Team Yankee - Filters and Washes

First thing I had to do was redo my efforts on the APC interior green and repaint the interior of the hatches in NATO Green. Once that was done I applied the filter. I went, again with the tan filter as it seems to be the best compromise on almost any type of 3 tone camouflage. I followed that up with a dark wash wiping most of the wash off the high points. I'm not sure the results are all that visible at this scale, but I'm trying to develop the process. I should have applied a gloss coat after the filter had dried and before I applied the wash. The wash would have behaved better and I wouldn't have damaged any of the existing paintwork.

The lights at my desk are driving me crazy, I really need to do something to be able to take better pictures and actually see what I'm working on.

Tan filter added. This helps blend the camo work together a bit.

Dark wash applied and wiped off the high surfaces.

Team Yankee - Adding some black and brown

With the green in place it was time to attempt the rest of the Nato three color camo to the accumulation of armored vehicles for Team Yankee. I'm still working with the AMMO paints and after I applied the initial NATO Green I'm quite likely them. For the next step I used A.MIG0046 Matt Black and A.MIG0085 NATO Brown.

Since I wanted to do finer work I turned down the pressure on the airbrush to about 8-9 PSI, this would allow me to have the airbrush pretty close to the model and, hopefully, not have to much overspray. The paints performed quite well at this pressure although I did add a drop of my Vallejo Airbrush thinner for this. For the brown the drop was to much and I had to add a little more brown to get a nice line.

In theory, they use templates so that the pattern is the same on every vehicle and there is a different template for each vehicle type. I couldn't fine one specific to the M106 so I just used the one for the M113. I also was not interested in masking off all of these vehicles. So my pattern is roughly similar to the actual pattern with a little modification because of the airbrush. My vehicles came out roughly similar to each other, so I'm happy with that. I feel that I lost way to much of the green on the M113s and M106s, so a I'm going to go back in with the green and re-establish it, maybe with a slightly lighter shade so it stands out more.

You can see here that I really lost way to much of the green and its actually hard to see the brown against the green, although maybe that's actually the point of the camo. I'll still go in and see if I can accentuate the green a bit more.

All of these pictures are just to dark to really get a good look at them. I'll try and remember to take some better pictures before I move on to the weathering phase.

Team Yankee - An evening of priming

I like to prime in batches so I tend to let things pile up. I was finally ready to fire up the airbrush and get down to business with the various cold war vehicles that have been piling up. This priming session included 5 M1 Abrams tanks, 4 M113 APCs, 3 M106 Mortar Carriers and 1 M577 Command APC (its a Battle Front objective marker).

I used the Badger Stynylrez primer for this. I decided to try using a modulated primer style to see if that really has an effect at this scale or not. I used the pure grey for the upper portions of the hull and turret and a darker grey (about a 50:50 mix of the grey and black) on the sides of the hull and turret. I finished it that way but I'm not sold on the concept after I finished.

It was fun to break out the airbrush again and feel like I'm making some progress on one of the 2017 priority projects!

The APCs on the turntable at the beginning of the evening's priming extravaganza. You can see some of the M1s in the background sitting in the booth waiting for their trun on the table.

You can see the darker primer lower on the sides and tracks and the lighter primer higher on the sides and top

The M1s and M577 after the same treatment

The M1 turrets primed and ready for paint

Team Yankee - Building and prepping the Khurasan M113s

I ordered one Khurasan M113 to take a look at it when I ordered my mech infantry for Team Yankee (which reminds me that I need to get some stands for them). I was happy enough with that model to go ahead and order three more for my mech infantry platoon instead of using the ones from Battle Front.

I started to build the original M113 that I had received. If you remember I had some issues with this one off the bat that I was able to fix with the hot water trick. What I didn't notice at the time though was the seam along the side. I think this particular vehicle must have slipped in the mold somehow, however, all the other three M113s have it, just to a much, much lesser degree.

Rather than wait to try and get a replacement I decided to just fix it with Squadron Green. I completely covered both sides and part of the front glacis and then filed it down after it had dried. I don't think you will be able to tell the difference after a bit more filling and filing. I checked the other three out and they don't seem to have any issues, so it really is just a fluke that I received a bad one.

I compared these to the M106 from Battle Front. They are almost identical but the Battle Front versions stand taller. Noticeably so when they are next to each other. During a game I don't think anyone will notice.

M113s on parade well sort of. The Khurasan kit comes with a couple of options, like metal or resin tracks, along with three options for the vane in front.

I tried a partial application first

Then decided it would just be easier to do the whole side

The front, you can see the seam here. Again this is not a seam from the mold, just a casting that went wrong. Most of the front will be covered by the vane.

I added some of the components while the Squadron Green was drying. I went with the resin tracks, I liked the fit better. The hatches are pewter pieces. The front and sides have been sanded down. I just need to decide if they need another application of Squadron Green or not.

Still a little rough after using the file, but getting closer. I would follow this up with a quick rub down with a piece of fine steel wool. that really smoothed out the surfaces.

After I had finished this first M113 I went ahead and started work on the remaining three.

Here are the backs of the other three M113. The issue is the top piece where the ramp goes. The casting on the left is the best, the middle one isn't bad , but the one on the right is quite wavy. Don't panic! The resin here, at least on these three, is quite flexible and I was able to use the metal ramp casting to push everything into place. It its not flexible (i.e. doesn't move when you push it with your fnger) then you can use hot water to make the resin flexible and fix it into position after that.

I used my handy metal blocks to hold the tracks in place while the glue driec. You can see the fully finished first M113 in the upper right of the photo, this is after finally assembly and a rub down with fine steel wool.

Putting together the TCs hatch

All finished and ready to go.

I grabbed an M106 for a quick comparison. The Battle Front model is definitely taller, but is pretty close in all other respects.  If they are even a few inches apart on the table you are not likely to notice the difference in size.

The Khurasan M113 tracks are much easier to put on than the Battle Front versions. If you want the skirting use the resin tracks and if you want it without just use the metal tracks that also come with the kit.

I also spent some time finishing up the M1 Abrams models with some extra stowage both from the kit sprue and with the stowage metal stowage sprue from Khurasan. I'm still looking for some really good stowage for cold war vehicles at this scale but I'm not having much luck.

These are ready for primer now too! All of this may have paint by the end of the week, don't hold your breath on that.

Team Yankee M113/M106 APC WIP - In the Box

While I did have a great ten days off during the holidays there was little progress on the hobby front. I did receive a box of M113s for Team Yankee from BattleFront. Since I have already decided to use the M113s from Khurasan for my APCs, I'll be building these up as the M106 mortar variant. I noticed on the team card that there can be as many as six M106s in a unit so I will need another box (of course). There will be two extra M113s from the second box but I'm sure I can find something to use them for, a FIST track for sure.

This is what is in the box.

Four M113/M106s on eight sprues. There are only enough mortar crewmen for two M106s so I'll have to figure out how to score more of those. If anyone has any extra let me know.

I'm still not sure why Battlefront is using resin for these minis but they aren't bad at all.