It ain't easy being green

Really had to push myself to start these, and once I did the first one it just flowed without any issues.

3 smokers, 2 turretpoppers, 1 sleeper, 1 flipper and a gangbang. I've reversed the turrets from the poppers this time so I can add a nice white inside contrasting colour like I did with my flipped BMP-1 turret way back. Also did the T-55's barrels corectly this time, with a bit of barrel in front of the fume extractor. I did that wrong the last time.

In all likelyhood these will become Warsaw Pact (Poles or NVA - not that it matters much as in this scale they look alike) so I got that sorted and I think I have enough T-55 wrecks now....well, maybe I will make some Iranian ones but as far as I have seen their camouflage for the T-55....well, they used captured Iraqi ones, so....yes, maybe.

With an eta for bases at 2 weeks, and miniatures at 2-6 weeks I think I will be making moulds of the Shilka and the BRDM-2 I've got so I can turn those into wrecks....fortunately, for the type of games I want to play I'll more then likely field 1-2 BRDM-2's and 1 Shilka, so each of the 3 will get 3 more wrecks added to the collection. After that I'm out of models and I will have to wait till the new lot arrives. Never had that with a project before.

Always Nuka Cola.....Revamp

As the glass was seen as too shiney (I agree) I did some tries in weathering and in the end settled for matte varnish plus washes, plus extra weathering on the label. So now we have this:

Which is a big improvement I think over the old one:

But as always I'm interested in your opinion :)

Iraqi T-55 wrecks......in 3mm!!

 Don't ever tell me something can't be done, I like a challenge, in this case laid down a clown who was talking down on 3mm being counters. I said I would not only show him, but convert them too....which is almost impossible with the metal they use to cast these models.

But hey, here they are, my first set of 8.

Please look at the match to see what size these really are (and no, I did not put down a giant match). 25mm round base for each wreck marker, each one is a conversion in one way or another. 2 short evenings of work and more to follow.

Can't make my mind up: 1/600th period advice wanted

Over the last few years my interest in 1/600th has waxed and waned. Last year I gave up cause I can't paint the infantry figs (that is what I think anyway, if I can't paint 6mm then I surely can't paint 3mm infantry!) but lately I've been playing with tokens and markers for infantry and you know what, I'm ok with that. Knowing ones limitations and all that.

I'm doing this one purely for myself and solo play, and the joy of painting small scale. I just can't decide which period to go for, but I did narrow it down to 3 choices. They are:

• Iran-Iraq War. the sheer diversity of vehicles and the desert to moderate terrain. I have a long standing interest in the period and a extensive air game collection for it. CWC or Rapid Fire Moderns.

 

•  Copy my 20mm 1980's Dutch and make a opposing Russian Tank Division. Sell my 20mm Dutch. I want a Dutch army because I'm Dutch? CWC or Rapid Fire Moderns. 

• Copy my 20mm 1943-45 Germans and make a opposing Russian Tank Division. I will NOT sell my Germans! Battlegroup and BKC.

All periods have their merits. All 3 have a strong (long standing) interest. But atm I can only invest in one.

What would you do?

(Answers in the geste of Do what you like, pick the one most likely of succeeding, which you find most easy to paint are not liked.....I have 3 options for the reason that I like them all!)

Concrete barriers samples (various sizes)

Gone over my wooden block collection and sorted out some samples of various shapes and sizes I can build and paint if you like. Added  a 20mm and 28mm fig for scale.

(another dreadful phone cam photo, I know, but this was a quickie for a interested party - I'll do better shots when I get round to it)

For now, I've settled at 1,50 Pounds excl shipping each for the 28mm sized stuff (the cilinder, the large rectangular block in the back and the 32mm cube) and 1.30 Pounds each for the smaller cube and barriers. I'm pretty sure I can get suitable cilinders for 20mm too if needed.

So a set of 28mm scaled blocks, 20 pieces, will set you back 35 pounds for most of Europe, and this includes a shipping discount, for ready painted and weathered put on the table and game with it scenery.

Always Nuka Cola.....

My first commission in about forever, 20 roadblocks for a paying friend in Ireland.

32mm wooden cubes, concreted, aged and weathered. Will work for any 28mm game, be it WW2, Modern or Sci-Fi. (If you are interested in these, shoot me a message, my rates are low and I need the money)

And for myself, a Nuka Cola objective, made with a traded bottle and a laserprint replacement label
and bottlecap thx to Remco. Will look nice in front of a ruin on the tabletop.

60mm round base, real glass and with real liquid, collectors Coca Cola bottle with a new weathered and aged label. 12 cm tall so it stands out on the table.

Cheap Cityfight cover WIP

So, lastnight I smeared wallfiller all over 6 of them and let that dry, and this afternoon I sanded them again, not smooth, but leaving a pattern. I used a sponge and added a a grey with a pinkish hue craft paint on all of them, and after that dried a stone grey craft paint, also with a sponge, pushing it into the ridges. Then, using another sponge and a piece of heavy card, I marked all of them with weatherd yellow lines on top. Drilled holes and inserted bent pieces of paperclip and added a wathered down wallfiller to the metal...this creates a beuatiful corroded effect when painted brown and washed. Then some more weathering with a off white sponge for highlights, and right now I'm adding pinwashes with very thinned mud Devlan Mud and Vallejo Dark Grey. This picture is from just before that.

I'll weather the bottom halves with some darker colours, and then add posters to a few of them I think, and call them done.

I will do a tutorial on these soon, as they are dirt cheap to make and a ultra fast way to get additional cover on the table.

Eureka moment - cheap cityfight cover

I originally picked up 6 wooden cubes from a kids playset at the goodwill store 2 weeks back. Just paint them stone, put the statues on top, done. As I completely managed to balls up painting the Space Marine statue yesterday I grabbed the blocks again and gave them some thought.

I'd previously looked at Jersey barriers from several manufacturers, but it adds up really quickly and you need a lot for a simple table, so that was out then and it is really out now.

So....why not just paint the blocks concrete, add a bent paperclip to the top for a rusted lifting ring and use these as barriers. They are big enough to hide a single (heroic) 28mm fig. Heck, I can even slap some posters on some of them to make them either 40K or general PA

So, some generous applying of wetted down filler on 5 sides later we have 6 roughed up wooden cubes. Now to pick up some paperclips from work tomorrow and pick up a bag of these cubes at the goodwill store on friday. Or maybe just take the entire box and give to the girls what I don't need, seeing as the box with over a 100 blocks was a fiver and they charged me 1 euro for the six blocks I picked up...simple math I think :) Don't think Kim will be too pleased when I do that, but I still have some coin in my pocket for just this occasion.

Really chuffed with my simple and cheap solution.

Space is a valuable commodity, Part 2

Remember part 1? space is a valuable commodity

Today, I finished putting together all of the paint racks Patrick from Pat's Laser Cuttings had given me at Poldercon. Turns out Patrick made a slight error in the amount of stuff he had to cut for me so I'm 3 racks short of my full order, but i contacted him straight away, told him what was missing and he is right on, I should receive the missing parts this week or so.  So, with 9 narrow and 2 wide ones built (1 was prebuilt by Patrick to see if he got his calculations correct and was given to me as a freebie) and waiting for the remaining 3, I can show you what a full rack looks like.

9 narrow and 2 wide makes for a perfect fit in a space that doesn't have the bit attached to the door, else I would lose the space for 1 rack, and the 3 remaining ones are spares for later and can fit on another plank if I wanted to. After putting in some paints to test the dimensions, I can happily say that the 9 narrow racks hold 30 paints each (so 270 in total) and the wide racks hold 21 paints each (so 42 in total). With my current paint collection (ignoring all of my Games Workshop for a moment that I hardly ever use anyway) this means I have about 1,5 narrow racks spare and 1 full wide rack. As I plan to buy more Vallejo washes and MiG Ammo weathering painst in the future this gives me all the room I need for a while.

The racks handle easy enough, even when filled to the max, as there is some wiggle room for my finger to grab a rack from the side and then slide it out with no problem. All that is left for me to do is to paint the exposed side gloss white with a extra coat of varnish, and then fire up the labelprinter to print out the paint codes (VMC 1-10 for instance, I have almost the complete set of that series, or just VPA for the few Panzer Aces colours that I own)

Now I can hear you say, I can't see my paints, now I can't just grab the colour that I need right now. Well, good for you, but 9 out of 10 times I'm painting by the numbers dictated by my notebook. I just grab the codes that I need and paint away. If  I do need to experiment, which happens from time to time, I can just slide open a rack and look at the bottles to see what colour I want as that is clearly visible. Just takes a hint of effort, no biggie. And it frees up a ton of space as these 2 paintracks:

...dominated my table space left and right of my monitor. Not that my tablespace isn't dominated by a ton of junk on it, but hey, details. :) Now, I can store almost 300 paints where before I could only fit 100. I'm now another step closer to swapping rooms with the kids. Something, that, due to the termination of my contract, is a lot closer then we had previously planned,

(Gameplan - in 3 weeks time I'm out of a job. To fool my brain and act like I still have a job, I have given myself 2 weeks to clean out my storage space in the city, toss what I can't sell quickly, save the miniatures and rulebooks, and trash everything else including the furniture, or have some guy buy the lot. Not having a storage space to pay for saves me 60 euros a month better spent on other things like a full tank of gas (at current prices) - Also, when that is done I can focus 8 hours a day at cleaning the current hobby room, packing everything up in boxes and moving it upstairs, leaving just the empty cabinets and tables. Then I have to time it for when the girls stay at my parents place for 2 days to get the lot dissasembled, moved out of the way, and the kids stuff moved into this room, and then store the lot in the what will be my new hobby room, so I can start assembling it after the kids come back. Big plans, I know, and in the meantime I have to try and find work as well, but now, if ever, is the best time to get this move done cause I have the time I would not have had, had I still been working. Well, that's how I feel about it anyway. I really want to see this happen asap. Only took me over a year to get there :) The pic has now been printed out as a motivator on my door......

And that is it really. What do you think of it?

Wasteland Ruin - 3 Doors Down

Sorted the weathering and the labelling of the 3 doors. Also washed all of the rebar with Devlan Mud and afer that had dried, with Vallejo Light Rust Wash for that crusted rusted iron effect.

Next up: painting and weathering the tiles, and after that doing the paperwork. Can't wait, though that last step is going to take a few evenings I guess.

Wasteland ruin progress - grey sorted

Finished sponging grey on the model all over, even inside where it is bloody hard to reach. Did the tops with a almost pure white highlight, only picking up the top and some of the other straight edges, but it hardly shows. Finished painting the rebar in the base brown tone, will do a brown wash to pick up all the crusts and then do a orange drybrush tomorrow evening. Also just finished painting (well, using a sponge) 2 weathered green doors and a wooden door with glass. Just need to clean the edges a bit. I'm thinking of doing the tiles in a Khaki colour, that seems to match the ones I saw in the bunkers and KPN building I frequented over the years.

I'm expecting a envelope with a dozen or more sheets of posters and newspapers to cut up, bathe in coffee and spread all over the floors. After that it is time for washes and final weathering, before reprimering the plasticcard edge that has worn a bit and painting it black with 2 good coats of gloss and a matte varnish to end it. I don't see a point in varnishing the model atm, It is built pretty solid and not likely to be tossed around by me anyway...

In other news, I traded a big plastic Space Marine statue on the sprue that should be here by the weekend too. I'm planning on giving it a raised base and adding 40K posters to it, so it will be easy to change the theme of the ruins to 40K/Inquisitor by just placing that in a central square or in front of a ruin.

I'm having a hard time keeping my chin up. The physical pain is getting less with each passing day, though I still have plenty of problems with my back and knee, but I and Kim have detected my mood has gotten a lot darker over the week since I got the news of my job loss. I'm having trouble enjoying my kids and even getting a bit of a temper now and then. These are the first signs of a (coming) depression for me and I need to nip this one in the butt.