Cold War T54's

No excuses, bit of a theme here, some more cold war soviets, and still more to come. This time 20mm kit T54's, iconic tank this one. Again the premise was Cold War, therefore weathering limited to mud and dust, no rust streaks and ostfront scratching to fall back on. I will admit the weathering on these took 3-4 months on and off, i just wasn't happy and kept revising techniques untill i was satisfied ( so please no how-tos on these ones!). I can be a PITA sometimes with my work, commission or otherwise and have been known to re-paint even at some late stages. If i'm not happy with it, it won't go out the door!

And just to prove i'm fallible, i have (since posting) found a slight mistake on these, which i'm sure will be pointed out in bold when i hawk these over the forums.

As always click on the pics for warts and all pics.

2nd Panzer Div, Ardennes (in 15mm)

Half of a commission here, bit of a mixture of manufacturers, Peter Pig ( Panthers),  8 Rads, Horches, Demags ( CD/Skytrex) and Kerr&King 251's with BF crews.

Warlord Bren Gun Carriers - without bases

Lovely remodelling job from Warlord, these really do look the part now, painted with MTP camo, Guards Armoured, Normandy. They come with moulded in driver torso, seperate heads and two bren's, one for the AA mount and one "up front".  All decals on these two are Dom's Decals, if you can make them out under the dust!

Warlord Churchill - Normandy Stalwart

I really like the Churchill visually, probably my favorite Allied vehicle. As a painting canvas the straight surfaces and lines are great to show a variation of tonal finishes. Anyway, you've had the WIP shots, now here's the finished article.  Painted as it comes, no mods (as per Warlord display criteria).  Nice solid kit with no fiddly bits, just the Mg's, barrel and TC hatches to add on. The pictures show two different lighting settings, am not convinced which is best.  I've spent some additional time distressing the paint finish, not the "en vogue" gamers huge over scale scratches (its depicted as Normandy, so not in theatre long enough for that Ostfront  vibe!) but rather tone changes and fading combined with dust. Most pictures and movie reels show a heavy layer of dust, i am working up to this as i feel its difficult to pull off convincingly in 1/56th without it looking like a newbies bad hair day with MIG pigments (which incidentally guys, aren't the panacea everyone thinks they are!).

The TC is a Warlord figure but is not included in the kit (one of my stock dummies). Hopefully we'll see a Crocodile soon as well.  I now have a raft of new Warlord Hun opposition awaiting a start date, so Normandy fans will be pleased over the next couple of months.

The techniques are subtle so warrant a full screen, please double click for "warts and all" or alternatively visit my flickr for maximum viewing pleasure.

ISU 152

Plastic kit, actually painted as Cold War, but no discernable difference. Sorry cant recall make, but lovely AB crewmen.

as always click on for full fat pictures

"why do i get the 12.7mm all the time!"

Kitchen Table Update# 4 Allied 28mm

Just a teaser today, but you should be able to see some progression between the WIP shots.
First up JTFM Staghound and Warlord Quad (converted), both at the final weathering and detailing stage. Note decals applied and sealed, crew started. The two crew come with the Staghound, I've chopped them down a bit but nice additions. The Quad, has had a canvas roof added, rear superstructure mounting arrangements and rear view mirrors.
(as always click on the pictures for full fat "warts and all" views)

Warlord Churchill, just after decaling, you can also see the effect of washes and oil paint fading. The Quad is the unconverted version, as it comes

 Warlord Churchill, essentially post airbrushing, pretty plain huh!

Converted Quad alongside its standard cousin, you can see the effects of oil paint fading, sneaky Warlord Bren in progress, note no base!.

The next shot shows the painting detailing on the canvas tilts, prior to washes.

This little ensemble is the Warlord 25pdr set. I have mounted the figures on metal washers and fashioned the master bases to facilitate removal. The 25pdr has been slightly modified with the top shield replaced and modelled down.

And also hanging around, 12SS combo, two separate commissions. Heavily mod'd JTFM 251'Ds, mod'd JTFM 234/1, PzrIV and another lovely little Luchs ( with Warlord commander) more of these in later posts.

On to Berlin

Late War Russians, T34/85s and ISU152. I believe these little beauties are SHQ, they are all metal, nice and robust gaming pieces. I have added crew, one Milicast and one AB. As always, more "full fat" pictures in my flickr galleries.

Now Sold

SAS Jeeps -

Two 1/56th bespoke conversions of the excellent Warlord Airborne Jeeps, into the SAS configuration for NWE. Lots of work and loads of extra details packed into these little beauties, just persue the pictures in my flickr galleries.

Now Sold

Kitchen Table Update: Warlord Morris Gun Tractor "Quad"

Have two of these on the bench, so decided to add some detail to the standard Warlord version. Minor additions are the canvas tilt, side mirrors and the frame and attachment points for stowing the 25pdr Gun platform.

Warlord's STuG III

Another one off to the Warlord Emporium. As usual with their display vehicles, it is built as it comes, no mods or additions. Another nice and robust kit, consists of Hull, track sections and schurzen plus barrel and odds and sods in metal.  Only minor quibble is there is no MG shield.  All locate positively with each other and make up a nice little kit with very little assembly or cleaning up. I must commend Warlord with all their recent releases, in that, for the track sections, extra locating points have been added so the tracks sit where they should be, to be fair JTFM are very good at this as well, but with some other manufacturers' kits it can be hit and miss putting on the track sections. It also makes a more robust kit, after all these are gaming pieces.

 

I have a section of these coming through (just waiting on clearing some other commissions first though) so I can't wait to start piling on stowage and distressing the schurzen! As an interesting aside I have three AGN Stug III (paint alongs) that have been sidelined for a while, maybe I'll finish them all together?

If anyone is wondering why the hull camouflage style doesn't match the schurzen, its inspiration is taken from the Firefly Collection "Panzers in the Bocage" book, an excellent resource.

I have the Warlord Quad and 25 pdr coming through, with an additional "mod'd" one by me with crew, so watch this space. (Panthers behind that.....)

Finally, is there value in me posting pictures of the kits as they come unassembled? My focus is the finished article but interested in thoughts.

12SS Panzer IV - Mod'd Warlord

 

Panthers and IV's are definitely the most common vehicles I've done over the years and its a challenge keeping each one in some way different from the previous. In this case i decided to modify the recent Warlord Pzr IV. 

It is a really good kit, but like all 1/56th offerings it has room for improvement, so hopefully I've added some value, well for my tastes anyway.

First to go was the schurzen, nice robust moldings designed for gaming and handling. However,  i wanted to bash mine around a bit so utilised spare JTFM plates and made up some rudimentary rails. The attachment points aren't strictly accurate but then I'm not doing a scale model after all. The next item for change was the turret. I felt it sits high so the underside was shaved to create a lower profile and some of the schurzen opened up.

After that, all was fairly standard, spare tracks (JTFM), attachment points and stowage. Some great points about the Warlord IV is the opening hatches and the zimmerit. I decided to try something different this time and instead of having it opened up with 1/2 figure crew hanging out, i wanted to model a more realistic "in-action" composition with the hatches opened up but with just the crews heads showing. In this case the commander is a Warlord head and the crew are Westwind, the commander has some miliput shoulders but the crew didn't need them. I quite like the hull gunner "shouting" pose, maybe he's spotted something the others hadn't?

The rest is just painting and weathering :o). Decals in this case are Archer dry rub transfers and Dom's decals for the 12SS insignia.

I've included a before and after picture to show the changes. As always loads more pictures in my Flickr gallery, and double click these for "full fat" pictures.

Neil