Archive for November, 2014

Sorry if you thought I was done but I needed

another two boards. Specifically I wanted a

river/stream, a bridge, trenches and just a bit

more bocage.

To save time I borrowed two old flat terrain

boards from the shed and started converting

them. I have made and painted the bridge and

found a pillbox going spare which will look

right at home hidden in undergrowth.

Click on a picture to enlarge :

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The two boards look a bit rough but bare with

me because as mentioned they have been re-used.

The first board sits on the left and contains the

trench system I am currently building out of balsa

wood. Its raised ground so will be able to cover

and arty spot all six boards eventually. It will

also be buried under bocage and have a stream

running above it as marked by the stick.

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The trench will go under ground at the right hand

side of the board and reappear on the next board.

This way the join marks are nicely concealed 🙂

The board on the right has two artillery emplacements

either side of a road with the stream running in front

of it with a bridge.

The trench system comes in from the left side.

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Sorry if the pictures are hard to understand,

but all will become clearer shortly.

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I was recently nominated for a Wargaming Blog

Excellence Award by http://daggerandbrush.wordpress.com/

and a while back somebody nominated me for a Liebster

Award. After saying thank you and feeling slightly

embarrassed and honoured at the same time I have finally

got myself into a position to respond in kind.

Wargaming for me is not just WW2,its Ancients,its Sci Fi,

its Warhammer and all its baggage, its board games, its computer

games, its remote control tanks, its re-enactments

and its full of scratch built goodies.

So without further ado these are the things I look for in a blog

that keep me coming back. Bright,glossy pictures that the person

has taken time to compose and get just right. Some background

information and in depth facts about what the pictures cannot

tell. Tutorials and guides on how things were painted or

created. Answer all the comments on your blog and leave loads

of comments on other peoples blog, it gets noticed.

Most important to me personally and the reason I love blogs

is the tiny gems you find every now and again. What gets me

painting and building is inspiration which just oozes out

blogs more than any company website. One tiny blog on

somebody converting a bog standard 1/72 Airfix tank with a

cocktail stick and a plunger(unusual example I grant you) is

worth a thousand times more than the company “How to construct”

list and suggested paints !

Listed below are some of my favourite blogs who I find hard

to separate in order and thus rank them all on a par of

excellence.

DAGGERANDBRUSH

http://daggerandbrush.wordpress.com/

What I love about this blog is the trees. If you have ever modelled

a humble tree for your model railway or Wargaming board I bet you

they never looked this good. If Michelangelo had space he would

have included them on the Sistine Chapel. Apart from the heavenly trees

the blog is full of detailed background information and lovely photography.

Plus loads of posts on Ancients, Fantasy, Napoleonic and more.

ARKIEGAMER

https://arkiegamer.wordpress.com/

Where to start ? For me the outstanding thing about this blog is the

warm feedback you get from its excellent wargaming blogger and its

what a blog should all be about. Added to that are detailed battle

reports to die for and plenty of beautiful pictures to go with it.

Wargaming information from WW2 in 20mm and loads of American Civil

War stuff, Napoleonic and the occasional visit to a Wargaming

convention where he gets dragged(pleasantly) into playing .

SHO3BOX

http://sho3box.wordpress.com/

Colour, more colour, strange plants and weird things and

that’s why I love this blog. A well presented blog,with

superb painting, pictures and articles. Forget run of the mill

and think out of the box. You just have read the battle report

Lost in Translation http://sho3box.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/inquisitorpulp-alley-lost-in-translation/

to get an idea of what this site is about. Oh a word of warning,

your going to get a strange urge to buy a Dr Zoidberg figure for

your gaming table after reading this blog 🙂 I now have one lol

As mentioned all 3 are excellent blogs but I came across a blog

only last week that for me just nails it.

WARHAMMER 39,9999

http://warhammer39999.wordpress.com/

I`m a sucker for history and beautiful architecture and wandering

round the inside of a Cathederal is right up there on a par with

Bovington Tank museum to me(strange comparison but that’s how I tick).

Its especially fun for me as I see lots of 40k Gothic building possibilities

in the architecture and whats always been my plan was to copy those

beautiful stained glass windows.

My prays were answered with the following post : http://warhammer39999.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/stained-glass-windows/

Whats more the post includes free PNG files of the windows to

download at your pleasure.

I love the posts in this blog and I love the building work,but

most of all I love the spirit of giving your hard work away

just to help fellow gamers.

It was that tiny gem that inspired me and thus the reason

to give warhammer 39,9999 my vote.

Good luck everybody and

keep blogging your excellent blogs because it saves me

buying books to read 🙂

Been skip diving again and found a left over metallic

tile(I think that’s what it is ?). To be exact I pulled

out a tile and half.

Anyway as soon as I saw it going spare my mind just

shouted 40k modelling possibilities. So initially I

thought Space Hulk anything as the tiles are almost

perfect size for a 28mm figure. Cargo bay as one whole

tile ? Cut it up into corridor sections? Use it as sci-fi

walling or just individual figure bases ?

Anybody got any other cunning plans of what to use it for ?

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The metal is very thin so each bit is very flexible,

which is great for kit bashing 🙂

In my endless pursuit of taking pictures of finished

models and getting the picture just right I am

just loving playing around with backdrops. You can

just simply find an image on the net or one of your

own and just print it out. While you are checking out

the piccies I hope you notice my latest skip find. I found

tile and a half of metallic tile. I`m thinking Space Hulk

cargo bay or individually removing the single squares for

basing figures ?

Click on a picture to enlarge 🙂

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The Chaos Prince picture just lends itself to the saying,

It came from the Warp

The hidden enemy

Posted: November 12, 2014 in 15mm, Uncategorized
Tags:

I do most of my terrain building in my trusty shed

and this morning on entering I came across a scene

of utter disaster. A rodent of some type had eaten

through three(yes un-freaking believable) 5 ltr plastic

oil holders. One 5ltr bottle of chainsaw lubrication of

a blue colour on a high shelf allowing to drip onto a worktop

and lots of power tools. One 5ltr bottle of red coolant that

then leaked through a wood pile,soaked into an mdf shelf

and caused it to bend and collapse. Also one 5ltr container

of 2 stroke engine oil which leaked into a tool chest.

Anyway after a couple of hours cleaning and cursing

I have prepared the shed and its looks like a scene from

predator where Arnie is waiting for it to get him 🙂

But just in case my prey is not quiet that big I have given

Hauptmann Tom a special mission . Operation Watch on the

mdf worktop.

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Jerry watching Jerry ? 🙂

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First time I have done a tutorial so go easy on

me 🙂 This is an simple tutorial on how to

assemble the Najewitz Modellbau Normandy

farmstead,add a few extras and paint it all up.

Just got to mention before I start that my

inspiration for this was a thread by somebody

called “raphaeloudsen” on DakkaDakka

who for reasons unknown is un-contactable and thus

I was never able to ask him how he did his masterful

work which was a lot better than mine.

For 45 euros you get a house, a barn , a sort of a hay

loft, an out building , a large gate with roof and a

large section of walls. You basically get a bag of bits

that look like this.

Click on a picture to enlarge it.

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Step 1: As with all resin kits it has small amounts of

flash on it that will need to be removed either with a

sharp craft knife or small file. Once its all removed I

washed all the bits in warm water to ensure it was clean

for assembly.

Step 2 : Before gluing I cut out floors(made from balsa)

to go inside the buildings. This way you can have two

floors for figures inside the buildings.

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Step 3 : I now glued the buildings together using small

G type clamps. When the glue was dry I glued in supports

for balsa wood floors. I used a mixture of balsa and

plasticard(its hidden so nobody will see). Once dry

glue in your floors(leave top floor un-glued). Fill

any gaps in the buildings with green stuff.

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Step 4 : I wanted the farm not to be fixed to my

terrain board for storage and so that it could be

moved around. To solve this I decided to fix the

entire farm to a plasticard sheet. The idea was to

fix the walls and gates permanently but leave the

buildings free. I used a standard 29.5cm x 20.5 cm

white plasticard sheet and about 3cm depth. Before

any painting I marked out where my buildings were

going to go on the plasticard and especially

important how the walls would all connect. One

small problem I noticed was that the gate is too

small for a tank so I left an opening in the wall

system for tank access. At this point you should

have glued all your walls together(they come in two

parts) and cut them to size to fit the base.

Step 5 : Painting. I used a mixture of GW , Vallejo and

P3 paints but anything will do. The colours of Normandy

buildings vary so don’t get the idea that my colour scheme

is the only one you can do.

The list below is just for walls, not the roof, windows

and doors. I tried not dry brush over the same areas thus

giving different colours across the brick work.

1. I base coated all the buildings and walls GW Chaos black.
2. I dry brushed everything Vallejo Flat Earth.
3. I dry brushed everything GW Dawnstone.
4. I dry brushed everything Vallejo Stone Grey 884.
5. I dry brushed everything P3 Troll blood in wavy lines.
6. I dry brushed everything GW Steel Legion in wavy lines.
7. The next painting stage consists of picking out bricks. Basically
paint a couple of bricks here and there is a random method. So first
up I used Vallejo Red Leather.
8. GW Tallarn Sand brick picking.
9. GW Mechanicus Standard Grey brick picking.
10. GW Gothor Brown brick picking.
11. GW Agrax Earthshade wash over all the brickwork.

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Doors: Wooden doors and shutters were painted GW Loren Forest.
Window Frames : GW Bleached Bone.
Window and Doors Sills : GW Baneblade Brown.
Drain Pipes : P3 Traitor Green.
Other Doors : Vallejo Flat Brown.
Doors, shutters & sills GW Agrax wash.

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Roof: GW Aldorf Blue dry brush.
Roof: GW Agrax Earth shade wash.

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Step 6 : I now glued the finished walls to the plasticard

base in the carefully marked out locations. I also glued the

gate in place.
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Once dry I used light household filler to

build up the ground to the walls and normal base scatter/grit

for the farm yard floor. The farm floor was drybrushed Flat Brown,

then Baneblade brown and finally Dawnstone.

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The wooden fence at

the rear was scratch built from balsa. The hay is made from

door mat bristles.

Nearly forgot I used green stuff to fill in any gaps in the

walls and then painted as described earlier.

Step 7 : Foliage. I now added foliage as desired . Most of

the foliage is from Treemendus and is stuck on with PVA glue.

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Step 8: The fascia boards(roof edging) were made from

Plasticard right angle and painted Loren Forest. Simply stick

on with glue. I also played with the idea on using artist

foil on the top of the roof but never got round to it. It

looks just like lead when painted up.

Step 9 : The telegraph poles are from Foreground(concrete

style) and were stuck down with filler and blended in with

foliage. They were painted black and then dry brushed Dawn

stone. The telephone wire is Oasis galvanised hobby wire

(30G x 7) and is cunningly attached. There is a scratch

built joint on the side of the farm house and the wire is

not glued to the telegraph pole but has enough tension to

easily be clipped to the pole. In the picture below the

wire is glued to the house wall(right red arrow) and goes

through the joint and then rests on the telegraph

pole(left red arrow) looking for all intense

purposes to be joined.

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I used the same method at

each end of the plasticard base so you can lift the

plasticard base up and you don’t rip the poles out.

In the picture below the red arrows are where the wire

joins. Its not glued in place but just resting. Its glued

at the poles left and right of the arrows so the plasticard

can be easily lifted up.

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The wire

basically has enough spring and tension to hold itself up.

Where the wire is attached I used good old super glue.

I`m sure there are a few bits left out so feel free to

ask any questions and I hope it helps 🙂

More or less finished the four boards. Think I`m

going to do another two with some trenches and

room for a le FH 18 battery.

This post is pic heavy and just click on any

image to enlarge.

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