AIW Painting Challenge Month Three - Ben's Israeli's

Hello All

Welcome to the last part of the AIW painting challenge, you have already seen Winner's and Adam's month three of the painting challenge this week and now it's my turn. This month I didn't have much left to paint, just four Anti-Tank Jeeps and a Heavy Mortar platoon.

I was looking forward to painting the Jeeps as they were part of the reason I wanted to collect the army, they just look cool. I'm thinking about a Jeep army if we revisit AIW just to get more of them!

Painting To Tabletop Standard

One of the strange things I realised on reflection is that I always consider myself an average painter. The issue is that I have been an average painter for the last ten years - but if you look at my original blood bowl teams to my latest T-55's there is a definite improvement.

So I'm back with one of my rambling pieces, and it's about something which has been circulating in my head for some time. The idea about being 'average'. Now I've chosen to focus on painting, but it applies in so many other areas too gaming, list building etc.

AIW Painting Challenge Month Two - Adam's UAR

So I wrote this and it seems to have vanished into the ether hmm...

Anyway, this month I had the relatively small task of only 8 T55's this was due to me being on holiday so needed to be small - though having a large chunk this month moving house may be a challenge too...

Painting Challenge Month Two - Ben's Israelis

Hello All

Month two of the painting challenge has been and gone and I have been a busy beaver. This month I painted up two Ch’ir Mamochan (Motorised) Platoons, they are without transports as I was really struggling with points (not having the half-tracks saved me a whooping 165pts!).

Painting wise I painted them in four batches over two days with another two days for basing. I decided to do something quick and simple and after spraying them Russian Uniform I picked out the details and painted on Army Painters Quickshade. The basing was done the same way I did it on the Jeeps in month one.

AIW Painting Challenge Month Two - WinnerDave's Jordanians

Hey,

Month two has flown by, I thought I had some breathing space but it turns out I've been painting like a madman in order to get these done.  Even with a two week holiday off work.

Edge highlighting alone took me 3 days and I was so glad when it was done.  10 tanks at once is hard work.

Without further a do here they are...1415pts worth of tank.  My list only calls for 9 of them, but I wasn't going to not paint one simply because it's not in my current iteration of a list.

Blue square platoon, have a spare wheel on the front glacis plate for added ease of identification on the table top

AIW Painting Challenge Month One - Ben's Israelis

Hello All

As you may remember we start an Arab-Israeli War painting challenge thanks to the sale Battlefront did a month or so ago. After much chatting and swapping of sides I ended up with Israelis and decided to paint up an infantry company to be different from the mainly tank heavy forces the others would be collecting.

My original plan for the first month was to paint up my 4 M51 Isherman's and the jeep squadron, As you might tell from the above photo I didn't get to do this as my Isherman's were delayed (I should have guessed the tanks would be popular!). I ended up buying two Sho'ts off ebay and painted them up instead.

AIW Painting Challenge Month One WinnerDave's Jordanians

As I type this, it's the 23rd July and I've only just started the painting challenge.  In my defence, I couldn't afford to stop painting the 144 figures you get in a Strelkovy box, otherwise I'd never pick them up again.  Also the delay in shipping means I didn't receive my tanks until two days ago.

Sneek peek at the end result

So 500 points worth of miniatures, is not going to happen.  Then again it never was.  Points in game terms don't translate well into painting effort. So I'm going to focus on getting the infantry done (A Moshaa Mekaneekey (Mechanised) platoon, which is only 190 points and hope I can catch up in months 2 and 3.

AIW Painting Challenge Month One - Adam's UAR

So it appears unlike winner and Ben almost all my stuff arrived.

You've hopefully seen the AA I did earlier, and winner gave me some great feedback - which I of course ignored until I compared my modulated T-55's to the fully finished AA - I then realised he was right!

Painting Painting ZSU-57-2

So I've started our new painting challenge and as with every new painting project I try to learn a few new techniques and tricks, and this project will be no different.

So I choose these guys as a nice little unit which can form part of my first months painting, they are similar enough to the T55 (obviously) to be a great test bed for the painting.

I started by cleaning up the models, and as a base colour I tried one of the Vallejo air brush base colours 'desert tan base' - the first issue is that this colour is a lot lighter than desert tan (my colour of choice) but by using a light colour there is less need for multiple layers to cover the black, also unlike the grey base I've used before, it's easier on the eyes to distinguish between the paint and the grey of the resin.

After basing it, I then did a layer of desert Tan, after this I covered the tank in a variety of tape and blue tab to highlight in a type of 'bad modulation' as I call it ( I used Vallejo air Sand) I tried to get some nice areas of contrast between panels, (, with varying degrees of success) in some places it's more subtle than others...

Great War German Commission - Beute Mark IV

Hooray my first minis painted since the big move.  Life has dramatically changed for me since the house and job move, but I can't tell you how glad I am that it's finally done.  Unfortunately I'm not able to paint in the kitchen any more, which is where I used to do my airbrushing as I found being near running water and a sink invaluable.

I haven't quite figured out where my new painting spot is in the new gaff...but it didn't stop me from getting my Great War German commission finished.

Basing Your Vehicles

This post is aimed at a unique crowd of Flames of War gamers.. It is aimed at those who like to base their armoured vehicles, or thinking about doing so...

Hi all, Matt here!

A few months ago I posed this question on the FOW Facebook page, "Do any of you guys put bases on your tanks and is this viable for tournament play".

I was staggered at the feedback I received from the community in response to my question. I think 3, maybe 4 comments simply stated, "Burn him", or "Blasphemer" and other comments to that effect :-O. Of course these comments were taken in jest (as of course they were intended - I hope :-s ) but they were hardly helpful were they!

Great War German Commission - Stoss Platoon

After my adventures in Polish armour, it's back to the Great War commission.
After painting tanks I always fancy painting some infantry and vice versa.

So without further a do, a direty bunch of Stossers.

Unfortunately my photography kit is packed in boxes so I had to free had these photos, meaning my already terrible shots are Ivan on the scale of terrible.

Colours of War Review

Hello All,
Fez-man here with a quick review of the new 'Colours of War' book by those fine chaps over at Battlefront.

Building an EW Polish Army - Armour Part 2 The Rest

As promised in my first post on my new EW army, here's the rest of the armour.

The armoured cars...

I couldn't be bothered to try and source some decals, so I had a go at painting the eagle.  Naturally some are better than others.

Building an EW Polish Army - Armour Part 1 The Train

Hi, so i'm keeping a diary of my progress, partly to keep my momentum up, partly so in a year's time I can come back an see how I did something and partly because that's what blogging's about.

Enjoy!

Winnerski

[14-03-2015]

Today I start this year's project, which is my EW Polish army.  Because of the way I paint, I'm most efficient if I combine similar models, so I'm doing all the armour assets together...which includes the train...yay!

Unfortunately my enthusiasm quickly waned, as the train did not want to go together nicely and I'm left with a fair bit of filling to do.  At least its just the loco, the carriages seem fine.

Not a bad day's work though, one train, three armoured cars, three 7TP tanks, and 5 Tankettes.  I own an assortment of rare earth magnets now, which is really handy as you can easily adjust for each turret.  I have some that are thinner and some that are thicker than the standard BF issue sized magnets.  Right now everything is soaking in soapy hot water.

The Cohesive Look for an Army.

Hi all

I'm currently on a bit of a mission doing a load of German units - the reason why - got an airbrush, my paintings improved and I hate a 'piecemeal army'. What do I mean by piecemeal - well it's an army without cohesion, because personally that's what makes a collection of models an army to me.

A bit of history - I've always considered myself an average painter - what that means now when I consider that I'm a better painter now than I used to be can be interpreted in many ways. However the point is this, individually I never thought my units were impressive, an entire army of them, in a cohesive display was! So since then my aim was to have an army in which no individual model is amazing, the force in full display together looks impressive.

T34 obr 1940 Commission

Hello chaps

This week I managed to get a second commission finished in time for BA3, where I will be able to hand them over to my client.

Even though all I seem to paint now a days is 4BO green I really looked forward to painting these fellas.  I find my painting style and techniques I want to use change and alter every time I sit down to paint and painting T34s is no exception.  Problem is, I want my existing army to look as coherent as possible, so I try not to change my style.  So a commission of 3 T34s gave me the opportunity to explore some alteration in my technique.

Great War German Commission - Blitz's Battlegroup

Hi folks

Today I finished painting the Blitz Battlegroup from the Great War commission I started this year.
This has been a very enjoyable project for me to paint and I can't even begin to add up the hours  spent painting this.  I've grown very fond of this force and it's going to be hard to hand it over.

Anyway, here it is and in a break from the norm I've made a little set up.

1st Platoon dig in for the incoming assault

Late War Alpini and Corrivalry Report

Heya all,

Jersey James here with some more Italians... I'm not meant to be doing Italians this year as for me it's going to be about branching out into new armies through all periods and company types but at this early stage none of my other late war projects were anywhere near ready for Corrivalry so I took 1800 points of RSI and was the only player out of 96 to choose an Italian list from the new book, Fortress Italy!

Here's what I took, 12 platoons of Italian Infantry and guns laid out after I finished painting at work. No aircraft as I didn't have the option and no tracked or armoured vehicles except the recce AB41 cars. There is a platoon of Confident Veteran Germans lurking in there though, more on those models later.

Nächtjäeger Tale of Four Gamers Month One - Alex

So here's my first month of painting and modelling for the Nächtjäger challenge. Now unlike The rest of them I had to put together a load of motorcycle recce, which certainly brought out my masochistic streak.

I also had got SS motorcycles, now I had planned to just paint them up as Heer troops but when I looked closely at the models and saw the uniforms were completely different I decided to paint them up as SS. Now this is probably historically inaccurate, but in my defence I will put forward the following:

1) I've put together two platoons of motorcycles, I'm not putting more together just to get the right uniforms.

2) At this stage in the war supplies were a little sketchy, so it seems slightly plausible that a group of Heer might get some other uniforms given to them.

3) Riding motorcycles cross country is bound to be grubby work, my motorcyclists will therefore have overalls for when they are riding and will change swiftly into a neat clean uniform when they dismount. 

4) It's my army, naff off.

I'm aware 2&3 do not seem to make sense together.

Anyway, this meant I have had to try doing SS camo, which was fun, if also painstaking and eyesight straining.

Motorcycle recce, out in force