The Adventuring Party

So after listing all those projects back in February that I have to work on...I haven't worked on a single one. I built an aircraft carrier and got started on a new D&D campaign.

Instead of working on a project I decided that we all needed new figures for the adventure.

It's a big party so I've got some painting to do. These are mostly all Reaper minis with one gnome from Iron Wind, with an added staff - finishing nail.

I haven't got much done on them at this point other than some priming and the skin tones.
So in the meantime I will post some pics of the last adventuring party.

The 1/2 orc tank

The elven mage

The Halfling rogue

 



Rogue with the Druid

And the Dwarf Caver (ranger)

Thanks for stopping by.
Hope to have more of the new party up soon.
Leave some comments if you like.

















Blue Angels

This time up is my Blue Angels project.

I don't remember for sure but I think these are the Trumpeter 1/350 models. I took Mini-me to see them this past year but actually it was three years ago that we saw them and I wanted to model them. I had the Revell 1/48 scale F-4 models years and years ago as a kid. Don't really have the room (or want to shell out the $$) for 1/48 scale again. So Santa brought me these a while back.

The kit wasn't a Blue Angels kit. It was just a standard F-18/A so I had to come up with my own decals. But wait....I have terrible luck with decals - see some previous posts!

I did find some 1/48 scale for the F-18 versions and was able to shrink them down to an acceptable size. Unfortunately being yellow they don't really transfer very well, as in you really can't see them. So I did use the lettering on the under side of the wings and the numbering so I could be sure to get the font right. Then I had to go back over them by hand with the paint brush.

 

Here's how they turned out.

I mounted them on straightened paper clips. Getting the spacing good was a real trick.
I originally wanted to have the wires coming out of the center of the stand at angles like the stand from the F-4 models I had but not being a great engineer and wanting to work out calculating the measurements I just went with straight stands.

And lastly the shield emblem was impossible to get at this small scale but I gave it my best shot.

So there are my Blue Angels.

Let me know what you think.

USS Enterprise CV-6

What have I been doing for the past two weeks? Well I'll tell ya...

Aside from some real life things getting in the way and sucking up a lot of time, I've worked on and completed a small scale USS Enterprise I got last summer.

I got this last summer when Mini-me wanted a model to build and I just can't go into a hobby shop without getting me some-thing too. Ever had that problem? This was small (gotta be small, no space) and I figured it wouldn't take too long to build. It really didn't.

 

However, I'm slowly coming to the realization that I can't build anything straight out of the box. This model has lots of tiny airplanes, sixteen I think. So there are going to be some on deck, and there's not much room on deck. A little quick research of photos and when they were warming up on deck, there were several folded wings for them all to fit. Sooooo....got to trim wings and reposition them.

This last pic, unfortunately I see there are some spots I missed that needed touch up. Oh well.

Another thing about this model, the decals were not in scale. The "6" for the bow deck was Huge! about as wide as the deck itself. So pretty much everything...wait that's wrong. Everything is hand painted.

 

Well it turned out pretty good. I'm happy with it. Now that that's out of the way back to other projects that I actually listed last month.

Stug Company - MicroArmor

This week I finished up my Stug III G company main pieces. Still have the support vehicles to do. Someone asked for a tutorial after looking at my Panthers and T-34s, so here's a basic step by step.

Here they are set up and primed and ready to go.

 

 

I tried the recommended gluing them to nails and it works really, really well. I can turn them any which way and never really touch the models until I'm taking them off the nails. The hard part is getting the nails to stand up straight so the models are level. Tacky glue is thick enough to hold them up but for me it's a little difficult to peel it all out when I'm done. I'm always a little scared I'm going to ruin the paint by gripping the model too tight. I think I'll try regular white glue next time - maybe.

 

First off is the base coat. I start with the lightest color first. I'm going with a three color camo scheme on these by-the-way. So here is the basic desert yellow base. It goes on as a good solid coat to make sure all the surfaces are covered and no metal or primer is showing through.

 

 

Next is the next darker color, in this case a camouflage green.

 

This is not going to be a strict historical company so I know that the actual scheme and later the detail placement is not going to be EXACTLY correct, but I did a little internet research to find something I liked and thought I could pull off. Unfortunately most of the actual photographic history out there is black and white (since the world was black and white then...well pretty grainy color at least... http://calvin-and-hobbes-comic-strips.blogspot.com/2011/11/calvin-asks-dad-about-old-black-and.html ).

 

The green and next the earth brown I thin down more so than usual. It's not so watery that it runs into cracks and what not, but it is thin enough that it is semi transparent. I'll explain why in a bit.

 

Here's the brown color added.

 

Now that the basic colors are on, I use Game Color Smoke. It's really a dark brown, dirty wash. You could mix up something similar using dark brown, black and future floor wax to make a magic wash that would work just as well.

 

 

I put this on really thick. Slop it on. Make sure it fills in the cracks and all the crevices. I do keep it thin over the flat surfaces so it doesn't cover up the actual base coat.

 

Putting it on thick can also simulate mud and grime in the tracks as you can see below.

Now I go back and "dry brush" on the basic colors again. Everywhere except the tracks, I want those to stay dirty. It's not really the standard dry brush technique where you wipe off practically all of the paint, I still leave enough on there to almost be painting on a second coat. The smoke wash really darkens all the colors and you now need to go back and brighten them back up so they aren't all some shade of brown.

 

I go over all of the surfaces again in the same order - light to dark.

 

Since these are small areas I sometimes do more stippling than actual dry brush swiping. This along with the first coat being thin helps add to the soft edge effect. At least I think it does. Judge for yourself.

 

 

Now details and decals.

 

These painted up relatively quickly and turned out pretty good.

 

Here's the finished product:

 

This last shot you get to see my bombed out shed too. At the same time I was doing these guys I was finishing up my German artillery stands.

I was planning, but forgot to put some pennies or a nickel in the shots to give you some idea of the scale of these things. I can tell you that my artillery stands are based on 1 1/4 inch washers. 1 inch was just too crowded.

 

So this circle is only 1.25" in diameter.

 

Now I've got to do the support vehicles for my Stugs and then decide which of the many projects is next.

 

Let me know what you think.