World War II Project - British Airborne - reboot

I have been more than a little distracted lately with work and Christmas projects (I may have over committed on puzzles this year). Not to mention that after developing a window solution for the Church I have run out of steam. So in order to try and get back on track I pulled out my British Airborne to figure out what I have and what I might need.

In theory I have one section finished and second section getting close. However, I thought I should just work it out from the beginning again. My rule set of choice for platoon/skirmish level actions is Chain of Command (CoC) by Too Fat Lardies. All the miniatures I have on hand are from Warlord Games. I would love to replace these as there are some much nicer options out there now, but this is what I have in hand. In addition to a much of metal I have box of their plastics which means I could probably put together a second platoon.

After the initial sort I have all the components of the HQ section, all three sections and most of the support options (including an additional section of Airborne). All of this in metal, although the extra Airborne section will need some plastics to fill it out to full strength. I also wanted to use different figures for each section leader so three of those will be made up from the box of plastic minis.

I put one section leader together last night, he is definitely a bit bigger than the original metals. Shouldn't be a problem once everything is painted and based. And speaking of that I'm going to repaint everything to ensure that its all consistent, even the finished troops that are based. I'm not going to strip them just re-prime over what is there. I'm going to change my painting philosophy about this and go the army speed painting route.

At the moment I just plan on getting everything prepped and ready for priming. I still need to finish the church and the group of HO scale minis I have started painting.

In this shot, three full sections for the 1st Platoon, two Vickers supports, 2 mortar supports and most of a 4th section (way to many sten guns in the metal packs, I need more rifles).

Here is the platoon HQ section and some additional supports; medics, 2" mortar team and another piat team (in addition to the ones in the HQ section

There are still some support units that I need to get my hands on, most of which are engineers which may need to be converted from my box of plastic British infantry. I also need to put together a section of regular infantry as a support.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Painting the Modelu HO Scale Transitional Era Crew Bundle - Part 2

I started things off a little differently. Normally I just move straight to the skin tones but this time I decided to start out with a wash over the entire figure. Some of the detail is subtle enough that I needed something to make things pop a bit. For this I used Walnut Brown (9136) from Reaper Miniatures. I thinned this down to a wash consistency. I used Vallejo Airbrush Thinner for this instead of plain water. 

I then painted each of the five figures with the wash and let them dry.

Time for the skin. My normal process is to paint all of the skin tones first, on these figures that's just the face. I painted all of the skin with three paints from Ammo by Mig. The first layer was Burnt Red Brown (A.MIG-0134) I thinned this down a bit, regular water this time, I didn't want the paint to be to thick. The second layer was with Red Leather (A.MIG-0133) again from Ammo by Mig, I applied this over most of the face trying to make sure the deeper areas weren't covered like under the brim of the hat.  My final color was Burnt Sand (A.MIG-0118),  thinned with water, I mostly, gently, dry brushed this straight down from the top of the head, catching just the higher areas to make everything pop a bit. Everything tends to look a little rough at this stage so I made a glaze of Burnt Red Brown and applied it on the entire face to help blend the colors together. A glaze is thinner than a wash and I used airbrush thinner rather than water for it.

I think I deleted a picture here, but at least two of them have the shadow skin color applied

Now the second layer, this is essentially the base skin color.

And then a combined step. The drybrush with the highlight skin tone with the shadow glaze,

With all of that done its time to sit back and ponder what colors I want to use on the rest of the clothing.

World War II Project - 28mm Village Church - Sarissa Precision - The Walls Part 9

I finally figured out what to use for the window sandwich, paper! Specifically some heavy weight drawing paper. I tried it out and was mostly pleased with the result. I used the stained glass cut out for each window as a template and cut out the outline. I then held it in place and marked the areas I needed to cut out from the other side.

I glued the plastic stained glass panel in place with CA and also used CA to glue the paper on top of it. There is a "stain" on the paper from the CA soaking through a bit but paint will cover that. The paper sits lower than the built of "frame" around the window so it looks pretty good. It is a bit tedious with all of the cut and fit involved.

Cut to fit

Cut outs marked

Glued in place

Looking good so far. A little paint it should pass muster.