The Japanese are coming!

After um-ing and ah-ing for weeks about what sort of flock I should use to base my Japanese Infantry, today I gave up. I decided to just dry-brush their bases with a sand colour and have the bases looking like wet, muddy ground. I may add pools of water to some of them in the future. This has, however, put them on my list of projects I can consider complete, and has allowed me to show them off here, as well as my Chi Ha, that has been sitting around waiting to be blogged about for months.

The Airfix Chi Ha was a lovely build. So much so, that I went out and bought another before even completing this one. I haven't started it yet though... I enjoyed the amount of colours I got to use in the camouflage. Unfortunately some Quickshade pooled at the bottom of the flag. But otherwise, I am pleased with my command group.

Here they are in all their glory. I think I have another NCO and an officer not pictured, and some other, unpainted men, whose pose I hate. They will remain unpainted too. But I think I will get good use out of these guys once I have my US Marines painted up and ready.

Airfix Commandos repaint.

The first plastic soldiers I ever painted were a box of Airfix British Commandos. When it came to playing with our tanks and soldiers, these guys were useful for sneaking in the back, over the pile of books that represented some sort of barrier that should protect the German base.

In the containers that hold a lot of old soldiers, I found them and decided I needed to correct the work of my clumsy thirteen-year-old hands, and what looks like a pretty thick brush. Some of them were even left semi painted.

Using a nice, fine brush, and a steady hand, I think I managed to make them serviceable. The Army Painter Quickshade was very important to make them look good, although a lot of the detail on some of them had been largely filled with copious amounts of paint. I suppose I hadn't learnt the importance of a few thin coats, rather than one thick one.

The flash is still visible on many of them, but I just couldn't be bothered to try and clean them of it. Trying to remove flash from Airfix soldiers feels like trying to nail jelly to a wall.

Here they are taking up positions in the ruin of a shop. This building is the product of joining up the scenery from the Matchbox 17 pounder, and a couple of Sdkfz 250 models. It is as old as the commandos, and should probably be finished at some point.

Discoveries!

I have been volunteering in a school for the past few weeks. Combine that with my evening shifts at work, and other commitments, and I am lucky to get a coat of paint on a few men each day. As such, I have a bunch of almost finished projects waiting to be completed. They are:

Airfix Japanese Infantry. I just need to decide what sort of flock or sand to use on their bases.
Airfix British Commandos. Shaded and waiting to be sprayed with matt varnish, then based.
My remaining SHQ German Infantry & PSC British Infantry. Semi painted.
3 PSC 76mm Shermans. Various degrees of completion.
Airfix LTV 4. Semi built.
Revell Comet. Waiting to complete my camo net experiments, so I can put some on this tank.

Then, today, while waiting for my men to dry, I decided to try and sort out some of my stuff. I found these in a box:

I will be claiming them for myself. The Bofors gun will be for my ETO forces. Monty's Caravan will be glued together, but I won't paint it until I decide what to do with it...