Burpa batch 2 finished.

yep with slightly cooler weather I am able to paint more so I have finished the second batch of Burpas for Matt.

Now I could stretch these over a couple of days, but as they are done I see no reason not to show them as soon as possible.

Starting of we have a mounted leader on a palomino pony. I think this may be one of the few times that I have painted a palomino and I like the way it has come out. Not perfect of course but acceptable. This leader has striped trousers, a red jacket and Green Turban. a white sash and an orange waistcoat/under-jacket. As a leader I wanted to keep the colours quite rich and exciting as he would have a better share of any money or if a bandit any loot!

The next 5 are somewhat duller in colour and would be more run of the mill foot soldiers. They are all Foundry figures in 28mm from a variety of ranges but all suitable for North West Frontier, or Saharan adventure games. Two wear sheepskin jackets to keep out the cold in the mountains (Far left and far right) or the desert at night.

Overall they have come out quite well in all regards. And I will be able to give them back to Matt on Sunday at the club. And then he can give me some more to paint. So expect more Burpas in the next few weeks.

This gives me a  day to paint something for myself or maybe to carry on with the steam tank... Not sure what I will attempt next for me, I do have some Dark age 15mm figures that are calling out and some WW2 in 15mm that are also shouting my name.

And the final picture is them all in this batch together.  You will be able to blow the figure up quite large on screen and see all the mistakes that I make. I ask you NOT to point them out as I am already aware of them.

All the best Next post on Monday.

5 Burpas!

Well very unlikely that I will get any more on my 10mm VSF tank this week. Although I suspect a couple will comment at the club on Sunday.

However here are 5 more Burpas, for the NW Frontier. They are all 28mm Foundry castings from the Colonial North West Frontier and Darkest Africa ranges.


This time as I said I would I went for less bight colours although Matt did like them bright and Vibrant. While there are still some bright colours they do not dominate this time. Normally I email Matt some pics before I post on my blog but as he is on Holiday I have permission to put them straight on my blog as he has said he did not care what colours they would be. Still one hope he likes them. I hope to have 5 more finished by Friday night and the last one finished on Saturday. When I say last one I mean last one of the current batch.

Thanks for looking More Burpas in a couple of days. But the weather is such that the paint is drying on the brush as I paint and as for washes.... Still it could be worse it might be like this all the time!

Land ship WIP

Much as I dislike Work in Progress posts this time I feel I do need to do one.

The figures are shown for scale  and are 10mm Pendraken. The land ship is intended for that scale and for that colonial period. (Being Victorian Science Fiction). So I have put a Mounted officer a Gatling gun and a foot stand all ready to show the scale.

I started with a 15mm "Forged in Battle" tank as I want a certain "Heft" to the model and do want it to look quite imposing and by starting a scale larger it does immediately posses those qualities. The donor vehicle is actually miss cast so I was able to buy it at less than half price.  And while I did originally want to use it as a WW2 German vehicle it works better for this.

So starting with a Char 1 Bis hull (And ignoring the turret) I first reversed the way it was heading and added a "Boiler" to the back. I have yet to add a chimney as I suspect that will be the final piece BEFORE painting as it will probably double the vehicles height and there fore be easy to knock of unless I am careful.


 While I am mostly working with "Green stuff" I am also using some plastic sheet rod and tube to alter the vehicle. Side sponsons are also being added to which guns will be fitted before painting.

The turret ring has been filled in and I will be adding a 1lb pompom gun and crew as a pintle mount up on the top deck.  the kind men at Pendraken will be supplying the gun and the crew and it should be arriving soon! So I should be able to crack on pretty quickly when it does.

As you can see I am not a sculptor, but the beast is coming together reasonably well and I am sure it will look impressive when it is finished and sitting among my British colonial troops be they in Zulu Land, or facing the Mahdi or the Boxer Rebellion or in some imagination setting maybe against the |French or the Prussians.

Thanks for looking today I will get some Burpas done next.  I hope to have 4 finished by this time tomorrow so expect them in my next blog post.

TTFN  and with luck see you all soon.

Cheers Clint

M3 Half tracks

 Not very much painting done this week. My mother has been poorly but is on the mend. Last week she could not stand and this week I have managed to walk her to the local shops and back so that is  good progress.

However enough of real life! Here are 5 heroics and Ross M3 US Halftracks.  I say Us Halftracks, but they are in Israeli service and were the MAIN infantry fighting Vehicle/Battle taxi up to 1973. Which is the date I have set for my Arab Israeli wars collection. I only painted 5 as I only had 5 I would have painted more If I had them, The joy is they are the kind of thing that will turn up at a wargames bring and buy and they are also the kind of thing I would like to buy!

In the rules I will need at least 3 infantry squads per 1000 points! So I can see these getting some use and abuse. And used as Target Practice by the Syrian, Egyptian and Jordanian forces.

In the coming week I would expect to see some more "Burpas!" (Matt dropped some off today! For me to paint) . Also behind the scenes I am working in a Royal Navy Land ship (Circa 1889) which is coming on OK and when my order from Pendraken arrives I will be able to finish it off and furnish it with some crew. So that is all to look forward to in the coming week, but for now just a meagre offering today.

Cheers From SUNNY  (and Hot) North Kent!
All the Best Clint!

Centis.

Very little done wargames wise these last few days, Well nothing I can talk about anyway.

So instead of posting nothing I have managed to paint up 3 Centurion tanks in 1/300th scale (or 6mm if you prefer).

These will be going to my Aram Israeli wars collection for cold war commander. In the rules no matter how big your army you can only have a MAXIMUM of 3 of these tanks. So no point in painting many more. I suppose I could paint another 3 as Jordanian Centurions! And that would be just to scare the Israeli player!

In the game it has a range of 100cm and a firepower of 5d6 which for the time period is pretty impressive. More so a it has 6 hits. I knew it was an impressive tank for the time after all in the Korean war not a single one was  knocked out despite one vehicle being hit (mostly by RPGs) over 90 times.

So in the rules I do Like the fact that a maximum of 3 are allowed in any one game. Which considering 3 Centurions would be nearly half your points in a 1000 point game! But we all know players who would want more "super tanks" in a combined arms game than anything else including infantry, artillery, command, recconisence, air support  or everything else put together. Which does not in anyway lead to a balanced game. And that is just because they want to win. Even if you played a 5 or 10 thousand point game you would still only be allowed 3 in the game MAX.

That's my very small post today as I have sickness in the family and my painting/hobby focus is elsewhere.

All the best Clint

Dust clouds

Some of you may remember my desire to do some 1/300th scale Arab Israeli wars as I harken back to my youth. Well I have moved it ever so slightly forward as a Project. Yes I have painted 2 SU 100
Soviet Tank Destroyers used by the Egyptian army in the wars up to and including the 1973 Yom Kippur war. So that is an extra 2 vehicles done.

Also I think I have found the rules I like. Simple enough for big battles yet detailed enough to have a good fun game. The rules in Question being "Cold War Commander." The rules do cover most actions from 1946 to about 2010. But you may have to do some slight research to get balanced forces and NOT use vehicles out of period with other countries. For example some WW2 tanks, APCs and artillery were being used in the Yom Kippur war including German Panzer Mk 4s but the main front line troops were not using them very much at all. Also the famous Russian T34-85 was being used by both Egypt and Israel (Israel captured about 300 from the war of 1967 and they were used but only in desperation as the main Israeli tanks were either British Centurions or US M48 Pattons) and while the rules do give a very good place to start the army lists are very broad in regard to who can have what. But seriously nothing that a little background reading on the Net would not sort out, that is UNLESS you have players who want to always have the best equipment in unlimited numbers..... We have all come across them I am sure.)

 One of the things about the desert is the fact that vehicles moving (Particularly if moving fast) tend to have dust trails following them. I stole this idea shamelessly from BIG LEE LINK and I hope he does not mind me sharing it and does not want to batter me for doing so!

So following Big Lees example I decided to make my own.

This was done in a very few easy steps.

Firstly MDF bases were used, although you could use other types of bases and for bigger scales that is probably the right thing to do. To the MDF bases, some "Woodlands Scenes" Clump foliage was super glues.

Once dried I watered down some PVA white wood glue. (Which is technically a resin ("Resin W" if you want to know) ) I then soaked the clump foliage in the watered down PVA and left it for a couple of weeks. This allowed for thorough drying and... (Yeah it was up the garden shed and I forgot about it!I will confess!)

But Once dry it had a solid texture and not spongy like Clump foliage usually is. So once dry I sprayed the bases with Grey Primer. Other colours are available it was just what I had available. Then I used two Highlights to colour the dust clouds. Starting with the desert floor colour and then adding about 50% white for the second coat.

The grey still shows through and the desert colours tie the dust clouds to the terrain and setting.

Other than drying time (which was long... too long really as I forgot about them) the 15 dust clouds took about 45 minutes from start to finish.

Simply placing one behind a vehicle will tell me if it has mover either this turn or last turn.  Which may alter its chance to hit or be hit when firing occurs.

A simple game addition which will remind me if the vehicle has moved and will look the part in game without distracting from the look of the game.

Thanks for looking today.
I may not post for a couple of days as I am about to start a conversion and I dislike doing work in progress blog posts.

Cheers Clint

More Burpas!

Starting with a group shot of the 10 I have finished. Some you will recognise from a couple of days back and yet 6 of the 10 are new.

As with the last lot I painted. these are a little bright as they were all started on the same day and I am yet to get in the swing of it.  I have managed to tone down some of the colours though and the next lot will be more toned down as well as I fear if I carry on in this same style they will look like sweets on the table and not like tribesmen.

All the figures are Foundry 28mm Indian Hill Tribesmen and all are painted for my Mate Matt.  The things I am painting for myself are a lot less interesting!!!!! It is things like painting a real life (NOT MODEL ) Garden wall!

As you can see there are a mixture of missile and sword armed troops so a nice balance for skirmish games. You may note that one fellow has a two handed sword! (Bottom Picture in brown) I suspect this is more a ceremonial be-heading implement than a true weapon of war. But I have to admit I do not know very much at all about Indian weapons so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.

All in all they all look all right so I will pass them on to Matt Tomorrow all being well.

Carry on Up the ....

Yes I am sure you guessed and fondly recall Charles Hawtrey and the missing underpants and the shame of the "Devils in Skirts!". If none of that makes sense you are probably NOT from England.

So anyway today are 4 foundry Indian  Hill Tribesmen. These are painted for Matt and he says there are more to come as well, I already have another 6 started!

Colour wise I have been a little too bright on the first 10 so will tone the next few (after I finish the next 6) down a bit. But I was having such fun painting things that are colourful I could not resist!

Anyway "Up the Burpas an d down with the devils in skirts!"

Another 15mm SCi FI Vehicle.

Yes the title says it all. This vehicle is a Ground Zero Games (GZG) 15mm Tracked science fiction vehicle. Not the largest or most complicated vehicle . ( Here is a link to the GZG Shop ). Just 6-8 pieces in all, a 2 part hull, 2 tracks, turret and hatch and 2 optional pieces. ! being a vehicle commander to go in the hatch if you choose and the other being a choice of gun.
I went for the gatling laser aa gun to make this into a air defence vehicle as opposed to a twin barrel Mortar. Both looked nice but I thought the AA Gatling laser would be more of a menace to infantry!!!

I was lucky enough to be given this model by Fran (THE ANGRY LURKER) who is a jolly nice chap and hardly angry at all. It has taken me some time (2-3 years I forget which) to get round to making it. But Now that I have I feel so much better for doing so.

I hope to have something new to show in a couple of days as I am now working on some more 28mm figures for Matt, but not VBCW this time.

So hope to see you in a couple of days all the best from the South East of England.

Crystals

Not much painted today, Just these two bits of Sci Fi scenery based.  Just 2 coloured resin Crystals. They are by a small company called "Wargames Terrain Workshop" (LINK ) The joy of this company is that they can and do make the crystals in a variety of colours. Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow red and  Opaque Resin . When I bought these at a show they had literally just sold all the blue to the guy in front of me so I went for the purple instead.  The bases are the same resin as well but I just went for a simple desert yellow with some static grass. Nothing fancy or clever but better than leaving the bases purple!

These are the small Crystals on the left and the medium crystals on the right.  From both the front and the back.  In retrospect I should have put a figure in so you can judge the scale. But the small one is about 1 1/2 inches across and 1 1/2 Inches tall.  So plenty big enough for space marines to hide behind. Having said space marines I will probably go down a scale and use 15mm troops.

Talking of 15mm troops I will not be posting for a few days as I am about to start a new force and am prepping them at the moment.

All the best from a dull overcast and now raining Kent!

Cheers Clint

Not a power loader finished!

As mentioned in my previous post this is not a power-loader from Aliens. But It does have some resemblances.
Enough resemblances for me to want to use it as both a 28 (or 25) mm miniature and also a 15mm miniature. Hold yor horses there is a scale comparison at the end I promise!

Obviously I went for the fork lift arm version although GZG do make a couple of other versions. But the fork lift seemed a better fit for any 28mm shenanigans that I may have tucked away in the back of my mind.  (And there are some).

I painted direction indicators on both the front and the back of the legs and hazard lights as well. The vehicle is supposed to be civilian so I had no issue doing that to make it look road legal!

Likewise I went for yellow colouring as most Industrial building plant is painted yellow and I though it might make it look a little more civilian and besides the power loader in Aliens is also yellow! I went for a pale yellow and dirtied up the feet and the legs and also the engine on the back, just to make it more "Lived in" and not straight off of the factory production line.

Overall I am happy with the result and will now move onto something else. But for now I am just basking in the joy o getting it finished as it did take longer to paint than I first though it would.

The model, a foundry 28mm street violence figure
and a battlefront 15mm Modern Russian,
All just to show size comparison.

As you can see despite the model being designed and built for 15mm there is enough room for a 28mm to sit behind the  roll cage and operate the machine. So totally usable in a variety of scales and I hope to use it in 2 scales at least. But probably NOT 1/300thscale SCI FI.... but you never know!

Thank you for looking today and I hope to do some more 15mm sci fi this week as I have another force to get together. After that perhaps back to 28mm figures for Matt.


Cheers Guys, all the best Clint.

Not a Power Loader from ALIENS.

While at the club yesterday |I played a board game so no Photos of that.

So here instead is a model I purchased at Salute 2015 from GZG (John Tuffley) It is Mec -02 (Link to GZG shop ) and costs £12 plus postage.  It is the closest thing I could find to an Aliens Power loader. Now I did put of building it for over a year as there were no instructions AND I had NO immediate use for it. I currently do have a use for it though so it was about time I got it started.

So Today It is a how to assemble a suitable model for a power loader. Simply because I had to figure it all out myself and I can imagine someone getting stuck.

All the pieces cam in 2 resealable bags
There are NO instructions

 

Stage 1 is to lay all the pieces out and make sure they are all there.
There was no list of contents
 

Keeping the arm pieces that came in 1 of the bags separate
I layed out the other pieces.
I started with the torso and worked
out from there

Each foot came in 3 pieces
And were assembled as above.

Once a foot is built,then build a leg.
One thing to remember is that the legs
are not the same, there is a left and right.
Very minor diference but make sure
the Bulge goes on the outside at the "ANKLE!"
 

Then attache the hip.
In the Photo you can see the bulge on the right of the leg.
Having 2 Bulges together at the ankles would impede movement
on a finished walker and make the model
more awkward.

The Torso comes in 3 pieces,
The centre Torso the Front (I went for the open cage effectand a rear section
with an engine. You have a choice of fronts and a choice of backs

On one leg I arched the foot so as to give it a
slightly bent leg as if it was just about to take a step.

I then attached the Torso
And glued the upper arm to the shoulder joint

The fore arm was then glued to the upper arm and an elbow created.
Kindly note the "Forks" are not glued and are in fact upside down.
You want the flat surfaces to face each other.

Shoulders and upper arms attached to torso.
There is a lot of positions you can put them in so
find one you are happy with before applying any gule

The forks are now facing each other and both arms age glued together.
I deliberately placed the forks DIFFERENT distances apart as
I realised that if I made them the same but got it wrong people would notice.

Two additions to place on the torso.
Holes are present (mine did need a little cleaning out) but the
Order you place them is up to you. Or even to place them at all.
 

Finished assembly from the front.

Finished assembly from the rear.

And also from the side.

At the end of the build I had 2 pieces left over.
1 is an alternative engine.
1 is an alternative cabin.

 

Overall it was an enjoyable build and it will go to paint in a few days. The difficulty comes from a lack of instructions but given time and patience you will overcome that and work out where everything goes. (I managed it after all). While the model is supposed to be 15mm wargames scale I intend to use it for 25mm (and maybe 28mm) so sometimes a change of scale will work just as well.

It is not an exact copy of the ICONIC Aliens Power Loader but for me is close enough.

Thanks for looking today and with luck I will start to splash some paint on this and have it ready soon.

All the best Clint