From The Painting Table #14 - This Month I have Been Painting.......

All sorts of random things really, none of the stuff belongs to specific projects or armies/warbands that needed work, I just fancied pulling a few models I liked the look of out of the pile and painting them up.

 

First up is this pack of 'Hollywood heroes' made my warlord games for the anglo-zulu war of 1879.  Of course based on the main characters from the awesome film 'Zulu', now I don't normally hold with minis of bona fide historical personalities being given a Hollywood makeover, but Zulu is such a fantastic movie I'm willing to make an exception in this case.  In case you needed telling from left to right we have; Private Henry Hook, Lt John Chard, Lt Gonville Bromhead & Colour-Sergeant Bourne.

 

 

I've also painted a selection of what would have been termed 'Imperial agents' back in the day (like 20 years ago I know) for warhammer 40K, after painting them I did think they would make a nice little inquisitorial warband, I might have to dig out the old rouge trader inquisitor I have in my collection and give him a lick of paint too.

 

 

This is a classic Adeptus Arbite armed with a bolt gun, rather than their characteristic shotguns.  I've been trying to get hold of a full squad of these at a reasonable price for ages, but have failed miserably, seems I'm not the only one who likes them.  I'm not sure what it is about them either, they are old and very flat posed, and technically not very good models, but something about them still screams cool to me.

 

I'm rather proud of how this callidus assassin came out, I think one of my better paint jobs.  Vindicare and callidus are my two favourite assassin temples, who doesn't love polymorphine.

 

An Imperial Guard colonel here, painted to match the rest of my Imperial Guard detatchment.  Although it started as an allied contingent I've managed to acquire enough Imperial Guard for them to form a small army on their own now, if only I could face up to painting another 50 or so guardsmen.

 

And finally for the Imperials this Inquisitorial scribe.

 

Some more classic citadel now, this time for warhammer fantasy in the shape of these 3 classic Norse miniatures.  These were spares I had when I picked up a whole lot of classic Norse minis for a Mordheim warband, these didn't find a place in that warband, but again I just really like the models and they've found their place on the shelf.

 

 

 

And finally another random Airfix kit that I bought, this time a British Bofors 40mm gun and tractor from WW2 in 1:76 scale.  I like these little airfix kits with more than one element too them, it makes for an interesting build and looks good on the shelf.  The tractor was a slightly more challenging build than I was expecting as well.  I've painted this one for action in northern Europe after D-Day, not for north Africa as it is on the box, just because I prefer it in green!

Guest Post - Airfix Tiger 1 Tank (1/76) and Allied 25lb Field Gun (1/76)

Last month I let my friend Mike have a go at writing a post on this very blog, which turned into an epic three-part rant about the current state of Games Workshop.  Well he seems to have got the blogging bug, but isn't yet ready to commit to starting his own blog, accordingly he's written another article for mine. 

As I posted a few weeks ago we recently finally made a trip to the tank museum at Bovington, and I inevitably came away with a tank model (this Whippet), however I wasn't the only one, over to Mike....

 

I went to Bovington tank museum this month and came away with an Airfix Tiger tank model. My Grandfather fought against Tigers in WW2 so it was the obvious choice. I have also built the 25lb field gun he manned in the African desert campaign and the invasion of Italy.

 

The Tiger was a little more expensive than a standard Airfix 1/76 vehicle (at £9.99) . I was happy to pay it because the museum is really good, and I wanted to support it.

 

The Tiger was a beast of a machine in its day and this model reflects that fact. Its a typical, quality Airfix moulding which looks just like the real thing. I used Humbrol oil based paints (I'm not a fan at all of these - Keith), and as usual they worked well. There is some minor bobbling on each model, but that’s because I used a poor brush and I should have left a bit more time for each coat of paint to dry.

 

 

The turret is not glued onto the tank turret. That means it turns very easily, which is a nice feature. Apparently allied anti-tanks gunners believed the sides of the turrets to be a slight weakness on Tigers so they targeted this area. My grandfather said that Germans crews eventually began to attach slabs of concrete to defend the weak point. I have so far resisted the urge to make my own slabs.

 

The down side was the tracks. Airfix produce tracks as a strip of bendy plastic that needs to be bonded together and then fitted over the wheels. The instructions say “Join by applying heat”. I tried a ‘dab’ with a soldering iron but even quite a long touch wasn’t enough to stick the ends of the tracks together.  In the end I had to apply a little more heat than I’d initially wanted to, and this caused a small amount of bumping and warping to each track. It wasn’t disastrous, but its still mildly annoying. (I really dislike the Airfix method of representing tracks at this scale, see my Whippet post for my own thoughts - Keith)

 

Apparently one advantage of Airfix’s track design is that the tracks are able to move round with the wheels. Unfortunately mine do not. Initially I thought that one of the wheels must have been aligned, but they all appeared to be straight.  After construction I noticed that one track was bent to an angle. I can only imagine that when the track was stretched around the wheels the weak point, the soldered strip, had stretched slightly. Its a bit annoying that after all that work the track edges its way off after one rotation. If I were to build this model again I’d try to staple the tracks together instead. I rate the model 7/10. It would have been a 9/10 if the tracks had a better design, or if there had more thorough instructions for them.
 

 

I picked up the 25 pounder for £4.50 all in on ebay – Its a standard small Airfix model, not hard to build and quite accurate in its detail. The three sections of the model attach for transportation.    

Crew members are offered on separate bases. The crew aren’t very well moulded, but its hard to tell from a distance.  Airfix only offer a late war Europe colour scheme, and it took quite a lot of paint to cover the green plastic. Those are my only complaints about the kit really. 
 

 

Ideally I would have spent a little more time on each model, and possibly made a diorama. As it stands they can shoot at one another from opposite ends of the shelf!

 

Matchbox/Revell 1:76 Char B.1 bis & Renault FT.17 & Airfix 1:76 Mark I Male Tank

Ok so I know that's not the most pithy blog title ever created, but at least you should know what to expect!  I have indeed constructed and painted two model kits containing three tanks.  All in 1:76 scale.  I haven't gone with any official colour schemes for any of these tanks, just painted it how I like them.

The first kit is the matchbox (although I believe revel have issued the exact same kit) Char B.1 and Renault FT-17 with scenic base.

Oddly the sprues come in two different colours for the tanks, which makes them look a bit odd before painting.  The kit also came with a couple of French soldiers which are supposed to be on the scenic base, I didn't bother with these though, they just seemed like they'd be in the way.

As the title suggests I've also finished an airfix mark I male tank.  The WWI British tank design is my favourite design for any tank, I think they just look fab.

This kit was a birthday present, and it's actually the second time I've built it, below I show the new version with the original, where I tried to do the scheme on the box, I much prefer this new version.

Finally a quick comparison with the contempory FT.17, look at the size difference!

Airfix 1:76 WW2 German Reconnaissance Set

 

I was off work sick last week and wanted a quick little project to keep myself busy, I came back from the model shop with this WW2 1:76 scale German Reconnaissance set from Airfix.  The set contains 3 infantry figures, two of which are unfortunately the same and two vehicles.  The vehicles are a Kubelwagen car and the highlight of the set which is a SD.KFZ.222 armoured car.  It's a good little set and I enjoyed assembling and painting it.

 

Airfix Small Scale HMS Victory

For a bit of a change I have something for you today that has nothing whatsoever to do with middle-earth.  We have infact an airfix model of HMS Victory, it doesn't say what scale on the box (more than a tad annoying), but it is the smaller cheap version (it costs little more than a fiver).

It's a VERY simple kit with under 20 pieces total, and it shows.  I think the end result is unsatisfying, but I'm not sure what else I could do to improve it that much.  In the end it is tempting me to buy a bigger kit and do the ship justice.

 

One of the most annoying parts of this model is the utter lack of rear detail, which is just covered up with a transfer.

Airfix 1:72 Scale Spitfire

Another impulse buy today, my local 'the works' shop had a big pile of airfix kits, and I couldn't resist buying one.  I went for the Spitfire.  I've built an airfix spitfire before, but it was nearly two decades ago and no longer exists.  This isn't actually the kit I remember, the moulding is much crisper and there are a couple of differences in the build.  I've painted it as per the box mainly using the paints that came with it and attached it to a spare games workshop flying base.

Looking a bit dull without transfers

A big improvement

Next to a WWI Sopwith Camel in the same scale, the difference in power 20 years made is obvious.

Airfix 1:600 HMS Hood

My latest WW2 airfix ship was finished yesterday, this time of the battlecruiser HMS Hood as usual in 1:600 scale.  The Hood of course was famously sunk by the German battleship Bismarck at the battle of the Denmark Strait.  It's a good kit with only a bit of flash and went together well.  I even managed to get the little boats hanging off the side to work this time as well.  Another feature I liked was that the hull was marked where the black line should be, which made painting much easier and produced a better result.

Below is a size comparission pic showing the difference between the Hood and the Queen Elizabeth class Battleship HMS Warspite.  I knew the Hood was bigger than the Queen Elizabeth class ships, but wasn't expecting the kit to be quite as big as it was.

And finally a few shots of the ship in construction.