LRDG-crew

At long last I have finished the crew to my Chevy, and also two improvised LRDG-soldiers on foot.

The driver is original as base and has had his right arm switched to one that could hold the steering wheel. The arm I used had short sleeve, so I had to build a new sleeve and also shoulder with green-stuff.

The Boys ATR is metal and from SHQ. The crew-member manning it is also based on the original, but I switched the right arm and the head to suitable pieces from the box of little toy soldiers and shoulder and scarf from green-stuff.

The standing crew-member comes from Revell Scottish Infantry, 8^th Army, and I removed his Thompson machine gun and pinned him to a suitable thin base, and got a figure that had perfect height to man the Vickers.

The wounded man on foot comes from Caesar WWII Underground Resisters. I removed his Sten gun and remodelled his left arm slightly to remove the armband. Also a helmet from the bits-box.

The last man comes from Caesar WWII Partisan in Europe and is straight from the box.

All figures painted with an assortment of sand-colours and browns. Washed with Citadel Devlan Mud.

50K hits! Yep, reached it in record time, so a give-away is coming. I just have to have a bit more time to prepare. 

French 1/72 WWII infantry from Pegasus, Caesar and Battlefield Miniatures

The painting table has been terribly neglected lately, but at last something is finished.

This batch is some French WWII gun-crew, big men (for IABSM) and soldiers.

Paints used (mainly Vallejo):

Uniform: 873 US Field Drab (seem to be the best, will continue using that) or 879 Green Brown (the lighter tone)

Helmet: 888 Olive Grey

Belts: Formula P3 Bootstrap Leather

Boots: 871 Leather Brown

Equipment (backpack etc): 914 Green Ochre

Everything washed with Citadel Devlan Mud

Level 3 Big Man from Pegasus

Level 2 Big Man from Caesar

Two soldiers from Pegasus

Three crew from Battlefield Miniatures manning a 25 mm anti-tank gun from Hinchcliffe.

German Big Men in 20mm for IABSM

The first batch of new big men for I Aint Been Shot Mom. The idea is to represent a level 1 man with one figure, a level 2 with two, etc up to four men for the highest ranking Big Men.

I have already converted some old figures into level 1 Big Men, simply by placing them on square bases, as opposed to circular ones for ordinary men.

These guys are newly painted.

First of the level 2 Big Men. Figures from Caesar German Army

Another level 2. Airfix German Infantry and Revell German Infantry 

A level 3 Big Man. Figures from Airfix Reconnaissance Set, unknown and Ceasar German Army.

Level 4 Big Man. The officer is a metal one I got from friend Daniel, and he was part of a group build. Great figure. Periscope from Revell German Armoured Infantry. The man with rifle is Caesar German Army, and the one with a SMG is from the Airfix Reconnaissance Set. The man with the back towards us is unknown.

French Hotchkiss 25mm anti-tank gun from Hinchcliffe

French 25mm Hotchkiss anti-tank gun
This one is from Hinchcliffe too, just like the artillery, but much higher quality. Recommended.

I painted it with Vallejo 975 Military Green, dry-brushed with a lighter green and topped off with some pigments.

Here we have another of these guns I finished last year. The crew is a mix, three men from Battlefield Miniatures (lovely models!), one (in the back to the left) is from Caesar’s French infantry, and one, not seen in this picture, is a modified Airfix WWI French infantry-man that originally releases a pigeon.

German infantry guns from Caesar and Pegasus

The first real project of this year. (I’m not counting the nearly 100 28mm figures that I cleaned, pinned and glued together in January as a project. But they are the start of the project of painting through the tin and plastic mountain, the first step is putting everything together. I’m not even finished with that yet.)
I’ve had two 75mm infantry guns from Pegasus lying half-finished on the work-table for quite a long time. And now I just happened (cough; cough) to buy Caesars’ 150mm infantry gun.
I started by gluing all guns together. The Pegasus sets were rather fiddly, but Caesars’ were more optimized towards war-gaming and finished rather quickly.

I’m mostly modeling early WWII, primarily France 1940, so all the guns were painted panzer grey. Dry-brushed in a lighter grey, and a coat of matte varnish.
I bought some Vallejo pigments the other day. I’ve never tried this before, and these guns were as god test subjects as any. I brushed some on, and I’m rather satisfied with the result. (My competence when it comes to photography isn’t the best, the flash makes everything look quite gloss, which it really isn’t in natural lighting.)

Now to the figures

The Pegasus sets have 2x4 figures. On one hand early infantry and on the other SS in camouflage smocks and I chose the early infantry. The figures are made of softer plastics, and they are multi-part. I glued them with cyano-acrylate glue. Bases were 18mm spacers.

I started by painting them with slightly diluted white glue, to get a surface that holds the paint. When that was dry I gave them a base of white paint, and then a black wash. In this way I get the best of two worlds, a rather light base-color that makes the colors brighter, and black in all nooks and crevices, giving a natural shading and I also avoid white spots if the paint doesn’t cover well in a crevice. As a bonus I’ll also get a first warning of flash or other uneven spots I might have missed in cleaning the figures.

The box from Caesar contained 8 figures in hard plastics and a lot of fiddly parts. Every figure is made up of body + leg + leg + arm + arm + head + helmet + equipment in many parts. I got a bit nervous about putting them together, but it went surprisingly well and the level of detail is outstanding. As a bouns you’ll get a lot of extra weapons and heads. A lot! This set is worth its price just for that.

Painting. I started with all dark details: smock, gas mask canister and cup for the water-bottle Vallejo 830 German Field Grey, Trousers: V 836 London Grey, helmet: V 869 Basalt Grey, webbing and other leather stuff: Black. All this was given a black wash.
After that the light details: Haversack V 912 Tan Yellow, shaft for the shovel: V 843 Cork Brown, bottle: P3 Bootstrap Leather, Flesh: Vallejo Light Flesh and a wash over all this with GW Devlan Mud.
The collars were painted with V 975 Military Green, and insignia white.

The bases were then painted with a mix of chocolate brown paint and fine sand, and covered with static grass.

In the games from  Too Fat Lardies, the infantry guns ahve five-man crews, so with the men from the boxes I get three fully manned guns, and a bonus figure.