World War II Project - German Armor - Mad Bobs Miniatures

Still trying to get a handle on these three vehicles from Mad Bobs Miniatures. I'm still feeling like the effects just maybe to subtle at this point. Granted I'm working with glazes but I feel like I should be seeing more happening than what you can see in the pictures.

There are at least five glazes of  "dirt" on these vehicles at this point, but I don't seem to be getting the grimy look that I want.

World War II Project - Return to Mad Bobs German Armor

I had a little time to actually pull out paints last night so I continued on with the armor I got from Mad Bob's kickstarter. I went back in and applied another pin wish then I tried to highlight the camo a little bit and followed that with the first glaze of dirt. I really need to install the new LED light I purchased for the workdesk though as I'm not sure you can see the difference from start to finish in the photos.

Here is where things were left at the end of the last session:

After I applied another pin wash:

Then I faded the camo on the upper surfaces a bit:

And then the first glaze of dirt:

I think they look good on the workbench but I don't think the camera is picking up the differences because of the lighting or that the effect is just to subtle right now.

Madbob's Miniatures - An Evening of Yellow

At this point I'm not quite sure if these vehicles are going to get a full three color camo or not. But its late war in Normandy so I know the base coat should be the infamous dark yellow. Like I did with the cold war armor I wanted to try out the AMMO paints on these as well. Since these are significantly bigger and would likely be mostly yellow I decided to try and airbrush in shades and highlights, hopefully with the help of the modulated primer. For this exercise I used the following paints:
A.MIG-902 Dunkelgelb Base
A.MIG-904 Dunkelgelb High Light
A.MIG-905 Dunkelgelb Shine

Again these were quite usable right out of the bottle into my airbrush without needing any thinning. I did make sure to shake them quite well first and all of these bottles have an agitator in them. Since AMMO sells small steel balls on their website I'm guessing that's what tey put in all of their bottles of paint. 

I'm very pleased with the coverage of this paint and how easy it was to use directly in my airbrush. I'll have to try some detail brush work to see how it behaves off the brush.

The evening left me with three vehicles all ready for the next color. Then some decals and weathering!

A.MIG-902 Dunkelgelb Base

A.MIG-904 Dunkelgelb High Light

A.MIG-905 Dunkelgelb Shine

Madbob's Miniatures - An Evening of Priming

I continue to make progress on the armor from Madbob's Miniatures. Like I did with the 15mm cold war armor I decided to try modulation type priming on these. They are a lot bigger and it should have a better effect. I think in the end I wasn't controlled enough with the lighter primer and I ended up with more of a zenithal effect than I wanted.

Ready for some primer!

Darker grey on the lower and some of the interior survaces

Then the lighter grey on the upper surfaces. Could have controlled the airbrush better for this part of it.

Madbob's Miniatures - Prepping time with a Milliput wash

I have been slowly working on the PaK 40 Auf S307(f), and Geschutzwagen 39H(f) from Madbob's kickstarter. As I mentioned in those posts the resin he uses is a little rough and the details are not as sharp as I would like them to be. While I can't really do anything about the detail short of doing some super detail work (and these are game pieces after all) I can fix some of the roughness of the resin.

This is a trick I learned for dealing with pitted metal miniatures. I think I picked this up from either a class with Jeremie Bonamant or with Lilly Troy. The idea is to fix something like this as quickly and easily as possible, what could be simpler than a wash?

First mix up a small bit of Milliput (I prefer the regular but the super fine works for this too). Add water to some small container (I typically use the plastic from a blister pack). Add the Milliput and work it into the water. This is not quite as easy as it sounds, you kind of use a mortar and pestle type motion to breakdown the Milliput into the water. I find the end of a paint brush to be quite handy for this. I recommend wearing gloves as Milliput is slightly toxic. If you feel the tips of your fingers tingling you forgot the gloves.

You are looking for a consistency about like cream. You want it to flow off the brush yet remain thick enough to be a filler and not drip down the side of your model. I just keep adding Milliput or water till I get the consistency I want. A little Milliput goes a long way!

Once I'm happy with the mixture I use an old craft brush and just paint it on to the surfaces that are rough or pitted. For the Madbob armor one coat was enough to reduce the roughness to an acceptable level. I restricted myself to just dealing, mostly, with the armor panels. If its a very pitted surface it might take two coats. It dries pretty fast when its painted on like this. 

The Geschutzwagen had some air bubbles in the top of the shell cases. I pulled out the Squadron Green for that. Overall these are really good castings from an air bubble perspective. You also need to watch out for the bogies on anything based on the Lorraine Schlepper chassis as there is a spot that doesn't fill well right on the outside of each bogie.

The blob of Milliput that I mixed up. I used, maybe, a quarter of this. I should have had some bases sitting nearby to work on!

This is the Milliput wash. It flows but it doesn't drip.

Its hard to see here, but the whiter portions of the vehicles are the original resin. I didn't apply the wash to the tires, treads, bogies, or guns. The armor is a slightly yellower color, that's where I applied my wash. These are now ready for some primer, finally!

28mm WWII Armor Conversion 3 - WWII 15cm sFH 13/1 (Sf.) auf Geschützwagen Lorraine Schlepper(f) (SdKfz 135/1)

Didn't really get any work done on this conversion today but I did receive the rest of the parts that I needed. At this point I really can't say enough about Warlord Games, they have really gone above and beyond helping me out with this conversion.

I made this order on Thanksgiving and the original intent was to throw in the howitzer bits into the order. Well, that didn't work out as planned because of the sheer quantity of orders that they had received. Harry shipped the parts by themselves since there was no way to really locate my order in their warehouse at that point. The regular order arrived yesterday with two more Marder Is in it (an extra in case I really screwed up) as well as the UNIC halftrack used by the 21st Panzer in Normandy. This one is also destined to be a conversion and will be getting the Pak 40 from the first Marder I kit. I'm hoping that will turn out to be an easier conversion than this one!.

I'm still dwelling on rebuilding the fighting compartment right now and I think I'll have to pull out my drafting tools to make it look right.

Two more Marders in case I screw up really badly

The howitzer bits that Harry sent. I really only need the gun barrel and the carriage and maybe the small aiming wheels.

The UNIC halftrack

I don't think there will be as much work on this conversion.

28mm WWII Armor Conversion 2 - WWII 15cm sFH 13/1 (Sf.) auf Geschützwagen Lorraine Schlepper(f) (SdKfz 135/1)

I took a deep breath grabbed the razor saw and the hull of the Marder I and proceeded to remove the fighting compartment. I then followed that up by removing the angled armor that sits below the level of the deck on the sides and rear. Now I just need cut out a foam block and start making a form to construct the armored plates from.

The hardest part was keeping the cut straight and level as I removed the fighting compartment. I was a little off at the end of the cut, but not by a huge margin. The razor saw made pretty short work of the resin itself.

I removed the fighting compartment as a single unit.

Here I removed the side armor.

And here the rear armor

I think I have something I can start building from now. I get to move from the destruction phase to the construction phase.

28mm WWII Armor Conversion 1 - WWII 15cm sFH 13/1 (Sf.) auf Geschützwagen Lorraine Schlepper(f) (SdKfz 135/1)

I am slowly moving forward with my acquisition of forces to play the Kampgruppe Von Luck pint sized campaign from Too Fat Lardies. My British Airborne troops are coming along quite nicely (I do need to get back to them though) so my thoughts turned towards the German forces that I would need. Since I'm still deciding on what miniature line to use for my German troops I thought I could work on the conversion of the SPG listed for the Germans in the campaign. This is the 15cm sFH 13/1 (Sf.) auf Geschützwagen Lorraine Schlepper(f) also known as the SdKfz 135/1. This is one of many french armor conversions that the 21st Panzer Division was equipped with in Normandy and one of the three conversions that appear in the Von Luck campaign. One of the other two vehicles is actually available from Warlord Games the Unix P107 (f) SPW halftrack. The other is going to be conversion utilizing this same halftrack to carry a Pak 40 (Pak 40 auf S307(f)). I don't have everything I need yet for the SdKfz 135/1 conversion but I have enough to get started.

I'm using the Marder I produced by Warlord Games which uses the Lorraine Schlepper hull. I was hoping that this might be just a simple gun swap, that hope was crushed when I pulled out my copy of World War II AFV Plans; German Early War Armored Fighting Vehicles by George Bradford. While the hull and running gear are just fine the fighting compartment is much different. While it does have the characteristic German slanted armored sides its not nearly as sharply angled as the crew compartment for the Marder I. I will have to completely cut off the existing fighting compartment and scratchbuild a new one. A bit more than I was counting on needing to do. What that likely means is that I will only do one of these conversions and any others that the German player elects to buy with his support points will have to be proxied (I think a SdKfz 124 Wespe would be a good choice).

One way to approach the fighting compartment build is to take a block of wood and cut it to the extrapolated interior dimensions of the fighting compartment then cut it to the proper angled shapes. Then I can use it as a pattern to cut all the armor plates and be confident that they will fit together, I'll start by making some matte board prototypes to see if I can reasonably re-create the fighting compartment. On the plus side I have an extra Marder I coming so if I mess up the hull to much I have a second shot at it. That will make for an expensive conversion though so I need to get it right the first time! Measure twice, cut once! Somehow that never seems to work out for me very well.

I will also need to scratchbuild the recoil blade but that was something I was planning on doing anyway and it should be a pretty straight forward build especially after building the fighting compartment.

The Marder I that I received a couple of weeks ago direct from Warlord Games

I merrily cleaned up the parts and dry fitted everything together. I thought that the hardest part would be removing the big gun shield from the front. How wrong I was!

Perhaps I should have pulled this book out before I decided that this would be a good idea.

Page 64, the page that crushed my idea of a simple conversion. At least I won't have to scratchbuild the gun itself. Warlord Games is sending along the SiG 33 15cm Howitzer barrel and recoil mechanism to help me out with the conversion. Initially it was the availability of the howitzer that made me think I would try to do this conversion.