Battered and Bruised T-34's

Army Group North, Early Version T34's. Painted to represent an amalgamated troop, there is subtle changes in shade, wear and tear and markings between the vehicles to betray their original units, although not too sure the pics show that off too well. click on the images for bigger pictures, as always more pics in my flickr galleries

Brigade Games - Schneider CA-1 - S.C.W

Brigade Games 1/56 WW1 Schneider painted for Spanish Civil War. Minor updetailing added such as crew climb holds, roof racking and some stowage. As always more details in my galleries.

Website Retiring Disordered.....

Well the time has finally come, the old web site is due to be removed. I've kept it going (although not updated) basically for nostalgic reasons. I'm sorry to see it go but it no longer accurately reflects the services ( or prices!) on offer these days.

This blog will serve as the main portal with the flickr galleries as, well my gallery! which is really what people want to see afterall. I'll keep www.troop-of-shewe.co.uk up for another couple of days, after that i'll redirect all here....

More 15mm Eye Candy

As the title says some more BF offerings. Some minor mods, replacement schurzen for the Panthers, distressed for the Pzr Ivs crewmen etc. Will hit the forums with the full sets soon, more pics in my flickr galleries

F.A.Q - New feature

I always try and share tips and techniques, unfortunately most of the answers are distributed in private emails and across various fora. I will now try and post the answers here, any questions just email me. I will add these will be just my take on things, i'm sure there are hundreds of ways for skinning these particular cats

Scratches and Scrapes

I also use an airbrush for the basecoat on my WWII tanks, then, for Germans, airbrush the camo on. From there, I usually drybrush with a lighter shade of Dunkelgelb, drybrush on dirt, then I’m done.I notice with YOUR models you have lot’s of small “nicks”, which seem to be black. Also, I’ve seen your models with great scratches running along the sides, just like a modern car would if it was driving through the woods. How do you achieve these effects?

[Troop writes] I have been experimenting with the well known technique of "dabbing" paint by using blister pack foam. Simply load the foam, dry off and dab on areas of high wear, less is more. This is then augmented with balck/hull red/dark brown applied with a detail brush. This part is laborious and best done in stages, put down, leave and then revisit. Its far to easy to overdo these bits. Finally scratches are "highlighted" using a light tone ( grey, light olive, khaki and yellow all work for OD) . This is just to give a light edge to some of the scratches, this is an out of scale technique but adds to the overall effect.


BLOWING PANELS/PRE-SHADING

Also, I’m guessing from looking at your models you’re using the airbrush for shading? I’d love to hear how you pull that off as well.

[Troop writes] For the OD vehicles, i start from a base black coat. Then use a darkened OD and spray out from the centre of any panels. The effect you are after is to leave some of the black showing through around the panel edges. Then use OD and do exactly the same but leaving some of the darkened OD showing, as you lighten the OD you get to a light point in the centre of the panel. If you get confident you can also lighten the top edges of panels and top surfaces for extra fading. An alternative method is to use your normal OD coat and then spray a wash colour ( raw umber) around the panel edges. This needs to be heavily thinned and is a bit more tricky, again less is more and work up to taste!. I also find the paint can often dry a lighter colour than when spraying so often stop and let dry to see the effect.

Paints

I'm experimneting with various diferent paints, Tamiya, Model Air and Vallejo Air. Tamiya is by far the easiest to work with, the other two have better colours but are very thin, this means a several sweep approach that can can be tricky on the smaller scale german camo.

Cleaning and Storage

Ref storage, i clean through as normal, each clean i pull the needle as well. Start with ditching the paint left in the cup, fill the cup with water dilute reside and ditch x 2. Hopefully i then have no paint bits in the cup i then use airbrush cleaner dilute and ditch, when confident no stray bits, blow through. As a final touch i spray some of the foaming airbrush cleaner in a can. Dissassemble and clean. On resassembly again some cleaner then half a cup blown through of water. As i can leave set up in the shed and its used frequently i usually leave some cleaner in the cup put the lid on and store upright in a holder. Its rarely put away dry, but woudljust miss the last step if i did.

Commissions

I'm afraid i'm going to have to shut shop to new customers.

My existing customers and a couple of new guys and girls mean my time is fully booked for a couple of months. Whilst most people know i dont operate a production line, rather batch work according to colours and techniques, i feel i'll loose any flexibility i have if I take on anything else.

As always i will try and accomodate existing customers, and that includes any recent email discussions.

Some finished commissions in my flickr galleries, a large 15mm Peter Pig Kampfgruppe and three commissions worth of Ardennes Armour, mainly Company B and BAM. More sets close on their heels and the first finished units for next years Salute.

Salute - 09 - Shewe best of Show!

It seems the hard work and hours expended paid off in the end, my Nomonhan game was presented with Best of Show and Best Demonstration Game. My thanks to Ian, Stewart, James, and Tim for their unfailing support with the game on numerous occasions.

I'll taking a break from Troop of Shewe demos for the rest of year although i will be supporting some Escape Committee Games. I will be back with a humdinger at Salute 2010 and a secret Project X -20mm game in conjunction with Stewart......

I also completed a vignette for Outpost Wargames Services for their Russo-Turkish war range. Martins sculpts really are coming along now, lovely detail in particular the faces. Jeff has ensured that for each pose there is a variety of different head types.

I also completed some 11 hour new releases for both BAM/Warlord and JTFM, both Shermans. Both sets are lovely in their own right, The BAM tracks are particularily good and the JTFM kits have stacks of stowage included, nice work Paul and Jeff.





As always pictures of all my commisions including the demos can be found in mt flickr galleries, link at the top of the page.

A quick preview of some non-WW2 painting, a Bugarian Vignette for the new Outpost Wargames Services range.

More JTFM Panthers and Panzer IVs

Ok guys and girls, I'm beginning to loose count of the numbers of each of these little beauties I've done, I'm sure Jeff T can build a nice extension to his log cabin with the sales just of these two. Anyway, thought I'd try a little different camo on each than normal. Am particularly pleased with the Panthers, they look Kursk-ish ( yes i know they're late war!). In this case i have used Archer rub down transfers which are simply superb, fiddly but superb. Of note whereas the VVV crosses ( and all waterslide decals) work better on a gloss finish, the Archer work better on a Matt finish, so a little more planning and prep is needed. The 251 is Bolt Action/Warlord and part of a separate commission. Having issues with lighting again, there are two different styles here, let me know which people prefer on the web and i'll know next time.

Getting my skates on now for Salute, some 11hr painting with Six Company B IJA Type 89's winging there way over the Atlantic for my Salute demo, also some advance Bolt Action/Warlord Shermans for Chris Thompsons demo, two vignettes for Outpost, alongside 6ft of Nomonhan Terrain to finish!

As an appetizer i also have some lovely 1/48 kits just in, now these are gonna be special, but under wraps for now!

As always full sizes pictures in my flickr galleries.

- early evening update, I now have six Japanese imports! Type 89's courtesy of Brent and Bruce at Company B (and Jeff at JTFM), currently scrubbing the resin prior to primeing tomorrow, will keep you posted......

Jan Commissions

Managed to clear a backlog over Christmas, lots completed, notibly some lovely 15mm FOW and a lareg batch of 1/56th Goodness form JTFM, BAM and ex-Chieftan models

Company B Sumida & Chi Ha

New package has arrived, 28mm Japanese Sumida Rail Car and Chi Ha. Both lovely kits. I have up-detailed both, the addition of the aerial on one of the Chi Ha's and general bits and bobs on the Rail Car, both track and wheel varients. This will be pride of place on my rail track addition to the Nomonhan Demo for Salute, watch this space for more info.

Also a Hellcat and two HMCs extra detailed and stowed.

Kubelwagen

Off to Brent at Company B, this lovely little cast, all available from Brent. Certainly the best "28mm" Kuble i've made and the "crew" fit lovely, which makes a change ;o)

Wild Faeries!!!!

Ok, a change for me this time. Two sculpts bought on a whim from Eureka Miniatures Avalons Burning range. I had fun painting these, trying for a forest theme with autuman hair colourings and deep shading the skin green. The bases are from the excellent back2basix range, which i thoroughly recommend. These little sprites look great in the flesh, although as you can see i had several problems with the photography. These are now on ebay, should be easy to find.

Charlie Company

Lots completed this month, check the flickr folders for full details. Particularily impressed with "Charlie Company", consisting of BAM M3s and M8s, suitabley updetailed.