WIP: Bane Wolf - Part II

Pleased to say that I made a lot of progress on my tank! Here just a few photos to show how things are going. 

Here is the hull finally glued together. I can say with absolute certainly that I hate putting these tank models together. Give me Flames of War anyway....they're much easier to assemble. But as much as I dislike building these things, they sure are fun to paint! It makes up for all the hours spent cutting, gluing, cursing and re-gluing.

Starting on the camouflage. I really like this particular color scheme. Reminds me of the old Cobra tanks they used to have in "G.I. Joe." But alas, that wasn't what I was going for. In keeping with the WWI theme of my Death Korps force, I kept on adding period appropriate colors.

This is what I eventually got. I was copying the following color scheme...

Now all I need to do is assemble the turret, add the hull weapon, outline the different colors with a Micron pen and weather the vehicle. The next few days should be pretty fun ones!

Raus! Raus! Schnell!

My bailed out Panzer crew is finally done! This was my first attempt at really painting 15mm figures, and I certainly learned quite a few things along the way: like to wait until the end to paint the pea dot camouflage or to prime and paint the figures on a Popsicle stick first before gluing them to a base. And other things like that too. I can't wait to take all that I've learned on these guys and apply them to my next batch of figures (though that may be some time from now, as I'm getting ready to move across the country). 

As I mentioned previously, I wasn't happy with the modelling clay I initially used for the snow. After a bit of research I decided to use Golden Coarse Pumice Gel. What a Godsend! I applied it with no problem and it was dry after only a few hours. I then gave it a base coat of Screaming Skull and highlighted the whole thing (several times) with Skull White. Not too shabby in my opinion.

And I decided to add a little color to it all and make some of the crew pretty seriously wounded. It also may or may not have been an attempt to hide some mistakes during painting.....but I'll never tell for sure.

What do you think? Any feedback is welcomed!

Marder II

After experimenting with painting camouflage a few months ago, I finally worked up the courage to try it on a vehicle. I picked up two Marder II's on eBay for a steal back in September, so I finally set to work.

Instead of using the standard late war red, green and dark yellow camouflage, I decided to mix it up and substitute the latter with classic Panzer grey (which was authorized, but seldom seen I understand). Sadly I failed to capture any photos of it before I winterized the model.

To winterize the Marder II, I dabbed toothpaste on the model and covered up certain areas (like the tracks and crew compartment) with masking tape before giving it a light spray of white paint. After the tape and toothpaste was removed, and the model allowed to dry, I lined the recesses with watered down grey paint.

The final result is a tank destroyer that's ready to see some service on the Eastern Front!

Car Trouble, Part IV

Finally painted the Schwimmwagen! After much debate, I settled on Ambush Camouflage (as seen on the cover of the Devil's Charge book). This was also to get some practice on it before painting up my King Tigers.

The project is coming along quite nicely. What I need to do next is paint up a driver (who will be in the water) and spectator (who will be laughing hysterically), and also add some realistic water to the base.

How do you think this is going? Any thoughts and comments are appreciated!

Work in Progress: Bailed Panzer Crew

I've had these dismounted German tankers sitting on my desk since September, so I finally decided to start working on them last night. At 1 am. That's how I roll with these things it often seems.

I recently picked up a copy of Devil's Charge, the new Flames of War book that focuses on the German offensive in the Ardennes during December 1944. Since I'm putting together a list based on Kampfgruppe Peiper, I thought it appropriate to make these fellows Waffen-SS.

I used this tutorial from the Battlefront website for the pea dot camouflage uniforms. It really helped out and made the whole process quite simple.

I think the camo turned out pretty well, but I still have a lot of work to do on these guys. I'm still learning how to properly paint 15mm figures and I think these figures will be a good test of my skills. I don't think they're too bad for a first attempt, though.

One thing I'm not happy with, however, is my choice of basing material. I used some air drying modelling clay, but it's cracking and starting to come off the actual base. Someone online suggested using something called Golden Coarse Pumice Gel, so I think I'll give that a shot next time.

Experiments in Painting Camouflage, Part I

Painting camouflage is, quite honestly, one of the things that frighten me about doing WWII miniatures. Especially for German armor. So before I begin painting up any more Panzers, Panthers and Tigers (oh my!) I thought I'd conduct some experiments and get a bit of practice in.

Using the leftover side skirts from my first Panzer IV H, I set to work. The first was painted in that famous German tri-color camouflage pattern.

Using Dunkelgelb as the base color, I applied thin lines of red and green. As I progressed from left to right with the red, however, I found that drybrushing gave it the appropriate "feathered" look that the real tanks had. So I did this with the green too and was quite pleased with the results.

I then experimented with winterizing the camouflage. I applied masking tape over one side to keep it free from spray paint (I wanted to use the camo as a reference for the future, you see). On the uncovered side I dabbed on a little bit of toothpaste with a torn cosmetic sponge. After that was done, I gave it as light a spray of Testor's Flat White paint that I could. I ended up waiting less than 10 minutes for it to dry and took the skirt inside and gently began washing the toothpaste off. You can see the end result above, which I think was quite successful.

I repeated this whole process with the remaining side skirt. To keep it interesting  I used classic Dunkelgrau, or dark grey. I quite like how this turned out too. So much so that I think I'm going to go with this look for my Marder II's when they arrive.

This was an interesting experience overall, and I really like the way the side skirts came out. I've also read that applying salt instead of toothpaste works too, so I think I'm going to experiment with that method next time.

First Panzer IV Ausf. H

My friend Ben recently introduced me to a new game called Flames of War. It's a 15mm WWII game which, it turns out, is a lot of fun to play! After lending (and leasing) me his British tank force for our first few games, I decided that I needed to start building my own army to play against the Weasel.

I settled on an Ardennes-style German force. I've always loved the look of tanks in the winter, and so here it is - my first Panzer IV Ausf. H!

Underneath that white camouflage is German Dunkelgelb, or dark yellow. I realize that the foliage is a bit off for the Battle of the Bulge. Not only is the grass too long, but it's also too yellow (it was a much darker green when I applied it to the model, but I think the sealer is making it dry out faster). I'm in the process of replacing it; the Flames of War website offers a nice tutorial. So I figure I'll end up doing something very similar.

Here's a close-up of the tank commander. I'm really pleased with how he turned out! I'd never painted a 15mm figure before and think he came out pretty well. If you look closely you can see a red dot on his cockade - a detail that I'm particularly proud of.

I didn't attach the side skirts because, based on a lot of the photos I've looked at, the Germans tended to take them off in the winter months. You can also see where I tried to put snow and mud in the tracks. I think they still look a little too clean, so I'm going to go back and dirty them up a bit more using Games Workshop's new texture paints.

Overall, I think this tank turned out pretty well for a first time. The kit was easy to assemble and a joy to paint. I'll definitely be building a few more of these, so stay tuned for more German armor goodness!