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In the process of sorting some old gaming stuff out I found a bundle of old SDD models. These are 15mm metal castings that I bought back in the 1990s. It makes me think that the other metal models that I have been painting are also SDD.
This box was mainly late war stuff and included a King Tiger. Having constructed the model, I gave it a white undercoat.
The undercoat has shown that the quite severe casting lines, something you don’t always get with a resin casting.
Having washed and cleaned the castings of two of the ruined buildings from the Total Battle Miniatures range of Western Europe 15mm buildings. They are the ruined café and ruined shop with passage. I gave both models a light white undercoat.
After trying out a non-airbrush method on an old metal SDD SdKfz 251 and been happy with the end result, I decided that I would start to paint my German big cats using a similar method.
Having given the model a basecoat of Warpaint German Armour the next stage was to add the disruptive camouflage. What I did was take an old paintbrush and cut off the bristles leaving a quarter inch. This brush is then used to stipple on the camouflage pattern. I used initially Chocolate Brown (872) and will use Reflective Green (890) later.
I was quite pleased with the initial effect on my SdKfz 251, however I think I may have made the pattern too wide on the Tiger. What I will do is tidy up the camo pattern with some Middlestone (882).
Though the official German manual during the war told how the camo pattern was to be applied, it said the raw paint mixture was to be mixed with petrol and sprayed onto the vehicles. Reality and short supplies of petrol meant that more often the camo pattern was “painted” onto the vehicles, sometimes with brushes and sometimes with rags.
I have some of the 15mm ruins from Ironclad Miniatures.
At this time I am using a few of them to check how certain paints of mine are working out, as well as testing out different colour combinations before I try them on the (more expensive) bigger models.
One of the conclusions I have come to is I do need to replace many of the paints in my collection.
I have the ruined row of three houses and the ruined row of four houses, from Total Battle Miniatures. Having cleaned the models, I gave the inside of the models a black undercoat and then masked the inside of the windows (with masking tape) before I give the model a white undercoat on the outer side of the model.
I then started on the basecoat of one of the houses that forms part of the building, for the brown I used a Tamiya acrylic. I intend to use a lighter brown for the remainder of the model.
I used a thinned coat of paint, as I will be adding a drybrush and some washes.
Once I have finished painted the ruins, I think, as I mentioned with the row of three ruined houses, I will add some additional detrius, broken beams and so on to add a little more detail.
I have the ruined row of three houses and the ruined row of four houses, from Total Battle Miniatures. Having cleaned the models, I gave the inside of the models a black undercoat and then masked the inside of the windows (with masking tape) before I give the model a white undercoat on the outer side of the model.
I then started on the basecoat of the various parts of the building, for the brown I used a Tamiya acrylic.
I used a thinned coat of paint, as I will be adding a drybrush and some washes.
Once I have finished painted the ruins, I think I will add some additional detrius, broken beams and so on to add a little more detail.
A week or so ago I mentioned that I bought a couple of wooden buildings from 4Ground. I’ve always liked the look of the 28mm ruins so was pleased to find out today that 4Ground have released some ruined 15mm buildings.
Some are better than others, but they do look good, they do need some rubble though to add realism.
I mentioned a few days ago that Battlefront were releasing another house in their series, the Dunkirk House, which on their website looks like this.
Mine has arrived and it looks nothing like that!
It looks exactly like the (proposed) Antwerp House!
So what’s going on then?
I can understand that when they first thought of releasing the houses they made mock-ups on the boxes and houses and when production started they may have to change them from what they planned. However now they are in production and been sold, why aren’t they showing the actual model they are selling over the proposed one.
No idea.
Still it’s a nice house.
After a bit of a break, to speed up and increase production, the next house from Battlefront will be coming out at the end of November.
The Dunkirk house is the third in the series and looks very nice.
I’ve been gaming for more years than I care to remember, in that time I have seen major changes in the manufacturing processes that are used to produce the miniatures and models I use to play games with.
I remember, for example, when Games Workshop first ventured into plastic models. I was intrigued by resin models for many years, I remember been very impressed with the resin GZG scenery I purchased twenty odd years ago now. What I have noticed in the last few years is the increase in laser cut MDF models. These have looked very interesting, but did often remind me of the card Superquick models you can get for model railways. I have always liked the Superquick models and have in the past considered using them for 20mm scale Operation Sealion scenarios. Though today however I would probably more likely use the new resin Hornby Skaledale buildings and scenery. However the scenery if only part of the idea, I also need to build and paint the 20mm models to go with it… one day… I also think that kind of scenery would be ideal for a English Civil War, either the 1930s version that a Very British Civil War portrays, or the more moden version I wrote about in Wargames Illustrated once.
Going back to laser cut MDF I was up at Wayland’s Forge in Birmingham and in one of their display cabinets was some of the new 4Ground 15mm laser cut buildings made up along with some Flames of War models. I thought they looked very effective and nearly as good as the ready painted Battlefront buildings. Always willing to try something new I got a couple of buildings. I went for the ready-painted versions as I thought that would save time and the cost difference wasn’t huge.
I got the Northwest European Hotel with coarse stone walls and coaching arch and Northwest European semi-detached houses, one house rendered green the other is white.
They look quite good and seem that they will be easy to build. If they are then I might get a few more.