Plastic Model Diversions

 Hello friends:

Popping up to post some photos of what I've been up to lately, not wargaming really but as I've noted here before, I enjoy hacking away on plastic model kits from time to time just for the therapeutic value of the process and having something to look at when all is done.

I've nearly finished this 1/48 scale Mk 1 Hurricane by Italieri.  

I've been using the Vallejo RAF Battle of Britain paint said, which is intended for the airbrush but I've been using a brush.   A recall reading that someone once interviewed an RAF airman about how they painted aircraft and he basically said they used "whatever we had in the shed".   I suspect a lot of warplanes then were a little rougher in appearance than they look in the model airplane magazines.

A few more fiddly bits to finish and then I can put the prop on and call her done.  I may find something to dull down the finish on the decals.

And as one kit is winding down, another is just getting started.  Oddly, I was inspired to build this by my wife Joy, who was born in Collingwood, Ontario, where we live now.   Collingwood was a shipbuilding town, and a number of corvettes were built along the Great Lakes.  Snowberry was built at Lauzon near Quebec City and was originally intended for the Royal Navy, but was transferred to Canadian service.

I've read various comments about this kit, which contains hundreds of fiddly little bits, and I suspect it will be a challenge, so I'll work away at it from time to time, post progress photos here occasionally, and hopefully it will finish up on the mantleplace at the rectory - in Collingwood!

 Cheers and blessings to your sprue clipping!

MP

An Alternate Airshop for The Rockies Ablaze Project

Geetings, friends.   I hope this finds you well.

Here’s a bit of nonsense.  I said a while ago that I had an airship in mind for my Rockies Ablaze project, and in my mind it was going to be some sort of Zeppelin.   I had acquired Revell’s 1:720 scale Hindenburg model and some of Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures Zeppelin troops, which seemed like the perfect villains fo my stalwart Mounties and mountain men.   But things got a bt out of hand and this thing appeared.

 On Twitter there is a bit of a fictional airship community which mostly exists to tell silly stories about implausible airships, with some blog spin-offs, like this one.  I played along for a while, creating a Twitter account, @hmcawolf, dedicated to telling the story of the Royal Canadian Airship Service and is flagship, Her Majesty’s Canadian Airship, Timber Wolf.  The idea was an alternate Edwardian history where the Dominion of Canada used airships to patrol the coasts and skies, with they crews who would be a mix of sailors, soldiers, mounties and scientists.   The idea comes in part from Chris Stoesen’s Thomas Deveraux series, set in an alternate history where the Confederacy survived and the majoir powers use airships.

 HMCA TimberWolf combines the Revell Hindenburg model with bits and pieces from an Academy Models 1/72 scale B17-F model (guns, canopy, etc) with some surplus decals from Airfix 1/72 scale Typhoon kits.  I’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast but it amused me.

 

 I am sure that HMCA Timber Wolf will need a German nemesis and that they will do battle in the skies over the Rockies.   Stay vigilant, chaps!

Revell Krupp Protze and a Basing Blitz

I had a great game last night with Rabbit Man and the gang.  I’ll write it up anon but you can read James’ account of how the Fascist hordes were stalled on the road to Moscow.

I haven’t made a plastic kit in a while.  I found this in a local hobby store some months ago and thought I’d use it to keep my hand in.  It’s the Revell Krupp Protze truck with 3.7 cm anti-tank gun. It will be useful for Chain of Command games, which make sense for my 20mm collection.

I don’t think it quite dawned on me that this was a 1/76 scale kit.   All the other Revell kits I’ve made are 1/72.  Some research on the inter webs revealed that this was originally a Matchbox kit.

Painted with Vallejo 73.603 German Panzer Grey Surface Primer.  Drybrushed with Americana Yellow Ochre hobby paint.  I see in the photo below I forgot to dry rush the bit above the drop gate, which looks far too clean.

Nice to have a 3.7cm AT gun.  I think I’ll base it separately.  I can use the crew figures from the Matchbox Opel Blitz and 7.5cm PAK kit.

For the past two weeks I’ve been on a basing blitz.   I’ve made up MDF bases for all my 20mm German vehicles.  Each one is magnetized on the bottom, to fit into the ubiquitous cookie tins to get ready for the coming move and for better storage.   Here are the German A and B echelons.  It’s interesting to look at the various paint schemes I’ve used over the years, including the three Hanomags, a grey and rust pattern which I think I originally took from a Matchbox paint guide in my youthful naiveté.  There are two Pz MkIIs and a Pz 38 in that paint scheme which I haven’t based yet.

 

 

 

These figures bring my 2015 totals to:

28mm:  Foot Figures: 19; Mounted Figures: 10

20mm:  Vehicles: 1; Artillery: 1 

15mm: Armour/Vehicles: 5

6mm:  Scenic pieces:  7

Kilometres Run: 252

Die Kosaken Kommen! February Is Russian Month Continues

For my sixth entry in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I decided to steppe up my game and do a large entry. These seventeen bad lads are 20mm World War Two Soviet Cossacks, in soft plastic from Revell. I am fairly sure they are out of production now, because they don't show up on the Revell website.



I chose to paint these fellows as per Plate E in the Osprey Men-At-Arms 216, The Red Army Of The Great Patriotic War. The red kubanka cap with white cross on red shows that they are Kuban Cossacks. Those splashes of colour, along with the blue trousers with red piping (as per the Revell box art) will give this unit some death or glory swagger amidst my drab Soviet hordes.



Command stand. The CO sweeps the steppe with his binos for unsuspecting fascists while his aide has dismounted to hold the reigns of his boss' horse. I never noticed this, but the review of this set on the Plastic Soldier Review website points out that the standing figure is way out of proportion to the other figures, I'm not going to let that bother me, they make a good command stand all the same. Actually the PSR entry gives this figures good marks for variety and historical accuracy.



The designers of this set cleverly cast the capes separately, so they could be fitted on the figures once removed from the sprues. For the most part they went on without trouble, though for several figures I had to use putty to hide some gaps between the cape sections.



The charging figures are quite inspiring and ferocious. I opted for round bases for all these figures, on the theory that charges would be pretty ad hoc and irregular affairs, and not the boot to boot and knee to knee formation that the traditional square base implies.



The pack includes one figure firing his rifle, so I decided to base him separately. He can be a lone scout for the rest of the unit.



I am curious to see what these fellows will get up to on the tabletop. Last month I was preaching here on my blog about how reconnaissance actions are not well represented in wargaming. I can imagine these Cossacks engaged in scouting, supporting partisans behind the lines, and raiding German rear echelon units, so I have some ideas for games with these mounted Ivans.

Now, speaking of mounted Ivans, back to those SYW czarist hussars. I can hear balalaikas and drunken singing coming from my painting bench!

Pigment Pickle

Gentle readers may recall how excited I was a few posts back about those sweet looking ISU 122 tanks that I had treated, somewhat overzealously, some opined, with Vallejo pigment. Well, I treated treated them with my usual final step, a spray of Testors Dullcote, and when I saw them yesterday morning, I was horrified to see that where the pigment had not dissolved, it had turned white and now loooked like snow. The same was true of a Britannia resin Soviet command truck that I had also treated with pigment. All three will now require some remediation.

I share this with you because this morning I noticed that my favourite penguin, Thomas, had just finished a beautiful British western desert LRDG chaos buggy and had treated it, quite successfully, I thought, with MIG pigment, and was wondering whether to matt varnish it. Not wanting him to repeat the same mistake, I jumped on the reply button. I think Thomas may try some Vallejo Matte Varnish vice the Testors stuff, so we will see if he has better luck, but for now, the cautionary moral to my sad tale is, don't get yourself in a pigment pickle. Be careful how you finish that model, and maybe do more research than I did.

The season of Lent drawing near, with all its privations, I worked myself into a penitential mood Sunday afternoon by painting leather belts, straps, reigns and tack on 17 Revell Cossacks and their mounts, still left on the sprue. Soon I'll start snipping them off the sprue and seeing if I can get their capes (the bat-like dark things you see on the sprues) fit as advertised. If I can get them done by the end of this week, they will be Entry #6 for the Analogue Painting Challenge, and then a unit of 12 28mm Front Rank Hussars to carry on the theme of Russian February.

God prosper your brushes and bless your die rolls!