ReaperCon 2018 Projects - Starting off

While I have begun to work on the various miniatures for the dioramas, I decided I needed to make some progress on my armor entry; an M4A1 76 from Trenchworx.

I started with a grey primer and worked my way up through various shades of olive drab from Ammo by Mig using the airbrush. Not sure how I feel about it right now but at least it has been started. I will move on to the decals next and then follow it up with weathering and other effects.

Assembled

Primed

Dark Olive Drab Base

Mid tone, not pleased with the consistency of the mid tone paint, its almost to thin even for an airbrush

Light Olive Drab applied

Final highlight Olive Drab. Its hard to see the variations in tones under these lights they are so bright they tend to wash out the changes in tones.

After this a little brush work on some of the higher details and then I'll apply the decals and start the weathering.

The Back Porch - For Relaxing

This is the spot where my wife and I enjoy our evenings. It faces to the east so its a very comfortable spot in the evenings. Its a great spot to just enjoy the evening and its big enough to entertain as well.

To the north, is the main seating area under the pergola. We keep most of the furniture covered till we need it. You can just make out the first fountain, built into the seating wall, near the left center. I finally managed to fit a pump into it big enough to run it properly. You can see quite the profusion of roses this year as well.

The arch that leads to the path to the "outback" as well as the second fountain on the left and the "pig pen". The "pig pen" contains the large talavera pottery pigs as well as other talavera pottery animals. The large metal flowers behind the fountain is something new we are trying out this season. You can just make out the smoker to the right of the archway.

The main dining and kitchen area. I have a good sized grill, which sees a lot of use. The table seats 8, and also kept under cover. This area can get quite hot during the day and into the evening. There is an extendable awning that covers almost the entire area to keep it cool.

Weekend Painting

I managed to both prime and actually start painting both some wargaming pieces and parts of my competition entries for ReaperCon. Not a lot of progress at this point but enough to make me happy.

A pair of PzKfw IV Hs that have been sitting around for a while. These will be strictly gaming pieces at this point. That's the Warlord Games version on the left and the Rubicon version on the right. This particularly Rubicon kit is no longer available, its currently being redone to meet their new standards.

The Rubicon version, note the separation of the plastic joint on the turret angle. Accidentally left these in the car. The poor glue joint came apart from the heat and I lost both halves to the commanders hatch.

The Warlord Games Version

Rubincon on the left, Warlord on the right

Warlord with the extra filter mechanism, that could be left off of most of the H's

The Rubicon kit. I really need to pull out the wire and replace the antennas on kits with wire from the shop. Of course that wire has disappeared right now. I'll find it in a month when I have forgotten why I needed it. 

Competition work

Hogan, and the initial primer and skin color. Yes its green, I'm trying an experiment with skin using green paint as the undercoat. Will see how it goes. This diorama idea is coming together, we will see if I can pull it off. I received the POW miniatures from Ebob but they are just to small to match up with these from Stoessi's Heros.

Hogan, Klink and Schultz, all in green face

Sven, from Knuckleduster in 1/48. I might well enter this one as well, so I'm going to paint him for competition.

The Heroine from the "It Came From Outer Space" Diorama. I'm working on two of these and the best will be entered as a single miniature entry and the other will go into the diorama.

Vacation Travelogue - Kaena Point and the North Shore

A day dedicated to hitting the north shore. The area is quite large and we split into a separate vehicles because everyone wanted something a bit different from this trip. My group drove up the center of the island based Wheeler Army airfield, Schofield Barracks and the Dole Plantation. Didn't really have time to stop and apparently there is a small museum at Wheeler that the public can get to. Our goal was to head to Kaena Point State Park and hopefully spot Albatrosses and sea turtles.

Unfortunately it looked like we had missed the Albatrosses by at least a week although we did find nests and broken eggs. The area is absolutely beautiful and quite different from what we had seen so far. We were fortunate to spot one sea turtle at Laniakea Beach as we drove down Highway 83 (Kamehameha Hwy). We managed to get a late lunch at Giovanni's aloha Shrimp truck on the way back on Hwy 83 as well. Had Shrimp Scampi there, wonderful, I would go back in a heartbeat.

A few pictures from the day

The hills above the beach

A bit of beach, very rugged with coral and lava flows preventing surfing in this area

A mass of broken coral washed up from the reef off shore

Lava rock strewn across the beach

An entire family of crabs living in this area. You can just make one out in the center

Tidal pools along the beach

If you look close you can spot the small fish living in this particular pool

This is Keoki (the Hawaiian form of George). They can identify them by the pattern of scales on the head. 

Volunteers will go to a beach to spot turtles that are sunning themselves on shore and cordon them off with a red rope so people don't get to close

Waves along Laniakea beach where Keoki had come ashore

He has three barnacles on his shell just above his left front leg.

No pictures of the Shrimp truck. I was to hungry to think about it!

Vacation Travelogue - Hiking Diamondhead Pt II

Well, I have some of the missing photographs of the Diamondhead hike. I have to comb though the original RAW (NEF for Nikons) pictures to find the ones I wanted to add. I do shoot everything in RAW format so that I have full data when it comes time for some serious editing. What I post here are just the quick conversion to JPG with a little color correction.

From just about as high up as I can get near the top of the observation point. This is Honolulu. If you look carefully towards the center you can make out the Royal Hawaiian Hotel where the luau was.

Here we are looking right down the edge of the volcanic rim. I was waiting for the shot to clear but the flow of people just didn't seem to stop. You can also see one of the secondary observation positions near the center of the picture. 

Just about the full extant of the Diamondhead crater

And out to sea

The top of the observation point.

Inside the observation area. I'm guessing a large pair of spotting binoculars were mounted on that stand. 

Looking out through one of the observation slits

Looking up the spiral stairs, these exit out of the funky tower on the top.

Going down the stairs you can find two more levels for the main observation area.

One of the residents of Diamondhead, a mongoose.