Getting Ahead

I do like variety in the units I put together for gaming.  With most plastic sets consisting of multiples of the same model there are several ways of achieving this: varying paint schemes (where this is possible); mixing sets, which I do quite a bit, but which can lead to problems with matching scale; and repositioning or swapping heads, limbs etc.  And it's that last one that I spent last night doing (including time spent repeatedly supergluing my thumb and forefinger together),

Most bodies came from the Caesar Panzergrendier set 1, with the new heads coming from the Airfix Afrika Corps set as (a), I have lots spare, and (b) they have some good poses with forage caps and plenty of uncovered helmets on models I wont have a lot of other uses for (the chap surrendering, or the one with the spade, for example).  

In each case I've photographed them next to the original (which are going through bases and finishing touches)

 Not entirely pleased with the head position on the one above, will have to see how it paints up.

And finally, as I ended up with a few headless DAK, I've added some of the discarded Caesar head with the helmet covers.  These will do duty as late war Germans in western Europe quite nicely.

Right, time to get painting!

Mini Photography

I've spent the last week painting and putting down flooring in preparation for the new arrival, so not much new acrylic on plastic or metal.

But I did find some time to have a play around with some photos of stuff already painted, for fun and practice.

Follicly Challenged

A bit of a change in scale and period.  I've spent the last few evenings painting up a couple of Hasslfree's excellent models: Grant and Kev.  Lovely sculpts by Kev White as usual, but not too 'fussy'.  I haven't decided how to base these guys yet, so the're still on temporary bases.

Enough talk, on with the pictures.

Here's Grant, with his customised MAC10 and multiple pistols:

And now for Ken, wearing my first real attempt at British style DPM.

And a nice group shot to round it all off!

More Splinter Camo

Having a rummage around in the 'german' model draw, I found one of my original attempts at german 'splinter' style camo smocks (a crewman from the fast build Italeri PAK40).  It was interesting looking back and seeing how I'd improved.

Caesar Panzergrenadier on left, Italeri PAK40 crew on right

Now, I'm not saying my recent efforts are perfect, far from it, but it did make me decide to record the process and my thoughts on it and stick it on the blog.  It might be useful to someone but also I'd welcome feedback from anyone who reads this.  Suggestions of alternative patterns, techniques or colours would be more than welcome!

I'm not going to go into a lecture about German WWII camo patterns, it's a ridiculously complicated and thankless task! Nonetheless, the main improvement came from looking at photos and pictures of the patterns.  There were a couple of key things that stuck with me:

• The angular pattern
• That the brown and tan colours dominated

Later 'Marsh' pattern is slightly different, with a less angular pattern and the green more dominant.

So here goes... The unfortunate model in this case is another Caesar Panzergrenadier.  All colours are either Vallejo or GW.

The smock is basecoated with German VJ Camo Beige over a white undercoat.  (The rest of the uniform is VJ Field Grey).

The first camo pattern was added using VJ German Camo Medium Brown.  I kept the patterns quite large and as angular as I could get them.

Green patches added in VJ Luftwaffe Camo Green.  These were kept small and used to fill in 'hollows' in the dark brown.  The overall effect should still be of mainly beige and brown.

A wash of GW Devlan Mud for shade.

Rehighlighted with the original base colours.  The camo smock only got the very lightest highlight with the beige on the edges of the smock and helmet.

So there we are.  Any comments, critiques or suggestions more than welcome!

Ow, my eyes!

Working on German Splinter pattern camo at 1/72 scale, now going cross-eyed!  At least it wasn't pea dot!

Models are Caesar Panzergrenadiers set 1.  Nicely detailed sculpts in a good range of realistic poses. Possibly a bit too detailed in one way, they're hell on brushes!

More to follow.

Caesar Fallschirmjäger

Just a quick update on some completed Caesar Fallshim, Falshurm, paratroopers.  The MG42 gunner is suffering from the common Caesar problem of 'droopy gun'(although in this case, 'overly perky' might be more apt), but otherwise I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Not quite one of each model in the set complete yet, I've yet to do the ones holding FG42s.

Some more Caesar models on the table at the moment, from their panzergrenadiers set1.