Northag in 3mm - Primer time

 A bit bright, but it is 3mm and they will get a wash etc, so I hope it will work out. Once the tanks are painted I'll do the bases, add black trim, put the white stripe on front and maybe some sort of marking on the back. 

Northag in 3mm - British Cards

 On the Northag FB Group Ian Garbutt posted a set of ID cards for the British, so I printed this off and laminated them. Will come in handy.

Northag in 3mm - British (de)basing standards and inspiration

 After foolishly looking for 3mm painting tutorials and realising a day late and a dollar short that 6mm painting tutorials work just as damn well......I've got enough set aside inspiration wise to get started. 

The basing standard I have chose for now is:

• Round 25mm for all the vehicles and infantry teams
• Round 25mm and/or 40mm for command team bases
• Rectangular with the top shaped like an arrow 20x20mm for Recce 
• Air support I'll use my 30x30 and 40x40 air combat bases
• Offboard artillery on 30x60 and 60x60

Everything magnetised so it fits easily into the RUB boxes, and I need to make/get inserts so I can stack up inside the basic 4 Liter ones. 

I have a couple ideas for objectives as well, but I need to put that down to paper first.

Inspiration wise I'm going for this (but in my own basing style) 

painted by Little Ninja Painting, not me!

 

Northag in 3mm - cutting, cleaning and testing out bases.

 2nd evening of using my clippers to remove the resin print bases off of the Oddzial Osmy tanks and APC's, and glueing them with water soluable glue to icecream sticks. Using the 2 lists I have printed off I'm working my way through them and marking stuff off.

 Nothing earth shattering, it just takes a a lot of prep time, but I'm not in any rush or anything. Still not decided on the basing format, though nudging towards round bases for the on table assets and squares or rectangles for off board stuff.

 Like testing out a Sovjet 120mm Battery and a Grad battery on 30x60 bases. If I were to build a 122mm support battery I would have to get 60x60 bases to fit the 6 guns of such batteries. A lot, but not impossible. 

3mm test print 1

 Sliced the base off of the 6mm model and printed it at 40% to see if that works ok for 3mm. Might run another test tomorrow at 50%.

Northag in 3mm - doing the paperwork

 After 2 games of Northag in 15mm I found I simply don't have the room for the game I would like to play, but I like the game. After mathing some math, looking at the pro's and cons of 3mm vs 6mm I've decided to give 3mm a go. I painted that before, I can do that quickly with a nice bit of detail, and that just leaves the isuses of the lists, purchasing and basing.

Lists:
I've downloaded a British and a Russian list from the FB Group, noted down the numbers.

Purchasing: 
Made an order with Oddzial Osmy for both, plus some civillian stuff. The way the packs works it means some will  just barely cover it and others I will have way too much, but it is what it is. 

Basing:
Vehicles will be single based, troops per team.

For all vehicles I'm nudging towards 40mm x 20mm  or 30mm x 30mm wide for practicality purposes (standard sizes help with fitting in the box, infantry teams can be on 30mm round, Specialists on 20mm rounds?. Command bases 40mm or square, just like the offboard support markers..... but tbh I can't make my mind up about base sizes. It doesn't really matter for Northag anyway, and every other system seems to have their own special needs. I'll give it a good think as I'll need to paint everything first anyway. 

I'm still keeping 7 days to the Rhine in the back of my head as a backup btw. 

That and I should not be overthinking this, ey?

Teeny Tiny Technical printed!

 Isn't it adorable?

Now to actually paint them.....

Tumbling Dice that roll in slow motion

 Last weekend till the move to the appartment, and after 45 days my Tumbling Dice order arrived and mail from Jack :) Like Christmas and Easter in one day. :P

Brexit opinions aside, getting stuff from the UK is back to 1980's levels of postal service. Granted, holidays, and I hear horror stories about Customs, but still, this is ridiculous in this day and age. Oh well, at least I've planned this project and was waiting for these to arrive, so I can continue work on Desert Spitfires. 

I'm pretty much knackerd though, Lung Covid isn't doing me any favors, and I'm worn out for getting everything (well, most) sorted for the flat, and I still have no idea when I can get all my hobby stuff shipped over.

Next week I'll just sit on a sofa watching time pass and excercise in between those sessions.

The other Egyptian C-47 WIP

 Well, at least this one is coming out as I wanted. Yes, I painted windows. Yes, I highlighted them. Now to find my Egyptian decals and lettering. I might give up on the other one and strip it, though I really dislike giving up on models.

Miniatures painted: 0

Egyptian C-47 WIP

 Paint down on the 2 Egyptian C-47 but I can't find my notes anywhere, and I never seem to have published any progress pics of the Egyptian stuff I painted, so I had to guess for my camouflaged C-47....and I guessed wrong. Looks more Iranian now, which wasn't what I was aiming for. So....repaint or what? Or use for a different country? I can always repaint over the bright sand for a toned down one but dont want to keeep adding more and more layers.

Goodbye 2021

 A few more days to go till the end of 2021, but for me it can't come soon enough. While it is nice to be painting again, the level of shit this year is getting to me. I've treated myself to a few things at the last minute. I've been dumping quite a few paints from my stash, I have waaaay to many and quite a few have gone off or solidified. Also want to go over all of my brushes to see what can be saved and what can be tossed. I still have a pack of unused sable ones that I'm saving for miniature painting (so not waste them on scenery). My old blue pot of water effects from ages ago had gone off so I picked up a new one, transparant this time, so I can mix it with the paint and skip a step. For now it is meant for my 3mm aircraft over water bases, maybe later when I pick up targets, I mean ships again I will use it for those. Picked up some Flanker Blue as this Russian Blue is great for weathering anything Soviet era stuff. Mecha Rust textture to see if it does anything extra compared to my Vallejo Rust Texture....I doubt it but who knows.

Some airbrushing stencils (or more likely stippling in my case). The Radiation ones are on the big side for 28mm, but the barrel marks are just fine and will save me a ton of time.

And more tufts, as you can never have enough of those. Some spring flowers, some large scale big leaf weed tufts that will come in handy for Vietnam, and some wintery grasses for expanding my Germans into the winter period.

Atm I'm waiting to receive 2 1/400 scale freighters to convert for Cruel Seas, I have a stash of ships for it that I want to paint up in 2022 even though the game isn't very good, but you can use other rulessets with it so.

I don't have many plans for 2022 tbh. Work my way to clear the room, make the gaming table clear again, sell off/trade/give away what I don't want/need, bin what is crap and paint what I want to keep. Basically what I am doing now, forcing myself to make some hard choices. I want to keep this? Sure, paint it. Too much effort? Sell it.

 Gaming wise, the focus isn't changing much. Paint what is fun, painting so we can have a game is even better. Thx to Jacks motivational blog posts 3mm is back on the menu. Bases have been bought and are being made, a set of Jungle, Water, Desert and Winter are planned. My worry about the lack of decals has been negated by a new player in the USA. I do need new epoxy as mine has solidified again....that stuff only lasts a year or so after opening....to put the magnets on the planes. And I need to fix some magnets on older aircraft, the tiny ones don't work and 2 of the bigger ones have shattered. But besides that, I want to get back into air wargaming, and I'm starting with more stuff for Desert Spitfires 1948, as I have some stuff finished for it, and I refound some B-17's and 109's that will be prepped and finished for the Israeli's

20mm wise....my focus is all over the place so anything goes.Still looking at Middle East rebels and expanding my Germans. I hoped Stalingrad would have given me a boost but not (yet). I doe have quite a few Berlin buildings to get through.

28mm. Well, I'm pushing myself to paint faces again as those scare me immensely. Give me machines and wrecks every day of the week, but now that I have painted the 2 ghosts I feel less worried. And I should, as I have plenty to do for Stargrave, Mordheim, Rogue Trader, This is not a Test, Kill Team etc

BFG. Space ships. What is not to like. 

My best step forward this year has been opening the WIP drawer, grabbing semi finished stuff and just getting it done, and this will continue for 2022 onwards. I should also take a step back from making scenery all the time and into finishing more models, but those 2 goals are not mutually exclusive.

And I might even get me a display case. Show off what I make instead of hiding it all in drawers. Purely for motivational reasons, of course.

And that is it. I wish you all the best of luck for 2022, stay safe and happy painting.

1948 is back on the menu boys!

 With a little motivation from Jack and a bit of cash sent to my favorite lasercutter this project is back on track. 

 

 

(though the 40mm bases are for Vietnam.....no other way to fit a B-52)

 

There could be the slight issue in the future when I start running out of certain aircraft and Brexit increasing shipping costs and time by a factor of 25%. Same for decals, but at least a US supplies has stepped up in the void left by Dom's Decals going....somewhere?

Anyhoo, bases need to be produced. And then the Netherlands went in lockdown. Again. Jay.

Si Tyler's IRIAF colours

Again, I will keep up posting other peoples work from time to time to save it for future reference. This time it is for the colours used by Si Tyler for his Iran-Iraq Iranian Air Force.

(Edit: Tbh I don't think all of these colours exist anymore, but it is a handy reference none the less)
(Edit2: You can't ask Tyler for the decals btw, he had a HDD crash and lost everything. Yes, everything. The only ones you can get are the IRIAF roundels from Dom's Decals)

My first IRIAF Aircraft for the game. The Iranian roundels are from Dom all other decals are homemade. F-5 and F-4E to follow.

In terms of paint for these:

• Vallejo Dark Sand over a white undercoat
• GW Calthan Brown
• Vallejo US Dark Green
• GW Devlan Mud Wash
• Vallejo Silver Grey undersides
• Varnish
• Decals
• Varnish
• Dullcote

 The original Blogpost can be found here: Iranian Air Force

3 weeks in.....

Hi there again.

There have been a few changes in the past 3 weeks since I was told to stop my medication. First 2 weeks weren't fun. This week was.....different? It's like my entire outlook on life has changed, shifted in a way, from the misty lands with dark clouds to more that of a cloudless mountaintop.

This week we had a 2 monthly meeting with all of the organisations supporting my little familiy. For the first time ever I spoke more then 2 sentences, sat upright, enjoyed elaborating how I had taken the girls to the village to return our library books, and when we had done that, just sat down in the corner, both girls on my lap, and they kept giving me books to read to them. It was the most pleasurable moment I've had with my girls in what feels like ages. 2 councellors sat there with open mouths of amazement, my mom sat there almost crying that her son was back after 6 long years and I seem to have baffled everyone else (including myself).

I've taken these pills for 6 long years and never, ever again. I don't want to be like that anymore. If I feel a bit down, I'll get over it on my own terms. My depression? I'll fight that with my bare hands if I need to. I flat out refuse to go on the pills route again. I can fight this.

I've been sticking to the draw a line, clean that area rules every day now. I'm feeling now that I really can't stand clutter, and am much more active to clean up the little things around the house. I'm combining this with quality time with my girls, so I asked them if they wanted to do chores with me (which was greeted with enthusiastic cries of "Yes! Yes!") so I cleaned the gutters in the yard, and the girls both swept up the dirt into the bin. We then took a walk to the recycling centre to get rid of the glass....I carried, they put them in (mostly) the right holes. And then off for some groceries, it's a bit like herding cats with them at the shop, but they behaved really well, and when we got home Kim told me she was going to see a movie with her sister and her mom, if I would mind looking after the kids? :) After a tickle party untill they both had red cheeks, we all sat down to do some colouring. And the first time ever I gave them some potato chips (that they had picked themselves) and after that 30 minutes of telly and snoozing on the couch till Kim came back home.

I can safely say this has been my most enjoyable sunday in the 3 years that they have been born with nothing but daddy time. I'm really savouring the moments I have with them. And they apparently too, as Nikki cuddled up to me and almost fell asleep and Emma just hugged and kissed me out of nowhere.

I feel I'm getting better at not pissing off Kim too. She's in the loop about my finances, I tell her about every trade, sale and purchase, I hug her a lot, I'm doing my best to be understanding of her problems.

On top of all this, I actually did some hobby stuff tonight. Grabbed box 2 (3mm city) and built another Block.

I'll add a shelter/subway entrance or a statue  in the open area. Keeping it as generic as possible, don't worry.

Set my alarm clock to 22:00, and when that rang, cleared everything, cleaned it and now you can't see I did any hobby work. And I like it. I'll try again tomorrow and see how it goes. Might even be able to add 2 Blocks?

Feeling good. Hope you feel the same :)

3mm ruins - now with block plates

Took a few minutes today to base up what I have already made, using the lasercut Blockbases.

It is nice to see Patrick lasering what I had in my head a few weeks ago. As soon as I feel safe with a blade again (next week? I hope?) I'll cut more buildings and glue them down.

Got an email from Dom at Dom's Decals that he is a bit behind, and my order should ship soon. I just picked some aircraft that I felt like I wanted to paint and went with that (P-47D's, I-16's, Hs-129's and Japanese floatplanes). Was worried not receiving anything almost 2 weeks after making my order, I found that to be unusual. I'm behind on painting airplanes anyway, but yes, life.

Slowly whittling away the stuff on my battletable, put up quite a bit for sale, the rest sorted in the correct boxes and a bit dropped in the bin.

Other then that enjoying my darkend room and trying not to annoy Kim too much. Did install new light fittings in her aquarium, so I did that much. Her fish are all wearing sunglasses now though......

Where I am at with the This is not a Test (TNT) demo for Poldercon 2017

Over a little less then 6 months Poldercon is up, and I have not made the progress I wanted to. I´ve noticed, and this is nothing new, that I prefer to start and finish something in one night (excluding varnishing) as in my current state of mind I have a lot of trouble focussing. This works fine with smaller scale stuff, not so well with larher items unless I do just one thing.

Call me bad, lazy or anything like that, I just lose interest really quickly in one particular item of the bigger plot (not all the time though).

So, TNT. I've decided to move away (for now) from making a full ruined city and make something more manageable on a 90x90 table, that can also double as a table for Modhails zombies, Supernatural stuff like Big Trouble in Little China or Chtullu. I've been working a lot recently with lasercut products, be it MDF or Cardboard, and I like it, and I have sold a lot of stuff (wouter, including some of your old stuff, thanks again!), so I have some funds.

I've decided to go for a trailer park. I've painted a 15mm trailer before and that turned out ok. I've been spending the last few weeks looking at options (resin, MDF, thick card) and availability, put some hard thought into what I wanted to spend etc, and settled for the following map.

Since the aim here is to spike a pre-War water heater, I've given that centre stage. I've made a conceptual design of a 4 booth and 8 booth shower, with room for the water heater in the middle. C = car, T = trailer. The red lines are fences. The trailers I picked up from Sarissa Precision Ltd, they have an offer for a bundle of 6 trailers for a reduced price and 2,50 Pounds flat free shipping worldwide, and they come reccomended by friends. I've added some park benches as scatter to the order, as well as a Children's Playground. There goes 80 Pounds. The other parts come from TT Combat. Initially I had my focus on them, to make 2 rows of Brownstones and a centre street, but (for now) that costs too much. Through Trolltrader on Ebay I purchased the Bus Stop, the Construction Office as a stand in for my reception desk, and the Subway Entrance (not for this game) so goodbye another 20 Pounds. Cars I have plenty, just need to finish a few more. Fences won't be a problem as I have my mighty The Chopper and plenty of basing material, so I just need to measure stuff for a bit and get cutting. The Pool I'd like to have cut by a Evin, custom size, 3 layers of MDF (2mm Base, 2x 2mm thickness walk area, 2 pool stairs, maybe a springboard, with the baseplate painted glossy black/brown for the water with plenty of fixed (newspapers, leaves) and non fixed (skeleton on a air cushion, bike handle, both based on 1mm plasticcard) debris. The rest of the MDF used can be filled with more bases, 2 birds with one stone. All of this based on my Concrete floor mat.

The Sign.....I can't decide on a name yet. Shady Acres being the standard one, but Heavenly Haven is nice (for you Dredd fans). Shape wise there are tons of options to choose from, but I see no problems there ordering this from Patrick/Evin. Anyone have any nice name ideas?

Final detailing will most likely be a mixed order from Black Cat Bases (I have a substantial gift coupon from them that I want to cash in) and bits and pieces from Delta Dog. He's a gifted sculpter who does a lot of 28mm Fallout stuff, and a Aspie like myself, and after a brainstorming session earlier this week we decided we must have plastic flamingoes. He'll do the printing and moulding, I'll do the buying of quite a few of those as well as other items like a Nuka Cola machine and smaller items. I'll need a bunch of letterboxes too, now that I think of it.

While those items arrive (just the MDF bits I mean) I can spend all of my attention to the 3mm Berlin/Stalingrad table, and tomorrow I should receive a medium sized box full of corner pieces and city block bases, so I can glue down what I have and get cracking with the rest of them.

Also, I need to sell more stuff :) And clean this hellhole. Other then that, just dandy. Shrink next week, can't wait :)

3mm ruins - Block 4 and 5. And a midnight 6.

Lazy sundayevening.

Block 4

Block 4 from the other side

Block 5. When based, this will get some walls with a doorway to fence the alley off

1,2,3,4,5. We are getting there!

I REALLY need more corner pieces. At least 15 alone for this set if I don't want to be staring at blank walls all the time. As soon as Patrick is back from his trip I'll have a word.

Edit: Could not sleep. Built nr 6

Nr 6

3mm ruins - well, not all of them

When I made the design it was actually to make Cold War Kaserne for a German board. It needed no modification for the ruins. Also nice as a Hopsital or Government building.

In my infinite wisdom, cause I was just going to make ruins, I decided I did not need roofs.....well, do I have egg on my face :) Well, I need bases anyway, and due to a communication mishap with Pat I have hardly any corner buildings and those are pretty essential tbh for my ruins. Can't have a ton of blank walls in the city. Speaking of which, 2 more blocks done.

We are getting there.

3mm ruins - Block 1 basics done

Well, the basic part of Block 1 is done now.

I might add some side supports on the inside, very thin ones, to improve the look a bit, but these are wargames buildings, not museum pieces. Besides, I need to be able to easily fit a 20mm square base in there if I need to.

Simple field test to see if my fingers can reach in there, and I have no problems doing so, so success.

I did see one thing while building them. Look at the following picture to see what I mean.

1. 4 walls
2. 3 walls
3. 3 walls
4. 2 walls
5. 2 walls
6. 2 walls

I noticed I can leave out walls because I will be glueing it all together to make solid blocks anyway, so I'm ending up with a lot more spare parts then anticipated, which in turn means more buildings. I just need to keep cutting down scrap cardboard to fill in the holes, but that is a 2 second job. I also noticed that the top parts that I cut off to trim the size of the building can be easily converted into shopwindows by trimming off the bit inbetween (not in this picture, just in my head right now). I did notice I'll end up short on corner pieces, so some of the blocks will have just blank walls facing the street....but I think I have a nice plan for that as well....we will see, some simple cuts here and there should transform the pieces anyway.

Just dandy really, it is coming along as planned, with some minor alterations to make, and the cardboard is pretty damn tough to cut which is good for the final strength. Patrick will cut bases to fit the various blocks next week or the week after, so I have to wait with glueing them toghether till then. Still, doing one or 2 blocks per evening should not be an impossible task, so in theory I could have them all made up by next weekend-ish.


With that sorted, a bit of a rant from me.

I go through my stuff on a regular basis to find stuff to sell to fund things like this. I take good pictures, properly describe it and ask a fair price (or so I hope). I've noticed a trend for a while now that people ask me "to cut them a deal on postage" which for most EU locations is 12-15 euros. In my kindness (and I really want that deal to put money in the bank) I take off 3-5 euros and make the offer. Only to have people agree with me there and then and then tell me straight away or a day later that they think that another 5-10 euros off or completely free shipping is more fair. I find myself getting more and more annoyed by people doing this over 10-20 euros worth of miniatures....are people just getting more greedy or what is going on here? Even tonight I had 2 people contact me over a lot of lasercut stuff worth 35 euros that I was asking 15 euro for just to get rid of it, only to have one chap make me an offer of 7,50 euros, and then contact me a few hours later saying that he made a shitty offer, and what was my REAL askingprice? When I told him I already had offered it to another chap including shipping, he kept asking me what price I was selling the lot for. When the other guy accepted the offer I told this chap it had sold, and told me that he would not make a higher offer. Which made me look puzzled, as he wasn't in the position to make an offer anyway! Also, I offered up a larger lot of Epic40K stuff on various FB groups that hadn't sold 3 months ago, although I had plenty of interested parties then. Again, some of the same interested parties from last time contacted me with offers that were much, much lower. These were the same persons I had given a previous deal including shipping, and not a single one of them had bothered to reply to that offer. Not even a simple No (common cuortesy seems to have died?). One of those persons was particularly brazen, made the lowest offer of them all, telling me he was being generous and this was the best offer I would get online, and that I had to include free shipping! When I pointed out that he had failed to reply the last time around and because of that I would not deal with him (well, that and the lowball bid), he replied annoyed and abusive. Fortunately for me, a couple of new interested parties did reply to offer including postage that I sent them, most with a request to think about it and one person who accepted the offer almost straight away, and even paid within the hour. I informed everybody else and that was it for me. Don't get me wrong, I offer stuff after checking prices from other sellers and ebay Sold listings, and I don't mind taking lower offers, but don't go telling me what I need to do. It just pisses me off and I will do no more business with you, period.

Maybe it is me and my Aspergers, but I try very hard to be sociable (while I'm not really that good at it), say "thank you" and "you are welcome" a lot, outside to cashiers and people I meet on the street, even online, and for some stupid reason I think normal people should respond the same way. Like this:

The meme should add: "....or a wargamer"

Sometimes it makes me wonder why people call me different or unsociable, while I think they should take a hard look in the mirror cause they are not exactly poster children of proper human interaction (if there even is such a thing as that....considering all the wars, terrorism and crime you'd think there are too many people with a few screws loose now a day).

There, I feel better now.

3mm ruins - the start

This afternoon, I was greeted by the postman who gave me a sturdy little box. Upon opening, I was greeted by the smell of burnt stuff :)

I grabbed the bag of bases and started fiddling about. In my head I have 2x2, 2x3 and 3x3 as base shapes, and I had been playing with paper cut outs, but now I have the real stuff, so after some quick sorting and printing off some sheets of graph paper, I ended up with the following which was more or less what I had in my head, with some additions:

The grey speck is a 20x20mm base with a tank on it. Well, I always knew 3mm would not be as glamorous picture wise as 20mm, and 3mm will be a top down and close up shots for battlereports.  I have enough spare bases to make a 4th row of ruins, plus enough spare bits to make a 5th row of ruins, if I wanted to, but for now, I won't.  The bit above is 55cm x 35cm , but with what is left in the bags I have more than enough to cover half a square metre of table (my basic table is 80x80 cm) so I could do a complete cityfight on it. I'll make the buildings in such a manner that there is plenty of space to put the 20x20mm bases in, though some will be more extensively modelled then others. Bombcraters will be easy too, just some milliput surrounded by scatter. God I love 3mm scale, I can finally put all my dreams to reality without costing me another house in storage, another fortune and my marriage. When I say fortune, I mean it....the money I have spent on wargaming over a lifetime is scary! Fortunately, all this stuff cost me 32,50 euros and a book in trade, so total cost for half a square metre (and then some) in scenery is 45 euros. In 20mm that would buy me maybe 2 houses, in 28mm maybe a single farmhouse (unless I went MDF, then maybe a bit more).

What is the plan? Taking the above picture and gridpaper as a base, I will cut out, round off and sand down 12 bases and feg, there goes my plan. Just checked my stash and I  have only 1 sheet of 2mm plasticcard left, which is only sufficient for the bottom 2 rows, and there are no more local sellers of the stuff so this means back to the lasercutter. Which costs more money. Feg. (my buddy lasercutter is unavailable for the next 3 weeks and he's not the most accurate measuring wise so I won't risk that).

Not a problem. Cause Pat cut all of these with bases I can just assemble them ahead of time and glue them together in the correct shapes so they are ready when the blockbases arrive. See, problem solved. Pffeww.. now this won't happen again when I do the next part, the factories, so lesson learned.


Right, back to the normal routine of cleaning and clearing out all the stuff I don't need anymore from the hobbyroom and selling it. The income for this week alone has been phenomenal, more then a years budget in just 2 sales, but I've put most of it back into my bank account to make it greener as I have been skirting the thin red line and I want to stay out of debt. I have enough left over though for a small 3mm force though :)

Enough for today. Tomorrow, the world! :)