Clearing Some Odds and Ends

An assortment of 15mm vehicles have been lurking in the corners of my work area, sporting varying degrees of undercoat, so I decided to finish a few.

First batch is a field car and a pair of halftracked tractors for use by an 88mm flak battery.

For many years I have used Tamiya paints through an airbrush for German vehicles in the later war colours. This time I decided to brush paint and to only use the base dark yellow colour. I pulled out some old Humbrol paints and went to work. The Humbrol version of "dunkelgelb" is a bit paler, more washed-out than the Tamiya version, so these three vehicles received a second coat, this time of Tamiya paint, as they have to match other vehicles and the 88s themselves.

The next mini-project was a pair of Hornisse. The first two Hornisse I painted had olive green camouflage applied over the base yellow; these two have been left unadorned. Again, I used the Humbrol version of dark yellow, not being concerned about a little variety in shade. Interestingly, the Humbrol paint has darkened after being coated with one layer each of gloss varnish (helps decals and washes settle properly) and matt varnish (these things did not receive regular wax and shine attention).

Brush painting without multiple colours of camouflage was quite enjoyable.

Harlequins

Remember the GW Harlequins that went through a Simple Green bath? A couple of them have just been given new uniforms, acting as test pieces for colour schemes.

One trouper has red and white checks and blue tertiary colours against black. These colours were pretty much bound to work.

The second trouper started off with a dark green "bland" colour, offsetting pink and pale green motley with purple-violet highlights. Sadly, there was not enough contrast between the colours, so it was back to the wardrobe department. The dark green was replaced with black, the pale green was brightened, the purple was replaced by stronger magenta tones and now we have a striking uniform.

Now all I have to do is decide which motley the entire masque will wear.

Odds and Ends in Dunkelgelb

A few German vehicles, finally finished after a long period of inactivity.

A pair of Plastic Soldier Company Panther Gs in late-1944 "ambush camo". Base coat was airbrushed on Tamiya; red-brown and green were brush-painted, Humbrol's acrylic range. First time using the Humbrol paints - they're very easy to work with and cover well.

And a pair of Hornisse from Battlefront, airbrushed Tamiya paints:

I feel the need for something bigger, so it's off to the Reaper collection for a few figures in bright colours with no uniformity.

Yellow, Brown and Green Means...

...more German vehicles.

Some StuGs and some flak tracks.

These are all BF models, finished for a friend. He had undercoated them with the rattle can German Armour paint that BF sold, so I just needed to add the disruptive patterns and details.

As protection from those pesky American Jabos, my Germans gain three Flakpanzer 38(t)s:

And finally, breaking from all the yellow and green, I finished a platoon of LW Guards infantry, to have them ready for a tournament. They've only been waiting for paint for three years. Me, slow? Nah.

The Russians are Coming!

When BF released their plastic T-34 box, I bought one just to see what it was like. BF have a winner here. The models practically fall together, detail is excellent. decals and magnets are included and all for $9 per model. The assorted gun barrels are much sturdier than the Plastic Soldier Company equivalents, which is a good thing - perfect to-scale modeling is all well and good but these are toys for table top gaming, not static display models, so they need to take some handling.

I used White Ensign Model's "WW2 Russian Green" to airbrush these models, over a mid-grey primer. I had an urge to experiment with shades, so I made up a batch that was lightened with a sandy yellow and sprayed this over the models first, then went back over them with straight-up Russian Green, leaving the lightened colour on all the raised areas - hull and turret edges, and so on.

I was surprised at how pale this paint shade turns out to be. Some internetz reading tells me that current opinion is in favour of this much paler green for WW2 Russian tanks and that the darker green we used to associate with said tankovy was an error, a later colour, an expedient variation because of paint shortages in late '41 or early '42 (the famous "use the tractor paint, comrade" approach), or a combination thereof. Whatevs, as my teenage son says.

The models looked to light and bright, so they received all-over washes with GW Devlan Mud and Badab Black into the engine grills. After that was drying, I looked at the decal sheet, couldn't make up my mind (too many options!) and then justified a lack of action by saying "decals should have gone on before the washes".

The last couple of batches of vehicles, assorted things in German Gey, were weathered with airbrushed browns on the undersides, chassis, and lower areas to simulate earth and dirt. The T-34s weren't, because the wash was pretty dirty already.

And yes, the 76mm turret with commander figure does not sit on the hulls because I managed to get the magnet reversed, despite multiple precautions. Oh well.

Still in Grey

The last few German Grey vehicles for a while.

These two vehicles are 8.8cm flak cannon mounted on a lightly armoured halftrack chassis, designed to suppress or destroy bunkers from a safe distance and sometimes known as "Bufla". Battlefront models that went together very nicely. Paints by Tamiya, Humbrol and Vallejo.

They are big beasties and should look impressive on the table.

Next up are some models painted for a friend. The first three vehicles are from Battlefront's currently-absent Mid-War Monsters range and represent experimental German tank hunters, in this case Dicker Max vehicles (I think). They mount a honking great gun on a tank chassis and make big holes in pretty much anything they hit. Cue the jokes about Hitler compensating for something...

And then a pair of early Tigers:

And The Grey Goodness Continues

The next batch of German grey.

Four halftracks from Plastic Soldier Company. These models are nicely detailed and go together well. There are passenger and baggage items on the sprues but they do not seem as crisply detailed as the vehicles themselves and just do not appeal to me, so I gave up working on them and went with clean, empty vehicles.

License plates are decals from Command Decision. They are durable and easy to work with and settle down well with decal solvent. The numbers come from Dom's Decals and work very nicely, too.

The next pair of halftracks are from Peter Pig, in metal. Again, nice models, pretty much identical in scale and detail to either PSC or Battlefront.

I like the netting effect sculpted onto the PP model.