274 replies to this topic

[healey36]

Soviet BAI-M armored car in 1/56-scale:

 

 

 

 

A 3D-print by XPForge, painted using a combination of Tamiya spray enamels and lacquers, with details, wash, and dry-brush of Vallejo acrylics. Decals by I-94.

 

The printed stuff's getting better and better.

[Peter M. Skaar]

Very nice, Healey!  I have at least 10 painted 1/285th GHQ Ba-10s and some that are not.  I also recently got a pack of the earlier Ba-6s.

[healey36]

Not working on much these days, if I'm honest, and it's not for lack of stuff to work on.

 

Assembled and painted this 1/56-scale FT-17 from a 3D-printed kit by Miniature Tanks Company:

 

 

Still experimenting with the wash recipe and it shows. I actually made this to use as a load for a 1/48-scale railroad flatcar "model". I have another kit...might try it again, but with a simpler scheme and a glossier finish.

 

 

[healey36]

Another attempt to get some traction on the project pile, the Italian battleship Duillo, a 1/4800 print from Shapeways vendor Tiny Thingamajigs:

 

 

I decided to base these on thin plywood (Litko) with a homemade printed label (similar to the method used for my 1/6000 stuff).

 

I definitely need to work on my barber-pole painting technique.

 

 

 

 

[Peter M. Skaar]

Looking good Healey!  I painted the Pola for the GHQ catalog a few years ago.  I really like that they have the deck already scribed with the barber pole.

[healey36]

Thanks, Peter, and a lovely job on Pola. Even with the scribed markings, I doubt I could make such a neat job of it 

 

I have a number of packs of 1/4800-scale ships made by CinC back in the day, and now there's a growing number of 3D prints being made by various artisans. The CinC packs are exclusively Royal Navy/Kriegsmarine models, but I wanted to add some French and Italian stuff to the fleet cabinet so that the Med could be explored. We have found 1/4800 to be an attractive scale given the Regia Marina's general speed advantage and its doctrine of engaging at long-range. Table space is at a premium here, so shrinking the scale is advantageous, especially when BB/BC stuff is included in the OB.

 

 

[Peter M. Skaar]

Thanks very much, Healey!  I know there are a lot of scales for naval miniatures as well as for land based games.  I have decided to stick with 1/2400 since I enjoy the modeling aspect of the hobby as well as the gaming.  The GHQ ships, while expensive, are little works of art.  I know a lot of guys are going to 1/6000, 1/4800, and 1/3000.  And then there are the old school guys that enjoy 1/1200 ships and playing on the Gym floor.  Something for everyone.

The same applies to the WWII land based stuff as well.  As you know, I am pretty much of a 6mm person for that.  I do know others that are going 3mm to get a whole platoon on a base, and others that prefer 10/12mm as their sweet spot for scale, 15mm because of Flames of War, 20mm, 25mm - not sure how popular this is any more, and 28mm for skirmish level games.  So much to choose from.

I do plan to do some 6mm Vikings and Saxons one of these days and also have some 1/1200 ironclads from Langton that I bought at Historicon years ago.  I also have a good amount of GHQ 10mm Civil War as well as a smattering of their Napoleonic range.  I need to concentrate on getting some things done right now.

So many miniatures, so little time...

[healey36]

Thanks very much, Healey!  I know there are a lot of scales for naval miniatures as well as for land based games.  I have decided to stick with 1/2400 since I enjoy the modeling aspect of the hobby as well as the gaming.  The GHQ ships, while expensive, are little works of art.  I know a lot of guys are going to 1/6000, 1/4800, and 1/3000.  And then there are the old school guys that enjoy 1/1200 ships and playing on the Gym floor.  Something for everyone.

The same applies to the WWII land based stuff as well.  As you know, I am pretty much of a 6mm person for that.  I do know others that are going 3mm to get a whole platoon on a base, and others that prefer 10/12mm as their sweet spot for scale, 15mm because of Flames of War, 20mm, 25mm - not sure how popular this is any more, and 28mm for skirmish level games.  So much to choose from.

I do plan to do some 6mm Vikings and Saxons one of these days and also have some 1/1200 ironclads from Langton that I bought at Historicon years ago.  I also have a good amount of GHQ 10mm Civil War as well as a smattering of their Napoleonic range.  I need to concentrate on getting some things done right now.

So many miniatures, so little time...

 

I fully understand your sentiments, Peter, and I drop-dead agree with all of it. The bulk of the naval miniatures here are 1/2400 and primarily GHQ (I've been buying their models since the 1970s, or whenever the Micronauts range began), but I'm not necessarily wedded to their line. CinC, Viking Forge, and Superior also occupy a big chunk of the collection. Only in recent years, as the explosion of 3D-printing has emerged, have we largely moved to include fewer of the pewter models (much of that related to the availability of ships that are not currently in the pewter model catalogs). I too "enjoy the modelling aspect of the hobby as well as the gaming", maybe even more so.

 

When it comes to gaming, I have a few prejudices with regards to optics, and for this reason, depending on the OB, I will scale down. With some engagements historically opening at ranges of 28000-29000 yards, I just don't have the "real estate" to run something like that at a scale that "looks" appropriate using 1/2400 stuff (at 1/2400, 28000 yard gunnery would theoretically equate to ~ 35 scale feet of range, being an extreme example which of course no one in their right mind would pursue). However, scaling down to 1/4800 or 1/6000, one can get to something that does "look" appropriate, and I find FAI and GQ3, with a few scale tweaks, can yield a good looking game. For this reason, pretty much any clash here involving large caliber, we drop down to a smaller scale, but cruiser/destroyer actions nearly always go off at 1/2400. Economics plays into it as well, but I'm not going to go there.

 

With regards to armor and infantry gaming, I think 15mm was the standard for a very long time. GHQ kinda blew that up in the 1970s, allowing the scale of engagement size to expand dramatically. If you read back through Featherstone's books, or find yourself some old copies of Miniatures Wargaming, 15mm was pretty much what people gamed, armor actions being a dust-up amongst a few platoons. The advent of 6mm scale suddenly made it possible to contemplate engagements between much larger formations over greatly expanded terrain (tank regiments or larger, on a one-for-one basis). It would be really tough to do that at 15mm, although I've seen it done in a somewhat abstract manner.

 

The other thing is, 15mm or 28mm modelling typically is a bit easier on the eyes, and let's face it, I suspect the demographics of this hobby is gradually heading north. Present company excepted, it's pretty tough to make 6mm stuff look super sharp...much easier to render a decent paint job on something 2-3 times the size. If it's the game you're most interested in, fidelity of the models is likely not a priority, but if it's the models you're most keenly interested in, than you're likely to up-scale. My scale choice is 6mm, but I seem to be an outlier amongst my gaming friends. Nearly all of them have been life-long 15mm fans, and while they will game with me at 6mm, their preference, and their hosted table actions, are always 15mm or larger.

 

My former college roommate has an entire Panther battalion, including all of the support vehicles, AA, and arty, in 6mm. He's been taunting me with that thing for forty years. Before I have six feet of dirt piled on me, I'm going to have to get him to the table so we can hash it out. The dilemma is having to assemble an entire Guards Tank Army to deal with it, even up 

[healey36]

Well this is a kick in the teeth:

https://www.tctmagaz...for-bankruptcy/

I'm wondering how to reach some of the designers that offered stuff through Shapeways.

[Kenny Noe]

WOW....   

[healey36]

While we mourn the loss of Shapeways, the "sad" truth is the lead/resin bin has reached the point of overflow and its time to continue working on developing/honing the wash techniques. Perhaps this provides a window to seriously dent the pile.

 

Here's a British M4 from France 1944, recently completed:

 

 

 

A 3D-print in 15mm from Sarge's Stuff, painted using a combination of an enamel basecoat followed by various acrylics and ink washes. The decals are an odd assortment of I-94 (15mm), Battlefront (15mm), and Athearn (1/87), with oversprays of Tamiya clear gloss and clear matte. I got lazy and did not paint the rubber rims on the road wheels...I should go back and do that. The wash still looks quite sloppy, with pooling that dries to unsightly blotches. I'm going to blame that on my lousy eyesight. Another improvement would have been to replace that tree-trunk of a main gun with a bit of rod that would have been more size-appropriate.

 

Another shot using the Nikon, maybe a bit better for color:

 

 

White's British Tank Markings and Names states that British tanks on the Northwest Europe front carried the star-in-a-circle air recognition marking, while on the Italian front, they carried the standard roundel. It looks weird to me, but I went with it. If anyone knows better, I'd like to hear it.  

 

Edit :: I went back and blackened the rubberized road wheels, making things look a bit better. Still, this model looks proportionately off to me. Need to compare it to a few others I have by other manufacturers.

 

 

 

 

[healey36]

I picked up a number of I-94 decal sets while at Historicon this weekend, one being a sheet of British tank names (BR-117). Should be sized a bit more appropriately than the 1/87-scale "Omaha" decal I used on the Sherman.

[healey36]

While at Historicon this past Saturday, I picked up Rostock (GHQ) as assembled/painted by my friend/neighbor Matt Schreck. Elbing (GHQ) and Stettin (WTJ) are some of my work from a while back:

 

 

Gotta keep track of what the other guy(s) are doing.

 

 

 

 

[Peter M. Skaar]

Those 3 light cruisers all look excellent!  Fabulous paint work!

[healey36]

Thanks for the look, Peter.  

 

With the third Abbeville scenario looming, I needed a bunch more R35 tanks to fill out part of the OB. I started looking around for a better 15mm example from those we used earlier and found a printer that offered two versions, one with an open rear hatch. I thought that might be interesting, so I ordered a couple to see what they might be like. While the fidelity of the print was better than the earlier examples, they were just too fragile and got broken up in the mail:

 

 

Basically small kits of four parts (hull, turret, track/suspension), chunks of track and other bits were missing and had to be pieced back together with some fillers spliced in using bits of styrene from the stash. Still looks pretty rough, but might prove serviceable as an abandoned/knocked-out piece:

 

 

A bit more flash to clean up, then off to the paint booth for a base-coat:

 

 

Model Master Afrika Mustard (FS 30266).

 

As completed:

 

 

 

Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics and inks for the scheme and the details. Went with an off-white for the the interior of the open hatch-cover, matching what would be the interior color of the tank. Typically a hatch-cover interior is painted to match the exterior, but I couldn't find a photo demonstrating that to be the case for the French. Videos of the tank's interior seemed to show the the interior, including hatches, a uniform off-white. Whatever, it's prewar French. Some photos show the gun painted to match the scheme, others seem to show the gun in it's plain steel finish. 

 

I'm pretty sure that when I patched the right-hand side running gear back together, I put the rear suspension set in backwards. You can see the axle-bearings are not showing, so likely flipped around. 

 

I was going to make this a wreck, but I want to check and see if I have any French crew guys that might sit in the open hatch. I've seen photos of a commander sitting in the open hatch, which would make an interesting variation. I'll have to see what I have handy.

 

Here's a pretty good video demonstrating the peculiarities of the R35 and prewar French tank design:

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=veljLNEGWZM