Building Calamity 15 - Row House #2 - Weathered and Finished

After the chores were finished for the day (I may have been putting off doing the laundry a little to long) I sat down to do a little weathering work. I finished the chipping process on the eaves and the main building. I think I have decided that using the acrylic chipping fluid doesn't always work very well, however, I adding a little brushwork seemed to even things out a bit. This one saw a lot of work with the pan pastels on both the siding and the roof. I think the extra work on the roof really made it pop, I'm very please with that aspect of this building.

Again I'm not sure if either of these buildings will actually be part of the board but since they will be mounted on foam sabots I should be able to do something that will allow me to switch out buildings and change the layout of the town from time to time. I could even see constructed a burned out version of a building if it happened during a game. I could do a little process of creating and empty site and then a building under construction and finally create the finished version of the new building on the lot. Not sure I'm willing to go to quite that much work but it might be an interesting exercise for a building or two.

Tonight's finishing work

Exposing the chips from the chipping fluid and then add some more with the brush.

A little flash let's you see the interior.

Difficult to see the effects of the weathering from the pan pastels but the bottom boards have two layers of dirt and then a bit more of whitish grey to further dull the green. The roof has received some more work as well.

The row houses ready for a game.

UP Engine Facility in Denver CO

Here is something I haven't done much of lately, showing off some trains! When I was at the three day workshop with Banshee, I arrived pretty early on Friday morning because I had driven down from Ft Collins. Since I was early and nearby I decided to get some shots of UP's Engine Facility that I hadn't been able to do before. The area has been cleaned up a lot since the last time I was through here. All the dead engines that were heavily marked with graffiti are gone now and there is maybe half as many engines in the area as I was used to seeing. I was able to walk up over the bridge and see some areas that I haven't seen before. There is a turntable back there! I had no idea! There was some action too, engines being moved back and forth and the turntable in action as well. It was good morning! Then it was off to painting.

Building Calamity 14 - Row House #2 - Roof Weathering

The stock shingles that I used from Builders in Scale were a bit to "out of the box" new looking to really fit into the character I'm imagining for Calamity. So obviously a little weathering is in order. Since these are shake shingles I was looking for that silvery grey color that unfinished wood tends to change to. Since these are actually wood I decided to try out a product that I had sitting on the shelf that was suppose to do just that. However, it did not work on these shingles which are cut from oak. I suspect that it works fine on basswood which is what most model railroad stripwood is cut from. It did, however, darken the shingles so they certainly didn't look new but I wanted them to look a bit older yet. So I pulled out my titanium white and carbon black Liquitex inks. I first applied a diluted solution of the white, by keeping it thin I was able to get a grayer look to the shingles. That was looking pretty good but I wanted to push it a bit farther. After the white ink had dried I went in and brushed over it with the black ink and I think I'm closer to the silvery grey I was shooting for. Not perfect but good enough.

I also finished off the fascia as well, base coated with a wood color and then applied some chipping affects from AK Interactive. After that had dried I applied the same mix of yellows from Reaper that I had used on the trim. I haven't peeled it off yet or faded it down either but I'll finish that off when I do the final weathering on the building. Hopefully I'll be able to get that done this week.

Its really washed out in this photograph but this is the roof with the white applied and drying.

This is the roof with just the white ink and a few streaks added with raw umber. Wasn't entirely happy with it so I opted to move forward and apply the black ink.

If you look close at the window on the side you can see that I managed to break it. I'll have to get in there with some glue and fix it.

Again, its hard to see the difference but I have applied the black ink and its actually more greyish in person and the streaks are a bit more prominent. I'm going to call this a successful experiment at this point.

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. 

Building Calamity 13 - Row House #2 - Getting the Roof On!

I managed to dig out the two packages of Truewood Shingles from Builders in Scale. These are O Scale Rustic Oak shingles (#704) and a pack covers up to 30 square inches. It took all of one pack plus 3 strips out of second pack. I think I could have spaced them out a little bit farther than I did and only used a single pack probably with a few strips left over, live and learn.

I like these shingles because they are wood and I can essentially stain them and they have a nice ragged look to them. On top of that they are self adhesive!

Pictures are better than words at this point.

The gussets are cut and I'm gluing them to one side of the roof. Important tip at this point I probably should have applied the shingles to the roof first. This would have made everything a little bit easier.

Gussets in place

Gluing the other roof panel in place

The basic roof is ready to go

Added the cap strip to cover the seam between the sides.

Added the end caps

The shingles I'm using for this project

The boring part. Like I said this would have been easier to put the shingles on before I glued everything together

One side down

Both sides are finished. Just need to paint the end caps and I can start the weathering.