BlitzKreig Miniatures M3 'Honey' Stuart

It's the second Birthday of Scrivsland so it's a bumper update day today. Looking back over the past few weeks the blog has not had a lot of love, mainly because I've been either working abroad or on holiday so have had very little time for either painting or gaming. The gaming side has not gotten much better, but I've certainly caught up with some painting!

That changes today as there will be a bumper update of four painting projects that I managed to polish off yesterday.

I recently ordered a platoon deal of two Matilda II and a Honey from BlizKreig Miniatures all from the 1/56 scale range as I think the 1/48 models will be a little large along side my Perry Miniatures Desert Rats. The pair of Matilda II are to be used in our ongoing Battle of Keren project and the Honey was, well why do you need a reason, it's a lovely looking tank.

The models arrived from BlitzKreig very well packaged. The Honey comprises of seven separate castings, the hull and running gear, the turret, the commanders hatch so that it can be modelled open or closed, the 37mm gun, the coaxial and hull machine guns and finally the Browning .30cal AA machine gun. All the parts are exceptionally well cast and take very little cleaning up.

Once cleaned up, washed in detergent and allowed to dry everything was given a base coat of Army Painter Desert Yellow - why oh why do I do this - it's not primer and does not adhere well to the resin. I forgot my mistakes of the past and should have first given an undercoat of Halfords grey primer!

Anyway, after much cursing, the whole thing was given an all over coat of Vallejo US Tan Earth mixed with US Dark Sand - all paint colours are Vallejo from here on. The tracks were painted a mixture of Saddle Brown and Gunmetal Grey. The camouflage was applied with Olive Grey, the road wheels, antennae and machine guns were painted Black.

After this had dried the whole lot was washed with Sepia Wash and put aside to dry, it was at this stage that the problem with the Desert Yellow spray became apparent and quite a bit of lifting occurred.

Once the wash had dried and some touching up had been done, I re-applied the base-coats and highlighted up slightly. I then painted in the tactical markings and bridging weight to depict a vehicle of 6 Troop, B Squadron, 3rd Btn Royal Tank Regiment for Libya 1941.

The tank was then weathered all over using Tamiya Model Master and a Perry Miniatures tank commander that I had already painted was stuck in place.

I have added a picture of the vehicle alongside a Perry Miniatures Desert Rat for size comparison.

I'm quite happy with the result and chum Quinton popped around yesterday with a few AfrikaKorps thanks that he has made a start on, this diversion could have legs!