Cartoon Wednesday

Kickstarter - Finally Vikings!

I finally received my Viking army from West Wind from their third kickstarter, this one for the Dark Ages. While I ordered the Viking army as my rewards I actually received the Saxon army. I contacted them and the error was fixed and the Vikings plus two extra packs were sent out. The delay was they wanted me to return the Saxons, which I did, I just couldn't get them in the mail till after Christmas.
(I still feel that they should have just sent the Vikings but I did as requested).

Its a lot of metal that will probably not see paint for a while.

Acquisition - Two Books from Ammo

Its hard for me to resist painting books, so when I put in a paint order to Ammo by Mig I grabbed a couple more for the collection and which I hoped would be useful guides.

I think I managed to hit 1 out of 2.

The book I was most excited about was the Solution Book; How to Paint WWII German Late. Its, in theory, a step by step guide to painting and weathering WWII late war German armor. What I was hoping for were complete step by steps, what you get is a tiny paragraph, a number of pictures and some symbols showing colors used and sort of how to apply them. Useful place to start for beginners but not enough information to suit by tastes. I would have preferred more explanation with the pictures. You would be much better served buying the Weathering Magazine, in particular the one that talks about filters, oils and washes.

The second book I had some reservations on but now I'm quite happy to have picked it up. It is, again, a step by step guide but it features a variety of different "objects"; diorama terrain, trains, planes, armor and figures. Seeing how to actually blend with the oils over different surfaces and with different techniques is very helpful. If you were to buy one of these two, I would definitely order this one. Since I like it I just need to hide it from the dog so it doesn't get eaten, like my Lance Mindheim book.

Cartoon Wednesday

World War II Project - Trenchworx Jagdpanther

Since I was already working on a bunch of assault guns I figured I would pull out the Jagdpanther as well. I started to clean it up and without thinking started to remove a line of "flash" along the side. I just figured that where the mold broke open. As I started I realized that it wasn't a mold line or heavy flash it was the mounting for the side skirts.

Now I have to figure out how to replace it or if I can legitimately remove it and just not add the skirts.

Nothing to complicated about this kit. Trenchworx has done their usual stellar job on this one.

The hull before I removed the "flash"
Now I just have to figure out how to replace.

Cartoon Wednesday

World War II Project - A trio of Stugs + 1 - next steps

I managed a little more work on the StuGs. I took the side skirts and cut them into individual panels and I built tow cables from rigging thread and the ends from the Rubicon German Stowage kit. I wanted to use copper wire but it seems to have disappeared. I'm sure it will show up again when I'm done with the StuGs.

After looking through a fair number of photographs it seems like StuGs didn't typically shed their side skirts to often although they did tend to come out of alignment. The unaligned look is what I'll be going for on these, with maybe one or two missing panels. I just didn't find a lot of damage to the skirts unless the vehicle had been hit and destroyed, otherwise leave them pretty much intact.

A large pile of side skirt panels

I'm at the point where I just need to install the tow cables and then I can start painting.