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

For the Motherland!

Pozdravleniya tovarishchi! It's been a wee while but the Russians are here again on the ol' PVP blog. 

Just like last time I decided to batch paint the whole box - Warlord's Siberian Veterans - in one go. The paint jobs are simple enough that 20+ batches aren't such a trial. I've needed some more infantry for a while and the Siberian box had the advantage of including a medium machine gun and a nifty commissar with loud-hailer so seemed a no-brainer. Lets start with the least interesting unit first.

Least interesting maybe but very useful nonetheless, this is the second light machine-gun squad of the army. The mainstay of any Sov infantry army, these are unremarkable but effective. The painting follows exactly the same model as the first time round, but this time I did a few tweaks. I ditched the tonal variation in the greens as, bluntly, it didn't really produce results worth the extra time. Instead I separated the Val Russian Uniform green summer uniforms from the padded telogreika uniforms by painting the latter in Val Khaki Grey mixed with a dab of Val Russian Uniform. This still breaks up the unit a bit but doesn't take forever. For those who may be curious, the mix of summer and padded uniforms indicates to me early spring. I'm designing the army's look to be around about April. Still cold enough for soldiers to be comfortable in the telogreika but not so cold that they must be worn. Equally, cold enough that those exposed to the elements - tank riders for example - would still be wearing greatcoats. Thus giving me a nice excuse to include some of their nice new winter troops as tank riders later on!

The maxim MMG in the Siberian box is modelled in a pose I can best describe as "cheese it!". I'd have preferred a firing one, as they don't move often in game but beggars can't be choosers and I'm sure I'll pick up another one in time. The painted sections of the maxim are in that ubiquitous russian green used on helmets, tanks, artillery, frankly, I reckon they'd have painted soldiers that green if they could. It's Val Cam Olive Green with a glaze of Athonian Camoshade to add some subtle shading.

And now what I suspect is the reason for the "cheese it!" pose on the gun, there's a commissar yelling behind them and no-one wants to show insufficient zeal... The Commissars of the NKVD were a hangover from Stalin's first purges, initially as a second in command rubber-stamping the commander's orders if they were politically acceptable. This proved... inefficient at best and around 1942 the "commissars" were retired and turned into "zampolit" responsible for morale and discipline. In practice this usually took the form of rounding up those who ran from the enemy and shooting them. Stalin's regular "not one step back" orders were almost literally enforced, much of the Soviet reputation for relentlessness came from a lack of choice. It was the enemies guns or the guns of the NKVD. At least the enemy might give quarter...

Neither of these models are what I'd call "top notch" but both have character. The standard bearer is displayed in the only good angle it has available I'm afraid and has a face only a mother could love. He is though carrying a whacking great flag and is the perfect ADC for a bolt action commissar. The flag is an overhighlighted red going through the GW reds up to Wild Rider. It was then glazed first with a shade of red and chestnut ink. Then a glaze of Bloodletter to brighten the red. The zampolit, aside from the blue uniform trousers and cap is essentially identical to the men. The coat is Val US Drab with lots of little red piping details. Both were quite a lot of fun to paint. Especially getting the ruddy faced commissar's skin tone right with layers of glazes of mixed flesh tones and reds.

Finally, we have that rarest of things in the Soviet Red Army: Veterans. The Red Army had a nasty habit of treating war as a numbers game alone, those who survived the first few weeks of battle were tough indeed and forged into lethal fighters. They also had a habit of scavenging equipment from all and sundry leading to them being rather more enthusiastically armed than the average troopers. Aside from some battle damage to, and a couple of slogans on the helmets their uniforms are the same as the normal lads.

One of the real differences is in the scavenged German gear some of them sport. An MG-42 - one of the best machine guns of the war - an MP-40 and a couple of Panzerfausts mean these guys are armed for bear when added to their PPSh-41's, Thompson's and their DP-28 light machine gun. These were scavenged from German infantry frames I've got for doing a small Pioneer army. It's strange how different just adding a belt of ammo - not normally a Soviet feature - makes to their "feel". I decided to push that feel a little further though:

The soldier on the left is from the veterans squad, the right is from the Light MG squad. I wanted to make the veterans look tired, ill, stressed. Being a veteran soldier in the hell of the Eastern Front means more than being an experienced fighter, it also means having seen and endured rather a lot... that leaves a mark. This was achieved by using light grey instead of Flayed One Flesh in the final highlight mix for the skin. Combine this with a purple wash into the eye sockets and stubble and you have tired, strung-out, ill looking people. It tuned out quite effective and helps mark them out as veterans.

General Mulder approves

That's all for now folks-ski's but while I was putting these lads in their case I saw the KV1 that I did the build log on a fair while ago. It has actually been painted. The only reason I haven't photographed it for the blog yet is I hadn't weathered it yet. I'll get on that and actually finish that article! Until next time

TTFN

T-34-85, Za Rodinu!

Privet Tovarishchi! Our glorious red army has received a powerful new armoured ally to help crush the fascists! Za Rodinu!

Yep, I've been painting more Bolt Action soviet gear, this time the awesome HobbyBoss T-34-85. I was going to write a bit about the T-34 but there is just so much on this legendary armoured vehicle that I'm going to wimp out and just direct you to Wikipedia. Now, a few things before we go on: First, that is a 1:48 scale vehicle, not the 1:56 scale "normally" associated with 28mm gaming. There are some historical gamers out there already burning me in effigy but bear with me. While tanks are actually always a little smaller (and much more cramped) than you imagine, there is a problem with "true" 28mm scale vehicles looking almost comically small alongside 28mm figs. The main reasons for this are: 1) the proportions, 28mm figs tend to be wider ("chunkier") than their height should indicate. 2) the base, even thin ones like Bolt Action use, raise up the infantry models even taller while the tanks lie on the table directly. So in order to make the game "feel right", Maisey (of the Beard Bunker) and I decided to use 1:48 as our preferred vehicle scale. The other advantage is that 1:48's are made for the scale modelling community and thus are incredibly well detailed.

If you've never made any historical figures the vehicles the scale modellers work with are epic in the level of detail they work in. This can mean some painfully fiddly work at times, my fumble fingered efforts with the tracks for example, but mean that all the tiny details are represented. There is even a complete interior, impossible to see unless the hatches are open. I didn't bother with the innards, keeping them for conversions, especially the stunning engine, every bit is modelled. Dozens of parts going to make up a proper, real looking engine. Destined for an Ork I think.

Before I break into the painting proper I should note a modelling consideration. It's easiest to paint these tanks with exposed running gear in sub assemblies. The wheels and sprockets pressed on to the suspension arms and the track run glued together (leave one link unglued to bend open) then disassemble it all for easy painting and (as shown here) weathering behind the road wheels.

Painting wise, Russian armour is one of the least interesting in terms of colour scheme. To paraphrase a Henry Ford quote: "Any colour as long as it's green!". In this case Val Cam Olive Green. Seriously. Almost all of this tank is simply painted in the one colour. I helped the contrasts a little with two drybrushed highlights, both a mix of Val Cam Olive Green and Val Green Grey increasing the amount of Green Grey for the second highlight. Then, seeing a need to further define the shadows, I added some black to the Val Cam Olive Green , thinned it with water and some Lahmian Medium and then ran this into the panel lines, vents, creases and shadows of the tank. The tracks got airbrushed with a Ammo Track Rust (appropriate huh?) and once dry, the contact areas all got a drybrush of AP Gunmetal. Contact areas mean the outer bits of the tracks, where the wheels run on the inside and the guide horns (those sticky-up bits on the inside of the tracks that keep them on the wheels), anywhere the tracks rub against stuff. Then it was slogan time:

my slogans came from propaganda posters found on this site

One of the more "rustic" aspects of Soviet armour in the second world war is that, unlike the fine precision of stencilled markings you see on every other army in the world at the time, they just got the crews to paint on the numbers by hand in their bestest, neatest handwriting. Thus you see a range of positioning, "fonts" and sizes. You also saw a lot of motivational slogans painted on their vehicles. This was common to most armies, you named your tanks. But the Soviets had commissars who were looking for "zeal", so zeal they got. On this tank the slogans read "I vow to destroy the enemy" and "be a hero!" both cribbed from propaganda posters of the time. These were simply hand painted on in Ceramite White as neatly as I could. For once, looking hand done would not be a problem for freehand.

Finally, in order to give the tank that "model not toy" thing and to break up an almost literal sea of green I broke out the weathering. Starting with mud build up on the running gear and tracks I used various mixes of AK Interactive/Mig Ammo enamels. Mostly Earth Effects, Fresh Mud and Dark Mud. These were loaded onto brushes and then blown off in spatters with bursts of air from the airbrush, sometimes I added dry pigments to thicken it up and make the mud more, well, muddy. This achieved I attached the running gear and moved on to putting the layers of dust and grime on the upper surfaces. A mix of AK Kursk Earth and Earth Effects was the right colour for what I had in mind. I sprayed odourless turps over the model to dampen it first then applied the enamel mix to the creases, flat surfaces and anywhere else dust would gather. As I gently dried off the result with the hair dryer I added little streaks and rainmarks with a brush, dragging it through the drying enamel to streak it. Finally I used some Streaking Grime to the upper edges of the turret to make with the muck and allowed a thin mix of the Earth Effects and Kursk Earth to pool in the fenders. Some drybrushed black near the exhausts and the gun barrel and job done.

So, do I like the result? Hell yes. I really loved the research and recreation elements (it's what draws me to historical gaming in the first place), the model is stunningly detailed for what is a (relatively) very cheap kit - I got mine for £18. With Warlord releasing Tank Wars recently as a Bolt Action supplement I foresee rather a lot of treadhead glee in my future. I'll let you know how it fares once I get it on the table.

Until next time folks

TTFN

Quantity has a Quality all of it's own

Hi folks, something new for you today. My first Bolt Action models. I actually painted them quite some time ago but hadn't gotten around to photographing and sharing them. Time to do so!

My first Bolt Action army is the awesome might of the Soviet Union. The picture above is of a Light Machine Gun squad. I've always had a soft spot for the poor bloody infantrymen of the Soviet Union. They basically won the second world war (or the Great Patriotic War to the Russians) despite what the movies say. We helped, don't get me wrong, but the Eastern Front was pure murder for the Germans. However, in order to do this they took massive casualties. 14% of the population of the USSR was dead in battle at the end of the war. This compared to 0.95% for the UK. Mind numbing numbers. Mostly because of the theory that forms the title of this post. Quality was all very well - and sometimes Russian tech was brilliant - but Russian combat doctrine essentially boiled down to throw enough men and cheap materiel at the enemy and you will win. Quantity has a Quality all of its own...

General Mulder in da house

Bolt Action itself is a cracking game. I'll go into the mechanics and so on in the future (a battle report vs. Maisey's Germans might be in order), for now, I'll just say that it is an engaging game. Mid sized skirmish with a brilliant turn mechanic that keeps you concentrating as your plan has to adapt fluidly to events on the ground. It is one of these games where list munchkins could run a bit riot though. There is nothing stopping me filling my Russian army with veteran submachine gun squads for example. It's history and recreation that save you from that. Like I say, mechanics another time. Now lets see more figures.

These are an inexperienced rifle squad. The Soviet special rule is that you get one of these for free. Yup, inexperienced troops are so chaff worthy that we get a squad for nuffink. Other nations get snazzy guns or more leadership. Us? More men to throw at the guns. Very Soviet. Painting wise, I will confess that these are not the best painted models. Mostly because the models themselves range from very good to ooookay.... Some of the eyes are lopsided and a lot of details are soft. They're ok for what they do though. Just don't expect top of the line. There is a lot of argument about Soviet army colours. Most people go with brown because that is what Osprey's illustrators default to. Trouble is, they're actually mostly green-brown with varying shades because the factories just used whatever dye or cloth was closest to the colour they needed (Quantity not Quality comrade!). As the army was distinctly late sprine/early summer weight clothing I didn't have the brown greatcoats to do either. Using a paint guide for Battlefront's Flames of War models I set to work. Vallejo Russian Uniform was used as the base coat with occasional bits of Khaki and Flat Earth mixed in to give that variety. All the webbing, blankets and the like got picked out then a whole load of Agrax Earthshade got deployed.

These are the nastiest squad in the army. Submachine gunners were a big part of the Soviet plan. The Winter War against Finland had taught them the usefulness of large numbers of small-bore automatic weapons. In Bolt Action they are lethal, especially on the charge. I expect these lads to be rather heavily shot at in future games... Once the Agrax has dried I picked out the flesh in the usual way (little darker for the steppes lads) and the helmets in Val Camo Olive Green washed in Athonian Camoshade. Black boots and some basing and we're pretty much done!

Snipers team, anti-tank rifle and the officer (destined for a metal replacement as the face is... not good) with his ADC. Officers in Bolt Action really do lead, you need them to get pinned guys back in the fight, to force men to advance when the bullets are flying. Another "feels right" sort of rule.

Finally we have my ZIS-3 divisional gun. The Soviets were big on artillery and this thing was called "the god of the battlefield"! It's a versatile piece able to fire as either an anti-tank gun or a high explosive howitzer. Very handy. The model is a tricky build, tiny contact areas and ill-fitting axles. Worth it though, looks cracking. Easy to paint too as it is essentially one colour all over! In order to prevent the gun from falling apart all the time I mounted it on one of Renedra's large oval bases with slots for the crew.

sad gun has no crew

To do this, just use a curl of masking tape to stick down appropriately sized bases before you start texturing with the sand and rocks and the like. Once the sand is dry you pick off the bases and paint the resulting blank areas. The small bushes are just clump foliage soaked in watered-down PVA to fix their shape and prevent shedding. Afterwards they are firm to the touch not squishy like the clump foliage is before the glue.

And that is that! The first 500 points of the Soviets. Will definitely be increasing this army as I've already got a gorgeous Hobbyboss 1:48 T34/85 to add to the force and intend to add even more basic infantrymen. Proper Soviet tactics. Overwhelm them! Then it'll probably be little reinforced platoons of other nations, British Commandos are on my mind, but then so are Desert Rats, Afrika Korps, US and UK paratroopers... the list goes on...

TTFN

Review: Perry Miniatures Desert Rats

Greetings shipmates! I've got something just a little bit different today. A first look at the plastic 28mm scale Desert Rats from Perry Miniatures.

First impressions then: Like all Perry boxes it comes in a nice, well presented format, nifty pictures and the like and interestingly... unsealed. You can open the box and check out the sprues before you part with any cash. This is welcome feature as there is only the one actual model on the front, I say welcome feature but also a double edged sword. Check the box contents before you buy lest some unscrupulous type chose to bolster the numbers in another box. Value for money? The Rats retail at about £20 but there are thirty eight of them in the box. Yup, 38 28mm models for your £20. That's 52p a model. Not shabby compared to - plucking a random example out of the GW new releases - a dire avenger box set for £20 that has... five models. Yeah... £4 plays 52p. Obviously then the models aren't as good right? Wrong.

Firstly, these are horrible photos. I am sorry for that. Hope you can still see enough detail. By the time I had noticed the astonishing albedo of the white surface beneath I had already cut off half a platoon's worth from the sprues and couldn't reshoot! The models are cast by Renedra - who are some of the people who used to do GW casting by the way. Citadel had their casting operation in Wisbech (my home town). So having a Wisbech miniature casting firm still going is a source of nostalgic glee. You'll notice a similarity to the way the Lord of the Rings plastics were designed - not surprising as they were also Perrys! - with the models being primarily one piece castings with only the gun arms and helmets being separate. This is very common amongst historical miniatures where for some reason it is considered essential to have plastics with the absolute minimum of parts. Probably to do with speed of assembly for the huge armies some games need.

Another nostalgic point was the plastic, somehow, seeing tan brown plastic soldiers transported me back to playing with the pound shop army men of my youth and later the airfix kits that went with them. Couldn't matter less to the quality but a pleasing frisson nonetheless. There are three identical sprues of regular infantrymen and a command sprue making up the numbers with enough weaponry to perfectly replicate the armament of a full platoon of the period (a mix of Lee Enfields, Thompson sub machine guns, the peerless Bren guns, a light mortar and even a Boys anti-tank rifle). It was this "platoon-in-a-box" feature that drew me to buy them in the first place, this along with the soon-to-be released Perry Afrika Corps platoon-in-a-box would give me a perfect wargaming microcosm. A platoon engaging their opposite numbers. But I digress.

The command sprue contains the officer and a signalman complete with radio set. You get a few options on the officer so not all your "Ruperts" look exactly the same. Given the pose though I'd probably replace with a metal alternative for subsequent platoons if I was building a company. Note the seperate leg on the signalman for ease of casting. I'll be coming back to that later. Before we get into impressions of assembling these lads I do want to mention one really bizzare decision in the packaging. The bases that come with these are almost all 20mm round bases from Renedra. Essentially thick plasticard that you glue the integral cast bases on the models to. However, for the lying down models they have included larger 40mm bases... that are square. Just weird as a decision because Renedra make round 40mm bases that would be perfect and wouldn't jar with the smaller ones. Confusing. Possibly a mispack?

Assembly is a mixed bag. The models have virtually no flash and minimal mould lines. The mould lines also (with one exception) go across the head from ear to ear rather than across the face. As I've mentioned, they are almost one piece figures so removal and clean-up is a breeze. Take care of the smaller componants though. These are true-scaled 28mm miniatures so the weapons are thin and delicate. The helmets in particular - kept separate in a cunning move to allow realistic undercuts - are easy to damage at the rim. Remove further along the sprue and then use a new scalpel to shave it smooth. The poses are nice and varied with decent unexaggerated movement. Something to note is how well the centre of mass is positioned. Some companies *cough*mantic*cough* are quite bad at this, creating models that look like they are falling over because the centre of mass is beyond one of the legs. No such problems here.

There are a couple of problems created by the one-piece casting, but only a couple. One of the lads has some very baggy shorts and the bren gun loader's right arm is quite badly distorted by the position it was cast in. Considering that they removed the Signalman's leg to make for a nicer cast surely we could have handled the arm being removed so that it too could be well cast? Some of the models also need pouches adding for the ammo (again not cast in place due to undercut problems). These are very, very small and fiddly. Use tweezers.

I also assembled the command section to show you the other varients of the lying down soldiers. The Boys rifle fits just the same as the bren gun, the mortar is simple enough as well. Both of these weapons do require the modelling of the teams lying down. It does mean that only one of the bren gunners in the platoon (there are three) can be modelled lying down and firing. The others need to be modelled moving (there is a spare arm with a bren gun held at the trail). The fit of the parts are all very precise, I had almost no problems getting things to fit, there was only one pair of arms that was a little awkward. Had the feel of being designed for a specific torso and I think I'd used it already. This brings me to my only major bugbear with this kit and it is one that I keep running in to. No decent documentation.

There are no real instructions for this kit, just a mention of which arms are paired for the heavy weapons. Granted, there is a handy diagram of the armament of a platoon but almost no assembly help. Considering how much effort was made in every other aspect this is a bizzare oversight. Seriously? Too hard just to assemble a couple of sprues and take some pictures? There are guys out there who will be happy to do loads of photos of assembled models, even step by step guides for no more payment than some free sprues. Heck, I'm one of 'em.

Having said that, this is a superb set. The ease of assembly, the quality of the sculpting from industry veterans for a mere 52p a model, the nice range of poses and armaments and best of all the platoon-in-a-box aspect all make this a real winner. I'll let you know how they paint but I can really recommend them to anyone interested in gaming some 28mm WW2.

Hope this helps some people!

*EDIT* Something I completely forgot. If you want to represent the Long Range Desert Group (forerunners of the SAS) they've included the conversion parts in the form of arab headdressed/soft hatted bearded heads. You can chop off the regular heads and add these. Just add a Pink Panther Land Rover or two and you are set.

Best of all, you only need 37 men for a platoon. 1 Officer, 6 command staff, 3 platoons of 10. The spare 1 man can therefore be put together as a free SAS chap! So if you are doing a company then you can fairly easily have an LRDG patrol without buying anything else.

TTFN

Flames of War Paratroopers

In a new venture for me I present the first models in my Flames of War British WW2 Paratroopers army:

I've been toying with the idea of Flames of War for a while but a recent conversation with an old friend (Gareth, better known as Dice Jesus of the blog It's Game Over Man) galvanised my interest into action. Of all the forces in WW2 it has always been the paratroopers that fascinated me the most so it was pretty much inevitable that a 6th Airborne Division army would be my choice. For those unfamiliar with Flames of War it is a platoon based wargame played with stands of 15mm models. That is roughly half the size of the models I usually paint as the next image will demonstrate:

Thank you Ms. Funnymoney, that'll be all. Obviously models of this size present their own challenges. Not least of which is the fact that the Denison smock they all wear is camouflaged... Checking the painting guide in the Turning Tide reassured me though. The only change I made to the recommended colours was to swop out Green Ochre for Khaki as it seemed to me to be a better match for the pale colour on the smock.

The overall effect is surprisingly effective for such a small scale. I deliberately did not use Battlefront Studio's highlighting style as it was far too stark for my tastes and went instead with Devlan Mud washes to add shading. As you can see I decided to push it and went for as much facial detail as I could on those models that had crisp enough casting to make it worthwhile.

I also made use of the plastic urban rubble bases. These are almost more trouble than they are worth. You have to trim the bases of the figures to fit as they are not the standard size indicated by the holes in the bases. You have to then fill the holes to level them off. Really frustrating. I won't be using them for any future Flames of War armies I do but I am kinda locked in for this army now! The extras are nice (like the wall in this one) but some of the details are really soft and poorly scaled (the umbrella for one is almost the size of a full grown man).

I like the way you can create little vignettes with the bases, the mortar crew taking cover behind a pile of rubble for instance. I didn't paint them in situ as the models would have got in the way of painting some of the details. Instead I superglued them to sticks to paint and then sliced them off when finished. Oh and my wounded left index finger would like to warn you all to use not very much superglue at all as if you glue them on seriously then you can slip and put quite a slash in your fingertip. Anyone would think I was a professional or something...

Well that's all the shots I've got this time, that was just one platoon though so I have got quite a long way to go before I have an army of these airbourne nutters. I've included the army list below to show the journey. I will of course keep you updated! For now though...

TTFN

WW2 Tommy on Patrol

Greetings all, as a gentle warm up after a week off (I had been off LRPing and had damaged my wrist a little and didn't want to mess up a client model) I thought I would paint the first of a new venture for me. Large scale military models:

The model is one of five from the Tamiya "British Infantry on Parade" set. It is 1:35 scale (54mm in our wargaming parlance) and as such is somewhat larger than the usual I work on, enter Ms Funnymoney to demonstrate:

I've recently got the Vallejo military paint set so working on this fellow was a breeze. Starting with the jacket and trousers I basecoated the model in English Uniform, washed it in Devlan Mud for shading the uniform. Highlighting started with English Uniform and then continued with adding Bleached Bone to the English Uniform. The webbing was painted in the same way just swopping English Uniform for Khaki.

Picking out the other equipment helped to make the model more visually interesting, grey blanket, wooden entrenching tool and the ubiquitous enamel mug.

I enjoyed this model more than I expected! I thought the colour scheme would be a little monotonous but the simplicity of the paint job was half of its charm. 1:35 is large enough to do nice things like adding wood grain to the rifle furniture and for the sculptors to make the weapons etc realistically scaled. It is of interest to me that the muzzle of the lee enfield rifle on this model is smaller than a lasrifle on a guardsman. This guy is twice the size of the guardsman. Take a moment and think how ridiculous that would look scaled up...

Anyway, back to Harlequins, should have some finished and up on the web for you all soon.

TTFN