface tension and capillary action will distribute the superglue along the stuck edge. Make sure you run a bit of paper underneath before you put the assembly down again to clean any excess otherwise you'll be shaving it off the table with that razor. Once all the supports were glued I turned my attention to the grills.

If you need to get a nice rounded bend, just find a paintbrush with an appropriate diameter and gently smooth down the part over it. Go for slow, smooth gentle bending, don't do it all in one go as you don't want to get a sharp edge in your nice gentle bend. For this kit, the front edge also needed to be pressed flat to fit (this bit was just impossible to photograph). Keeping most of the grill on the paintbrush, press the edge flat against a flat surface with the razor. Once that was taken care of I also needed to flatten the edges along the length of the guard. I put the grill in place so that the supports would keep it in shape and then flattened the edges with the razor. Glue into place and it's a win.

Once in place the difference is clear. Or it might not be. Frankly, this is one of those things that is just for me rather than because I think dozens of people will go "oooh you can see through these!". Most people will never want to do this, plastic is more than enough. I'm just enjoying myself - thus suspecting a slight masochistic edge to my modelling - and thought I'd share what I knew. If you want better info on this kind of thing then you need to plunge in to the pages of magazines like Model Military International (where I learned) and similar publications. There you will find people who want to make sure that there are the right shape, size and number of rivets on a tank. Products that work like a waterslide transfer to make weld seams. It's a magical world with a lot that we wargamers could learn from. Just take it easy on the delicate brass when making a wargaming model, thin brass antennae, while beautiful, will just get destroyed.

And there he (to Russians, vehicles are "he", even ships whereas to us they're "she", just one of those things) is in all his glory. Hobbyboss have knocked this kit out of the park. Do yourself a favour, zoom in at the fenders under the turret, drink in the detail. Can't wait to paint this fella!

Hope you've enjoyed this, I've shied away from work in progress stuff before as I've focussed on the end result of the painting. Do people like this? Do you want to see more like it? Quite happy to do build logs as well as painting. Thoughts? Stick 'em in the comments, I do read them all.

TTFN

Teeny Tiny T-70 (Bolt Action)

Once again: Privet Tovarishchi! The mighty bear of the Soviet army have another tooth with which to grip the throat of the fascist grey wolf! The mighty... what? It's not, in any way mighty? Oh, well... the plucky T-70 light tank!

annoying "shinyness" in all these photos, actual tank much more matte.

The T-70 was one of a whole line of Soviet light tanks, it was first made in 1942 and replaced the T-50 infantry support and T-60 scout tanks. This is actually the T-70M variant because the '70 had a nasty habit of exploding due to it's engine configuration. Not long after the T-70M was replaced with the T-80 the Soviet Union abandoned light tank production all together and replaced their role with armoured cars while focusing on medium and heavy tank production. I think the T-70 was unfortunate in a way because it was developed at the time when the T-34 was king of the battlefield. A medium tank with the performance and speed of the light tank will always draw uncomfortable comparisons and the '70 just wasn't up to the job. It didn't help that the tank could literally only fit 2 crewmen so commanding an engagement was all but impossible for tank commanders who had to focus on gunnery. Anyway, enough history (more here), on with the show!

The first thing to note about this kit (the MikroMir 1:48 T-70) is that it is tiny, it feels like a 1:72 kit in many ways. In the photo above the T34-85 looks enormous compared to the '70 despite it being far from a big tank (wait till I break out the KV-1 or Maisey brings the Tiger). I should confess, at the time of assembling the kit I was ready to turn this article into a symphony of frustration at this kit. I hated assembling it. Lousy instructions of the mislabelled parts, "lets mash 12 steps into one, they'll figure it out" school; soft details on hard brittle plastic; unnecessary brass etch components (every ridge on the turret is a piece of brass you have to fold) and the worst track run I've made to date. All told on and off it took about eight hours to make. Approach this kit with caution, "Made in Ukraine" is unfortunately not a mark of quality it seems. That being said, it is the only (to my knowledge) 1:48 scale T-70 kit on the market so I feel fortunate to have one available at all.

Despite all that grumbling? My hate for this tank vanished under the first spray of primer. The various components were unified and the tank emerged. I had also by then done more research (seriously, to find out where to fit the rear road wheels, the instructions did not show it...) and discovered that some of the features of the kit that looked properly rough were accurately representing the tank! It's build quality is terrible! Not surprisingly, for Soviet armour, painting proceeded in exactly the same way as the T34-85 kit. Vallejo Cam Olive Green, highlighted by adding Green Grey, shaded by adding black. Tracks were painted in Vallejo Track Primer and Ammo Track Rust, the rims of the wheels in Ammo Rubber & Tires. There really isn't much else to the normal painting (Soviet armour is seriously easy to paint, "any colour so long as it's green!"). From then on it's all weathering.

Weathering was - again just like the T34-85 - just Ammo Enamels loaded onto a brush and then blown off onto the model with bursts of air from the airbrush. Starting with the lightest, and the greatest coverage, and working darker and darker for fresher and fresher splashes. I dampened the upper surfaces of the tank with odourless thinner and then ran the lightest earth colour into the creases, panel lines, around the bolts and anywhere else that dust would gather. Did some streaking anywhere that rainmarks would form and that was that. Last two things to mention are markings - again, hand painted by the crew so just a freehand "51" and a "For Stalin!" on the side - and the exhaust system. I decided that the crew had recently had a new unpainted exhaust fitted but the pressure of the conflict led to the tank being thrown back into service with no extra paint (there are stories of the tank factory in Stalingrad literally rolling off the production line, unpainted, covered in welders chalk marks and being crewed and driven straight into the conflict outside). As a result, the exhaust, which are all cheap metal, rusted fast. I wanted to play with the ammo rust colours and they are fantastic. Really good for the "jeffrust" stippling thing. I started from a German Camo Black-Brown basecoat and worked up.

So a fun paint job on a really, really hellish build. Shakes out as a fairly enjoyable tank. No idea how it will fight on the table, but I'll let you know. You see this is the first step of a Tank War army (list above) designed to reflect roughly the proportions of different models of tank in the Soviet Army, i.e. mostly T-34's with a big KV-1 and a little nippy T-70 for scouting. Two lethal squads of SMG armed tank riders to sweep aside the opposing infantry round it out (great help not having to have separate transports for them and it's very Soviet). I know we'll be facing a Tiger at some point... eep.

That's all for today tovarishchi, keep the vodka handy and your gun oiled for winter is over and spring will bring the attack once more!

TTFN

Inquisitorial Rhinos

As promised, here they are! Two shiny new Inquisitorial Rhinos for the Inq28 project:

The client and I debated how to go on the colours of these pair. Initially, we thought to assign the various tanks (the scout car, these two and a land raider to come) to individual warbands and tie the colour scheme to them. But that would limit usefulness and versatility. Instead we thought a consistent scheme across the transports (camo for the scout car) would make it seem like the vehicles had all been requisitioned from the local Ordos pool rather than Inquisitors transporting battle tanks across the galaxy. The client had done quite a bit of kit-bashing with nifty plastic eagles, - from where I know not sadly - Scibor plates on the door and a Cities of Death terrain piece replacing the front of the right hand rhino. This meant they looked great but needed restraint in paint scheme to stop looking too busy.

There's a trick with rhinos and two tone schemes where if you use the accent colour in the cut-out bits of the sides and carry it across the front you get a natural break between elements of the scheme. Gold made a pleasing contrast against the black and works alongside the red. This left just the decorative elements which needed a fourth, muted colour to stop the scheme becoming gaudy. Stone seemed to be the answer there. I think it worked. The weathering needed to match the normal urban basing I have been doing for the rest of the Inq28 models. This meant fairly limited muck and dirt, not much mud in the inner cities. Instead just grey concrete dust supplied by AK Dust Effects and lightly airbrushed on. Urban pacification rather than battlefield conditions.

Loved those forgeworld Inquisition rear doors for ages. I knew that stone plaques would be nice for the script between the gold rails but what of the rear icon? I needed it to stand out while tying in to the existing scheme. As I was pondering this I was considering the self same problem on Inquisitor Huron and the image search for marble for his shoulder turned up the answer to this one too! A red marble plaque worked nicely and blended with the red in the scheme.

Matching the rear doors, the forgeworld inquisition top hatch is also cracking. Stone icon and very shiny gold icon for air recognition purposes. Tanks often have a prominent symbol on the roofs - especially if their side has air superiority - in order to prevent unfortunate blue-on-blue accidents. After all, no thunderbolt pilot wants an inquisitor's death on their jacket...

Finishing with a quick detail shot of the launcher and lamp. The launcher is the first time I've painted this part and been happy with it. Adding the burned ends of the tubes made it look less "part loaded" and more "part fired". The lamps are the new recipe I have for the unlit glass. Dark Reaper is shaded with black ink and then highlighted first with more Dark Reaper and then Thunderhawk Blue. A dab of wet effects finishes the effect. I tend to prefer to paint the lenses of lamps unlit as otherwise you need a bunch of object source lighting to make them work.

That's all folks. Back to infantry tomorrow while I muse on how this scheme will roll on to the Land Raider.

TTFN

A trio of purple tank snipers

Arr shipmates, time for more purple marines!

This time it is a bevvy of Predator Annihilators. Three of these things caning out nine lascannon shots a turn at space marine accuracy is enough to make any armour commander's eyes water.

TwiddlyBits are back too, you'll also notice that the weathering is a touch more subtle than last time. I managed to kill off the ridiculously saturated Karak Stone's coverage by thinning it with a bit of dilute isopropyl alcohol. Isoprop is one of those handy chemicals in painting as it is excellent for cleaning things, thinning alcohol based paints and in this case: killing the acrylic medium a little to thin the paint coverage a bit.

While we are talking about alcohol based paints, I am growing less enchanted with the Vallejo Liquid Gold. As it gets older it seems to start to clag up and form clumps. This makes it infuriating to both mix smooth and apply, you have to fiddle around and inevitably spend time cutting in with the basecoat as applying it cleanly is a pain. Sadly, it seems to be brilliant for a few weeks and then it starts to deteriorate. Did I get moisture in it on some overly humid day? Who knows. Suffice to say, I think I'll be trying out the Army Painter gold to see if it is as much a straight copy of the old citadel metallics as their excellent steel colours are. Frankly, all I want is shining gold.

Something I am very happy with though is the lovely patina achieved by the AK Interactive Rust Streaks. The trick of being able to use white spirits to alter the coverage and location of the paint without harming the acrylics underneath is very nifty. I will do a review at some point in the future.

The TwiddlyBits have become a major part of the army's character and helps tie the crew to the tank through the shoulder pad decoration. Speaking of crew:

Something I had never thought of doing; using a guard torso in a space marine turret. I like it. There's no reason at all that space marine tanks should be driven and crewed by space marines. In fact it makes no sense, you spend all of the time and effort to select, surgically modify and train a marine. You equip this fellow in the finest protective gear known to mankind (increasing his bulk by about 30%) and then sit him in the cramped confines of a tank. Makes not even a little bit of sense. Surely chapter serfs and servitors would be the choice? Most chapters (and indeed the chaos legions to a lesser extent) have a traditional selection process and secrets that they must protect. Fail selection and you can never go home. You belong to the chapter and serve as best you can. How better than in a tank? Frees the marines for the kind of mobile warfare they do best and saves killing elite warriors when the tank inevitably gets annihilated by one of the 40k universes many lethal thingies. I think I'll be nicking this concept.

Well, that is almost it for Project Purples, 6 predators and 2 speeders down. 2 More speeders to go. Hopefully they'll be finished by the end of the week. Until then...

TTFN

A Parade of Purple Predator Panzers

Hello to one and all, remember these chaos chaps [Emperor's Children]? Well to outfit them for the slightly more rough-and-tumble world of Apocalypse gaming, they are getting some heavily armoured friends. Rather a lot of them in fact:

These are the first three Predators for this army. Yup, you heard me, first three, there is another trio of Predators - this time Annihilators - to come. So lets take a look at some painting right?

These are the first marine tanks that I've used the airbrush with. Really speeds up the basecoating stage. With these I did some preshading (where you spray black into the recesses and leave the rest white) before adding a couple of layers of Minitaire Ecchymose - which, by the way, is the purple bit of a bruise and I only know that because I have a Biomedical Sciences degree. Seriously, what is it with stupid paint names at the moment? Why not add "Purple" to the end of that, descriptive while retaining that smart alec feel. Harumph. Anyway, tangent klaxon is sounding, on with the show. The result is that the edges glow white through the top coat and self highlight. It won't work for everything, but for Slaaneshii purple tanks, its a winner.

The TwiddlyBits(TM) elements of the scheme went a whole hell of a lot faster now that we have an actual paint to replace the dry Lucius Lilac. Hello Dechala Lilac (see? Obscure reference plus actual colour, that's how to do it, sheesh) and some freeform patterns. I deliberately kept them random but structured in the same way, mostly geometric with occasional curves and loops. In my mind these gradually change and shift with the mood of the crew. The weathering is perhaps a little heavy but I have a reason for that... beware Karak Stone. This thing is the most heavily pigmented paint in the damn range - I now discover - seriously, foundation paints weren't this dense. One swipe of a drybrush and I had inadvertantly painted a great swathe of Karak Stone over the purple. Well, you can imagine, sound the Panic-Tuba. Mercifully a combination of the client talking me down and realising that they could just have been driving though claggy clay mud and some remedial highlighting with bone fixed it. I think I just went into artist-meltdown a little as the result was so very not what I was expecting. Forgot my own advice. Everything is fixable.

While I kept the weapons nice and clean the trophy racks were lightly rusted with the AK Interactive Rust Streaks. (Given that I use a lot of different companies now I think I'll have to figure out a glossary of abbreviations), the trophies themselves were also weathered with a wash of very thinned Karak Stone, important as otherwise they stand out too much. An Imperial Fist and an Ultramarine graciously donated their helmets to the cause.

While we're talking trophies I thought I'd mention how I did the severed head as it came out nicely. If nicely is the word. A Rakarth Flesh basecoat was shaded with Agrax Earthshade and some patchy Athonian Camoshade followed that to give a mottled look. A quick rehighlight with Rakarth, some Pallid Wych Flesh eyes and then on to adding a discrete amount of blood. Given that this head was repeated on two tanks, I painted the service studs silver on one and as boils on this one. The boils are just Bugmans Glow with a Balor Brown "head", eww.

And that is your lot. Another three Predators and four renegade Land Speeders are on the painting table then it is back into more guard. Huzzah!

TTFN

Imperial Guard Vehicles (FoPVP)

Greetings all, I thought we'd delve back into the treasure trove of the Friends of Pirate Viking Painting and check out some of Maisey's (Stephen Dipper - but no-one calls him that) Imperial Guard vehicles, kicking off with his Valkyrie:

I love this model at the best of times but the desert tan colour scheme combined with those little flashes of red really make it pop. Maisey went to great lengths to paint the interior and all of the doors and gunners operate:

A good general tip is on display here, military vehicles are rarely painted the same colour both inside and out, a nice light neutral tone (I will often use Gretchin Green) will give the interior some interest and allow a bright contrast to what can often be quite dowdy Guard vehicles.

The ground-based armour is no less attractive, again, painting the ammo box of the heavy stubber green is appropriate. Take a look at armour deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, the vast majority of the vehicle will be sand coloured but the small add ons - ammo, jerry cans etc - will often be standard green.

This vehicle was an experiment for Maisey in using Forgeworld weathering powders, the rust, soot and dirt were all applied using the ground pigments. Mig and AK47 Interactive also do these powders.

Maisey also has traitor versions of his Guard, this Hellhound allowed him to really go to town on the weathering powders.

The soot around the barrel of the flame cannon is particularly effective. The hastily applied Chaos stars are a nice touch too, they make it seem like the vehicle has recently rebelled and the crew have applied field markings to identify them as servants of the Dark Gods.

I adore the design of the new hellhound, the barrels of fuel look wonderful and the feed pipes are wonderful. Maisey has made good use of the weathering powders to heavily rust the exposed metalwork.

Well, that's all for today folks, see you next time!

TTFN

More Kustom Ork Vehicles! (FoPVP)

In the second half of the inaugural Friends of Pirate Viking Painting feature we will take a look at the rest of Charlie Brassley's Ork vehicles. His battlewagon was featured in the first part of this feature. This time it is the turn of the trucks and buggies:

The first offering is this lovely number, one careful owner, constructed from bits of Trukk, Battlewagon and plasticard.

I love the profile, so different to the usual Ork Trukk but still recognisably a Trukk. The big old dozer blade on the front gives it a very menacing aspect from the front as we can see below:

Also in the catagory of transport vehicle is Charlie's looted vehicle, in this case a Land Speeder Storm:

It has such a charming dune buggy feel and the addition of the mesh makes it feel properly Mad Max.

From the other side it is almost impossible to recognise the donor vehicle at all! The grot turret from the battlewagon has seen good service as the looted wagon's skorcha.

And who needs internal combustion when you can have triple turbofans eh? Finally for Charlie's contribution we shall check out one of his buggies:

What is remarkable about this model is that it shows just how good a buggy model could look with minor changes. Trukk parts (especially the driver) and a little turret make for a nice figure.

Like all of the vehicles of Charlie's army these fellows are Speed Freaks and as such there is only one colour to be seen in. Red.

I love the rusted metal finish on the radiator. Well that is it for Charlie's Orks for a bit but while we are talking kustom Ork vehicles I must show you just one more, this time from fellow House of Beard member Maisey:

We tend to refer to this one as the Bedford Trukk as it closely resembles the design of the ubiquitous 3 tonne truck of World War II fame. It is interesting to note how much changed the character of a vehicle can be by just altering the length and shape of the "nose".

The hinged ramps at the back look great and give a nice sense of functionality to the vehicle. This brings us the the end of our second Friends of Pirate Viking Painting spot. Hope you have enjoyed it!

TTFN