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#1 healey36

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Posted 06 April 2016 - 09:19 AM

Thought it might be worthwhile to start a thread detailing projects folks are currently working on...I might learn a thing or two along the way.

 

I have accumulated a stack of 1/100 (15mm) Zvezda kits over the last few years that would be suitable for any of a number of gaming applications. Thought I'd start with this Pzkpfw IIIG:

 

Pzkpfw III

 

The Zvezda kits aren't tremendously detailed, but good effect can be achieved without much expenditure. Gave this guy an early-war scheme: Testor Panzer Gray (FS 36076), Americana Terra Cotta (thinned acrylic craft paint), Testor Steel (TES1180), Tamiya Deck Tan (XF-55), decals by I-94 Enterprises.

 

What's everyone working on?

 

Healey



#2 healey36

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Posted 08 April 2016 - 06:41 AM

Zvezda 1/100 Stug-IIIB, similar early-war paint/numbering:

 

Stug IIIB

 

In the photo I notice that I chipped the Balkenkreuz decal. I have a sheet of dry-transfers around here somewhere...should give those a try.

 

Healey



#3 healey36

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Posted 13 April 2016 - 05:14 AM

Zvezda 1/100 A11 Matilda I:

 

A11 b

 

Another early-war scheme: Testor Dark Green (FS 34079), Americana Terra Cotta (thinned acrylic craft paint), Testor Steel (TES1180), Tamiya Deck Tan (XF-55), decals by I-94 Enterprises.

 

Not Zvezda's best little model for detail. I have a pack of Battlefront A11's here somewhere...we'll have to see how those are for comparison.

 

Healey

 

Edit :: Here's another view of the Matilda I, with a bit more light. Counterattack at Arras anyone?

 

A11 a


#4 healey36

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 11:07 AM

While the early 'Blitzkrieg' era is my favorite, it's all good. Here's an older 1/100 Battlefront T34-85 that could stand a revisit:

 

T34 85 b

 

T34 85 a

 

 

I did a lousy job of cleaning up the flash lines on the turret, which bugs the hell out of me as the rest of it looks reasonably sharp (other than that telephone-pole for a gun-barrel).

 

Healey



#5 healey36

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 11:12 AM

Another older 1/100 Battlefront, this time a Cruiser Mk 1 (A9), somewhere in France:

 

A9 b

 

A9 a

 

These kits are a combination of resin and cast metal parts, some of which are a bit rough. Same issue here with casting lines. Needs some rework, and an antenna and pennant.

 

Love the Lewis-gun turrets at the front, which were removed from the design on subsequent versions.

 

Healey



#6 healey36

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Posted 24 April 2016 - 10:34 AM

Zvezda Pzkpfw IVD:

 

Pzkpfw IVD

 

Similar early-war scheme: Testor Panzer Gray (FS 36076), Americana Burnt Sienna (thinned acrylic craft paint), Testor Steel (TES1180), Tamiya Deck Tan (XF-55), decals by I-94 Enterprises.

 

Technically obsolete by mid-war, the D would serve throughout. A good example of the the Wehrmacht's work-horse, the IV-series.

 

Healey



#7 healey36

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Posted 01 May 2016 - 02:42 PM

Not working on anything? I'm up to my ears in projects...

 

1/285-1/300 has been finding its way to my place since the mid-1970's. Even back then GHQ seemed prohibitively expensive. Bought a lot of H&R stuff direct from the UK for a few cents each, but not too much of it has survived to the current day.

 

Picked up a copy of the MP rule set a while back (used the old Angrif! set back in the day). Been wanting to get back into it, but have never figured out how to make decent infantry/heavy weapons stands at this scale. Bought some supplies to fiddle around with:

 

H&R

  

 

Any/all suggestions appreciated (if anatomically possible, lol).

 

Healey



#8 healey36

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Posted 08 May 2016 - 07:57 AM

Continuing down through the pile, a Zvezda Pzkpfw IIC covered in France '40 dust:

 

Pzkpfw IIC 1

 

Similar early-war scheme: Testor Panzer Gray (FS 36076), Americana Burnt Sienna (thinned acrylic craft paint), Americana Terra Cotta (thinned acrylic craft paint), Testor Steel (TES1180), Tamiya Deck Tan (XF-55), decals by I-94 Enterprises. One thing I haven't mentioned before is that I give all of these a shot of Testor Lusterless Flat (no. 1960) when done...it blends the paint tones and provides a little protection when handling.

 

Draping the air-recognition marking was a bit of a challenge. I had to use a lot of Micro-Sol to get it to apply properly, and I was a bit obsessive about making sure it didn't hang over the engine vents.

 

There's not much to these Zvezda kits, this one all of five parts:

Pzkpfw IIC 3

 

Looking through Steve Zaloga's Blitzkrieg book and the old Panzer Colors series, there's a tremendous variation in numbering schemes in the early war period. Two digit numbering was not uncommon, and the size of the painted numbers varied widely. By 1941 numbering had settled into the more uniform three digit company/platoon/tank scheme.

 

I'm not spending a lot of time on these...the point is to make a decent job of it and get them on the table. The two-foot rule is definitely in play.

 

Healey

 

EDIT :: Another pic, this one from astern racing toward the keyboard. You can see where I partially dissolved the flag decal trying to get it to drape over the edge.

 

Pzkpfw IIC 3

 

I've been using a Nikon P5100 for pics, a POS camera that pretends to be a dumbed-down SLR when it comes to features. For whatever reason I can never seem to get the focal-length correct (my error no doubt)...every image appears slightly out-of-focus at the edges.



#9 Cpt M

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Posted 08 May 2016 - 01:05 PM

Looks nice!  I've found that going light on the weathering for the smaller scales works best.  And your weathering is just right.



#10 healey36

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Posted 12 May 2016 - 07:54 AM

Thanks Cpt M...

 

Digging through the lead-pile, there's a lot of stuff in here I'd forgotten about. Here's an Old Glory/Command Decision Cruiser MkIVA, the up-armored version of the MkIV (A13). The biggest difference visually between the versions was the addition of sloped-armor triangular boxes to the turret sides. A few of these made it over to France and later North Africa. This one is from Squadron B, 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, 1st Armoured Division:

 

Cruiser Mk IVA A13 b

 

Cruiser Mk IVA A13 a

 

There should be a yellow bridge disc painted on the front as well but I neglected to include it. These kits are all-metal castings and sometimes they look proportionally inaccurate, at least to me. The turret here appears somewhat flattened...it should stand a bit taller IMHO.

 

The A13 proved to be a fairly durable tank for the British for the first year of the war, despite the lighter armor of the cruisers as compared to the infantry tanks (Matilda I/II). Armed with the standard two-pounder gun, a weapon that proved capable against most of the German tanks for the first year or so. After 1940/1941, despite it's high muzzle-velocity, it gradually lost its knockout capability against newer, more heavily armored enemy tanks and began to be replaced by the six-pounder. Another disadvantage of the two-pounder was that it had no HE capability.

 

The 3rd RTR was wiped out at Calais in the closing days of the BEF in France. After the near-disaster at Boulogne Churchill refused the request for evacuation at Calais. The Brits (and French), encircled and pinned to the coast, fought it out to the last man. Some histories opine that the order to stand fast at Calais allowed more time for the retreat to and evacs from Dunkirk. Jon Cooksey's book A Fight to the Finish of the Battlground Europe series gives an excellent accounting of the desperate battle at Calais.

 

This A13 desperately needs an aerial/pennant.

 

Healey


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#11 healey36

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Posted 19 May 2016 - 08:16 AM

I decided to take another stab at basing a 1/6000 Figurehead destroyer on a base uniform with my others. Basically the same result as the first attempt...just too fiddly to make a job of it.

 

Here's a couple of 1/6000 River-class destroyers as cast by Figurehead:

 

River%20class%201_zpstvxprizn.jpg

 

Considering the size they are a decent representation.

 

Using a pair of nail-clippers I cut a destroyer off the base. I did a poor job of this and nicked the casting on one side leaving a sizable indentation in the hull:

 

River%20class%202_zpsowwhzzjl.jpg

 

Next is the fiddly bit. I used an Xacto to trim the remaining casting from the hull-sides, bow and stern. I used a smaller knife to try to straighten up the funnels, then, using a mini-file, I start filing down the remaining base on the underside of the hull. The problem is there's just not enough to hold onto and get good contact with the file. I probably removed half of the cast base, but didn't get anywhere near an appropriate waterline.

 

HMS%20Teviot_zpsfajk3p8b.jpg

 

I wish Figurehead would cast the destroyers/torpedo-boats with separate bases similar to the larger ships, or maybe on sprues. Maybe I'll try a different method cutting down the base as delivered and somehow mounting it flush with these bases I use.

 

Or maybe just use printed counters and say the heck with it...

 

Healey

 

 

 

 


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#12 pyruse

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Posted 20 May 2016 - 10:19 AM

Why don't you leave the cast base on, and just cut a hole in your base of the right size for it?

Fill in any gaps with filler. Surely much simpler than trying to cut the base off?



#13 healey36

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Posted 20 May 2016 - 11:06 AM

Yeah, I agree with you...that might be a good alternative. I use a Litko 3mm plywood base for these. Looking at their catalog I see the bases are available in a 1.5mm thickness, half the thickness I'm currently using. If I cut down the Figurehead cast base somewhat it might be possible to cut a gap in a 1.5mm piece that would be sized for the cut-down base to fit into. Then I could glue it on top of a second 1.5mm piece to maintain a consistent thickness for all pieces. Then I just need to paste the label over top with a hole for the ship to fit through (?)...sounds do-able...maybe, lol...

 

Thanks for the idea...we'll give it a shot.

 

Healey

 

 



#14 healey36

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Posted 28 May 2016 - 01:07 PM

While I wait for another order of bases to arrive intended to address the obsession with 1/6000 destroyers, I went back to the 1/100 pile. More and more of this stuff has surfaced as I've started cleaning up the work space, much more than I realized I'd accumulated.

 

Battlefront (Flames of War) has pushed out a ton of 1/100 kits over the years, most of them nicely done. My only gripe has been the gun barrels on the larger tanks which tend to be significantly out of scale, but when you come around to understanding these are wargame figures and not necessarily scale models, you make peace. A lot of the details tend to be exaggerated as well (rivets, track links, etc.) but from a figure perspective it makes the paint job that much easier.

 

The Marder (Marten)  series are to my mind some of BF's best work. The kits have a fairly accurate profile, look to be scaled properly, and there are examples of each of the variants. Here's a Marder III Ausf. M (the last variant of the war) in the dry-fit stage of assembly:

 

Marder IIIM

 

In total there's only eight parts in this kit, making it a good candidate for two or three night's work. Don't focus too much on those baseball-sized rivets and agricultural-tractor caterpillar tracks...remember it's a figure, not necessarily a model.

 

The history of the Marders is an interesting one. They were developed as a way to quickly bring higher caliber AP on-line to address the ever-increasing numbers of T34's and KV1's being encountered from the earliest days of Barbarossa. A number of different variants were deployed using the chassis primarily of the Pzkpfw II and Czech Pzkpfw 38t, both of which were obsolete by 1942. Until the Pzkpfw IV was upgraded with a 75mm Kwk 40 L/43 gun there was no tank in the German arsenal capable of consistently penetrating the T34's brilliantly sloped armor..

 

The Marders based on the 38t chassis typically mounted a Russian 76.2mm F-22 field gun (large numbers of these were captured and re-purposed by the Germans) or, as with the Marder III M, a 75mm PaK 40 anti-tank gun. The Marder III M saw action not only on the eastern front, but in Italy and the western front as well. Here's a pic of a column of what look to be new Marder III M's on the move in Belgium in 1944:

 

Marder IIIM 99

     

 

Looking at this photograph, maybe those tracks are accurate, lol. Anyway, one of the big disadvantages of the Marder III M, other than the limited traverse of the gun and the open top, was that it carried less than thirty rounds for its 75mm PaK 40 gun (based on the towed version, not the KwK 40 version that went into the Pzkpfw IV which used a more compact shell). Given that a vehicle's ammo racks were rarely full, this could be a big problem if one got into a serious scrape.

 

The old Panzer Colors books tell me that these would have left the factory with a base-coat of dark-yellow. I'll have to look through the paint box and see what I've got.

 

Healey

 

Edit ::  To start I laid on a coat of Testor's ModelMaster FS 30266 Afrika Mustard:

 

Marder IIIM a

 

Perhaps not drop-dead accurate but an adequate place to start.

 

I hadn't paid much attention to the open interior:

 

Marder IIIM b

 

A credible attempt at some interior detail. A small rack of ammo and the radio on one side, along with a plinth for an antenna. The breach looks reasonably sharp. There are two crew figures to shoe-horn in here as well...a commander and gunner :wacko:

 

Edit :: Well, not much going on here...been distracted by those 1/6000 DD's. Dredged up some Battlefront decals and laid those on:

 

Marder IIIM c

 

Marder IIIM d

 

Micro-Sol is some amazing stuff.  Perhaps a little garish, and that Balkenkreuz looks a bit over-sized. I think I'll stretch some sprue and try to get an antenna into the plinthe before we start detail-painting and weathering. The colors scream AfrikaKorps, but the IIIM never made it to that side of the Med. I keep reminding myself that dark-yellow was the factory color for 1943-on.



#15 healey36

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Posted 17 June 2016 - 07:14 PM

Nearly done with this:

 

Marder IIIM f

 

Marder IIIM e

 

Dusted it down with a combination of Tamiya XF-55 Deck Tan and Vallejo 70913 Yellow Ochre. Painted the tracks with thinned Burnt Sienna craft paint, then dry-brushed them with Testors Model Master Steel enamel. Then I hit it with a diluted Vallejo 72068 Smokey Ink wash. The silencer at the back needs to be toned down a bit, and then a protective coat of Testors clear matte. I wish I had the steady hands and eyesight to paint those rubber rims on the road-wheels a weathered gray.

 

The track casting for the inside of the front sprocket is very poorly detailed...looks terrible.

 

Still have the crew to play with...we'll see. And I've knocked the antenna off twice...forget it.

 

Healey



#16 healey36

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Posted 28 June 2016 - 12:18 PM

While I'm waiting on an order to come in, thought I'd try something different on a few 1/6000's I had in the bin. I know a bunch of folks use a wash on their ships but I hadn't tried it. From the pictures I've seen it looked like it brings up the details quite a bit, but darkens the finish considerably (which is actually more scale-like).

 

These are from Figurehead pack 1B22 with the two Colossus-class BB's and the three St. Vincent-class BB's. First I block-painted them using Vallejo 70870 Medium Sea Grey, then the decks with 70846 Mahogany Brown:

 

FH BP

 

Next I gave them an overspray of Testors Lustreless Flat to hopefully help the wash flow. I slightly diluted some Vallejo 72068 Smokey Ink and applied that liberally. After a thorough drying I cemented them on my neurotic bases using my new favorite glue (Loctite GO2) and gave them a second overspray of Testors Lustreless Flat. 

 

Here's the result:

 

FH 2

 

Here's St. Vincent after the wash was applied but before the second coat of flat overspray:

 

FH HMS St Vincent

 

Hercules after wash and flat overspray:

 

FH HMS Hercules

 

Of course you're never going to be looking at them this close, but the wash does a decent job of filling in a poor paint job. It does darken up the hulls quite a bit, but it shows off the individual teak deck planks nicely  ;) ...

 

Healey

 

Edit :: Looking at these pics I realize I forgot to paint the funnel-tops black...

 

FH St Vincent b

 

Makes a huge difference, lol...



#17 healey36

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Posted 18 July 2016 - 06:31 AM

With the calendar jammed up for the next few weeks free time is at a premium. We managed to finish Baden/Bayern last week:

 

HSF fast BB's

 

I changed up on the color again, this time going with Howard Hues Battleship Grey (1716) and Tamiya Deck Tan (XF-55). Hit the funnel tops with a dab of black acrylic craft paint, then a wash of diluted Vallejo Smokey Ink (72068). Last step is to glue them onto the base and give them an overspray of clear matte. The Tamiya gives the decks a nice lighter finish which scales nicely once you wash it.

 

I picked up a couple of packs of 1/600 micro-armor from Pico at Historicon. Anybody out there doing anything with this stuff? 



#18 healey36

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Posted 22 July 2016 - 10:34 AM

Finished off the König battleships, at least for now:

 

SMS Konig

 

Konig class BBs 2

 

Konig class BBs

 

Same basic scheme as the prior Baden-class - Howard Hues Battleship Grey (1716) and Tamiya Deck Tan (XF-55). Hit the funnel tops with a dab of black acrylic craft paint, then a wash of slightly less-diluted Vallejo Smokey Ink (72068). The decks look a bit darker here. 

 

If the packaging is any indication, these König-class are one of Figurehead's earliest 1/6000 sculpts, and they look good. Masts would be so cool, but just too far beyond my fiddly-ability.

 

Healey



#19 healey36

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Posted 22 July 2016 - 03:45 PM

Installed the crew in the Marder IIIM:

 

Marder IIIM Za

 

Marder IIIM Zb

 

They look a bit shiny...another shot of spray-matte may be in order.

 

Healey



#20 healey36

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Posted 20 August 2016 - 08:05 AM

Picked up a few of these 1/100 Stug-III F/G kits from The Plastic Soldier Company:

 

StugIII sprue

 

A bit more extensive than a Zvezda kit, all of forty-three parts here covering off a number of variants. Unfortunately I don't have an instruction sheet so it'll be a bit of a dry-fit nightmare sorting out what's what...

 

In the meantime I dug out this BattleFront Jagdpanzer IV that I'd assembled a few years ago:

 

Pzjg IV a

 

Pzjg IV b

 

It has a base-coat of Testor's ModelMaster FS 30140 Light Earth. Not their best figure (the zimmerit anti-mine paste is way out of scale, looks like it was applied with a rake), but overall it's still kinda neat. I purposely left off one of the rear track-fenders, as those tended to disappear pretty quickly in the field.

 

I'm miserable with an air-brush, but I might break it out for this one.

 

Healey






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