Finally finished some British Infantry

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas. My employment being what it is, the Christmas period is a very busy time, and it has been all hands on deck. I have not had much time to do any significant model making. I did, however, get confident enough to use my quickshade on some new infantry. They are the Plastic Soldier Company, Late War British Infantry. I love the hard plastic, and I am actually a fan of the poses. I read a blog recently of someone who did not like them. And to be fair, after picking up a box of their Late War German Infantry, I see that they have a bunch of set poses that they just reuse for each army. Kind of cheeky, but I am okay with it.

I only painted about 11 men, but I am very pleased with the outcome so far, although I held the can of matt spray too close to a couple of them, as is visible by the whiteness of a couple of rifles. I based them on pennies (UK 1p), painted them brown, and coated with PVA and liberal amounts of flock.They will do for now. I will look into other ways of basing men.

I also apologize for my horrific photography skills. I just haven't had the right light, and my daylight lamp seems to be a bit lacking.

British Armour Finally Finished.

So this summer I decided to get back into model making. These are the two first kits I bought to get going again. I have finally finished them to a point where I am happy with them.

I am pretty sure the tank commander is the driver from the Aifrix Quad and 25pdr kit.

This is, however, the last Airfix Sherman I will ever make. Having looked online for inspiration on ways to make it look better, I discovered just now historically inaccurate this kit is. The front of the tracks are too exposed, there was always at least a little mudguard, and the gun mantle is apparently wrong. I came close to buying some Italeri quick build Shermans, but I saw that the commander's hatch is closed. There was no way of opening it without some serious work on the turret. Such work is possibly beyond my skills. So I passed. I will have another look around for some more sherman kits. Anyone out there have any suggestions?

This tank commander is from the old Matchbox Stuart kit. So he has been sat in my old model box for twelve years or something. Funnily enough I can't find my Stuart anywhere though, and am unsure if I ever finished it.

I really like this Cromwell model. I will be getting more of them.

Making Hedgerows.

For the hedgerows I use a jumbo lolly stick and a scouring pad. The scouring pad can be cut into four, to make four hedgerows. 

I cut the scouring pad into irregular shapes and stuck them to the base with PVA glue.

I stuck cat litter to the base to make it look like rocks and stuff. I am not sure if I will do this again because it seemed to be a lot more effort than it was worth.

I then quickly painted it brown, I didn't take too much care while doing it because it is the ground. I also dry brushed a shade of green onto the pad. It looks okay and maybe I need another green shade, even lighter this time. The same goes for the ground. I need some other shades or brown on that, maybe some flock powder. But as it stands, they will do for now.

A few projects on the bench.

At the moment I have a few projects that I am working on.

 I finally took the plunge and bought some Army Painter Quickshade. Visible below are my experiments. I am currently testing it on a handful of old soldiers that I painted over ten years ago. I am almost too embarrassed to show them, but the Quickshade seems to look pretty decent on them. In conjunction with them, I have a box of Airfix Japanese soldiers that I am starting to paint. I am not sure about some of the colours though, and am fixing them to bottle caps to work with. I only have six bottle caps right now, so it will be slow progress. Also visible is my disastrous Wills barn kit. That needs to be ripped apart and put together again. A Willy's Jeep that needs to be painted, my 2 pdr and 6 pdr that need to be dirtied up, and the Germans that come with the Airfix Reconnaissance set. The vehicles for that set are drying in the corner and will be dirtied up soon too.

At the same time, as my experiments are proving successful, I will probably paint up all those white metal Wehrmacht figures I picked up in Reading, as well as the British Infantry. We will see how quickly I can get these guys all ready to be used.

In the above photo, you can see that I have been trying out some terrain building. Hedgerows to be precise. I have some photos, and when I feel the hedges look good enough, I will post a tutorial about how I made them. I also have a Sherman Firefly in the process of being build, and a Puma armoured car (the first model I ever built) that desperately needed some TLC.

A flurry of posts will come in the next few days, I am sure, when all the various projects are completed.

Have fun.

Finished German Armour

Well, after a week of experimenting with a Humbrol Matt varnish spray on old models from my childhood, I felt confident enough to varnish these panzers and then dirty them up. My basic dirt is a layer of Humbrol matt 84, I think it is a sand colour. I then follow that with a layer of matt 29, a mud colour. I concentrate the second layer mainly on the wheels. Having not done this in a long time, I am still getting used to the quantities of paint to use. One day I might start using weathering powders...

Here are my Panzer 38(t)s. I am very pleased with them. I have a shortage of tank commanders right now, so they remain partially finished, and will remain so for a while. But this doesn't mean I can't use them.

Here are my Panzer IIIs. They are Armourfast models. I am not that excited about Armourfast after having built these, but they will do. I only wanted a couple as my army will be mainly Panzer IIs.