Wednesday Workbench 16 February 2022

 

...and power on, I did! I've only got a few bits left to finish for the Japanese, which should be easily accomplished in time to do a big submission for Sunday.

The grenade discharger squad and extra rifle squad have been varnished. Just the basing to finsih on these.

I've also finished painting some more supports - a second MMG team, a 47mm AT gun team, a pair of flamethrowers and escorts and some tank hunter teams. I'll be varnishing them tomorrow, after which they'll just need to have the basing done.

I've finished painting the 47mm AT gun, and it will get varnished tomorrow. Yesterday I used the airbrush to start the camo on the tank and turret. I'll finish off painting and weathering them tomorrow, and varnish them on Friday.

If I have time, I might paint these up as well - two officers, two LMG gunners and a tank commander.

As you can tell, it's been a busy few days. Once these are out of the way, I might take a day off before starting the next batch of figures.

AHPC XII 8th Entry - Somewhere Near Arnhem

My 8th entry was posted yesterday evening, so you finally get to see the finished building diorama and British Airborne.

The post can be found here: linky-link

I'm a little surprised to find that I'm currently in 12th place on the points table. 

Paint Table Saturday 12 February 2022

 

I finished the diorama pieces yesterday, photographed them, wrote the post and submitted it last night. It will go live sometime tomorrow.

Last night I started work on the next batch of figures - more WW2 Japanese. I finished painting them earlier this evening, but to late to do the varnishing, so that will have to wait until tomorrow morning.

I've decided that this week I will power through the remaining Japanese. If all goes well, I should have all the figures painted by Wednesday evening, allowing me to get the basing done on Thursday. I can then focus on the tank and turret during the long drying stages of the basing.

Wednesday Workbench 09 February 2022

 

As you might be able to see from the photo above, I've done a bit more work on the diorama base. Sandbags have been added and the rubble piles have also been done (properly this time). I had a lot of spare texture paste (brown acrylic frame sealant, sand and a little water) left over, so I grabbed some terrain bases, added some styrofoam shapes and made some rubble scatter pieces. Those are painted and varnished now, so no photos until the submission gets posted.

I've also finished painting the British Airborne figures today, so no photos of them either.

Which just leaves what I'm working on at the moment - the diorama base. Earlier this evening I started playing with oil washes to tart up the building. So far, I've used burnt umber to shade the cracks on the outer walls:

Tomorrow, when the paint has had time to dry in the recesses, I'll do a bit more cleanup with white spirit. After that I'll do some "dot washes" to add some streaks, and some very thin washes to stain around the base of the building.

AHPC XII 7th Entry - WW2 Japanese Pt. 3

 My 7th entry in this year's Challenge was a continuation of my WW2 Japanese project. This time the third rifle squad for my core platoon, some snipers and a MMG team.

It was only when I went to add the photos here that I realised I hadn't taken a group shot of them, so you get individual pics!

MMG Team

Snipers

Rifle Squad

The post was published yesterday: linky-link

It includes the continuing Adventures of Oscar and the last (for a week or two) "Extract from the journal" for your entertainment.

Paint Table Saturday 05 February 2022

As you can probably tell, I decided not to do a test-paint of the sci-fi buildings after finishing the WW2 Japanese batch. I photographed those and submitted the post on Thursday, then looked at what else was coming up in the queue and decided to shift to WW2 British Airborne. 

A while ago I bought the HQ group from Artizan along with a pack of seated paras. I decided to make up a diorama base to show them off. I got the building mostly painted on Thursday, then did some initial weathering yesterday. I also sorted out a terrain base for it to go on and thought that it might be fun to add dugout in a small bank nearby - I cut that from some blue XPS foam. I then spent a while cutting up coffee stirrers to make "planks" to line the inside. 

The darker sections of ground are where I had initially placed XPS shapes but removed them after deciding the rubble piles would be easier to make by a different method.

I also started on a roof for the dugout using some longer "planks" and some of the corrugated card "wrinkly tin" pieces I'd cut out when I was doing the jungle buildings last year. I also thought it might be handy to have some crates scattered around, so I dragged out the pack I bought from Debris of War at Salute. Those got primed today, before  a wash with Agrax Earthshade followed by drybrushing.

Of course, an HQ and dugout need sandbags and a ruined building needs rubble. To that end I got out my pack of terracotta Milliput and some Das air drying clay. I started making sandbags with Milliput until I realised that with the number I would need that it might be better to switch to white Das clay. I also wanted to make some brick rubble, so I first flattened out the rest of the Milliput and applied a brick texture roller. That didn't look like it would produce enough bricks, so I also rolled out some terracotta Das clay and textured that as well. After the texture rolling, I scored along the brick courses to make them easier to break apart when they had cured.

Clockwise, beginning top left: sandbags; individual Milliput bricks; individual Das bricks; "blocks" of Das bricks.

I'll do a bit more work on the diorama base tomorrow, probably adding the rubble and sandbags, then on Monday I will switch to painting the British Airborne figures.

Wednesday Workbench 02 February 2022

 

I'm doing rather well this week. I've finished painting all of the WW2 Japanese that I was planning to submit for Sunday - I just need to finish the basing:

Since taking the photo above I have added herbs to the bases. I'll be "fixing" them this evening and they should be ready for taking photos tomorrow.

On Monday, some goodies from Antenociti's Workshop arrived:

Power junctions:

System control pads:

Display screens:

What's the big item at the back in the first pic? Something for the "secret project".

After I've taken photos of the Japanese tomorrow, what's next? I think I'll probably do a test-paint of one of the sci-fi buildings and if that looks OK, I might crack on with the rest. Well, at least to get the base colours done - detailing can wait until later.