Phillippeville (2)

Despite having guests staying I've been able to do a little more work on accessories for my 1930's/40's French town.

First up is the lovely Austin 7 Gentleman Civil Defence from those chaps at First Corps. Mark has done a fantastic job on this model and it's a real joy to paint. It's right-hand drive so I'd like to think that this is an English journalist covering the phony war who has been caught up in the German advance and is trying to escape back to Paris.

The base-coat is Vallejo Model Colour Black-Red which I think gives a fantastic rich burgundy colour.

You may be able to make out the tweed detailing on his cap, I think this makes a nice period feel.

The car comes with a couple of extra armed figures, but they don't fit my narrative for the model at the moment, but, I'll likely paint them up at at later date and blutack them in for Maximillian 1934 games.

After I started painting the model I realised that the windscreen was actually flash that should have been cleaned up, but I ended up painting it instead.

The base is quite simple, I did not want to overdo the rocks, tufts, etc if it is meant to be on a dirt road.

 I also painted a few more of the accessories in the Rubicon Models Utility & Light Pole Set Three more lampposts and three more telegraph poles.

I would highly recommend this set if you are looking to add some street furniture to your games.

Phillippeville (1)

Having painted all those Senegalese Tirailleurs I thought I had better get cracking on some suitable terrain for them to fight over, so for the past few weeks I've spent less time painting than usual, but more time working on some terrain.

Earlier this year when I was at Little Wars I picked up the First Corps Fuel pumps and attendant set from Scale Creep and it's sat in the backlog since then as I was never sure of what to do with it.

I finally set my resolve and set about slapping some pain on it last weekend and I'm quite happy how it came out. It will make a nice garage forecourt for the town.

You know how it is, sometimes you don't know you need something until you see it, and that was the case when I read Tamsin's post from a few months ago. That Rubicon Models Utility & Light Pole Set is brilliant.

I've assembled most of the stuff and gotten a few bits painted.

Three lamp posts, the set comes with loads of street signs so I added one to one of the posts. The flagstones on the bases are just cereal box card.

There are components for loads of road signs that you can make and I've done what will likely be the first three of many.

The telegraph poles in this set are much better that the ones I picked up from the model railroad shop a few months ago. The extra components mean you can add street signs and municipal lamps to them. The middle one in this set of three will be 'in town' while the other two are out of town.

Earlier this year I posted the Warbases workshop that I had built and painted. I thought it needed a little something more so I first of all added a base to it. The cobbles are from Wills Finecast, I picked them up years ago and don't think that they are available anymore.

The rest of the base is done in a rough wasteland with scrubby grass and weeds.

I also perked it up a bit by adding a commercial sign and some of the bracket lanterns from the Rubicon Utility & Light Pole set.

I'm much happier with how it looks now, I think it was a bit 'flat' before. I may print out and add some posters at a later date.

Finally I knocked up three small hills. These are 'pink board' stuck to artists mount board and sealed with decorators caulk. Once that was all dry I textured with fine sand and added some grit and larger rocks before spray painting green and then 'dusting' more patches of colour on with spray paint.

The grit was given a light drybrush and the exposed rock and larger boulders painted Basalt Grey and then highlighted.

Fall Blau Painting Update - 14th May 2017

Just a small update this week with a Rubicon Models T-34 added to the collection.

A really nice kit, easy to put together and I reckon took lees than an hour to paint in my 'dirty, streaky, tank style.' A base-coat of Russian Green with the tracks and exhausts painted in a mix of Saddle Brown and Gunmetal Grey. A coat of Sepia Wash was applied and allowed to dry then the Russian Green was reapplied as a very thin wash with a little Dark Sand added for subsequent highlights. The tracks and exhausts we re-applied and the machine-gun picked out with a wash of Gunmetal Grey. The grills were given a thin wash of Black Grey and decals applied.

After the decals had set I applied a coat of Testors Dull-coat and set about with Tamiya Model Master, the lower hull in Mud and upper hull in Sand.  The end of the gun barrel and the hull around the exhausts we given a dirtying with Black and then an all-over light dusting of Light Sand.

I've painted quite a bit of other stuff this week for the War of the Spanish Succession and El Cid collections but it all needs basing. Not sure if there will be an update next week as I shall be in Mexico City all week on business.

Fall Blau Painting Update - 7th May 2017

This week I've been adding to the Fall Blau collection, after adding the Soviet T-34 it was only fair that the Germans also got some armoured support.

Firstly a Panzer II, I think it's an old BAM model and I acquired it in a trade. Unfortunately it was missing the gun barrels and hatches, the 20mm cannon is from an old Perry Miniatures spear while the MG is brass rod, the hatches were fabricated from card.

A nice little model easy to clean up and probably only took about an hour to paint using my base-coat and wash followed by two or three of highlights method.

Last week at Little Wars I picked up a Rubicon Panzer III model, it's described as a PzIIIJ, M, or N and I planned to make it as an early model J with the 5cm KwK 38, but it only comes with the 5cm KwK 39 and I thought about cutting that down, but in the end relented and left as it. I'm pretty sure that the model is may be a IIIL anyway as there is additional armour on the glasis and mantlet. As with a lot of stuff on this project I'm being moved slightly later in the war.

A lovely kit to put together and again a really easy paint job.

I need to pick up a tank commander and get him painted. Searching through the collection I have about six of the Perry British ones but no Germans.

I have another T-34 to paint, this time a Rubicon model done in the 1940 configuration, hopefully that shall be ready for next weeks post along with more German armour.