Models & Minis

Mi-24D

2011-05-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

This is last year's project (yes, last year's - been a little busy with that pesky thing called, "real life"), and I'm just now getting around to posting it. It's a 1/72 scale Russian multipurpose Mi-24 helicopter, D variant. The kit is from Zvezda - nothing particularly special.

The kit was fairly basic, so I did a little scratchbuilding - just a few details around the cockpit and the door opening mechanism. I'm not too happy with the camouflage - I think the colors came out too similar - but it was a fairly simple kit, and I wanted to experiment with some techniques.

The camo pattern was masked off using Silly Putty, and I think the shapes came off right, even if the colors are a little off. I also wanted to experiment with bending the rotors the kit rotors were perfectly straight, and in real life the rotors droop. I achieved this by holding the rotors in front of a hair dryer and working them as they got soft. You have to be careful with this technique, however, as you can overdo it, and then it's hard to get the shape right (don't ask how I know...).

The cockpit itself was not too bad, the photo quality itself didn't come out too well - that's been another reason for not posting, our old camera doesn't take macro pictures well, but we're hoping to remedy that in the future. I added some decals from my old A-10 kit (I used a photoetch set with that one) to fill in some missing detail from the cockpit. Once again, the directions for painting given with the kit were pretty much useless - just another reminder to check reference photos before painting! :)

1/2500 Reliant

2011-05-17T16:54:00.001-07:00

This is an old model I found mixed in with some miniatures stuff. It, along with another obscure Star Trek ship from the same era, was a gift from an old friend. That one's on the bench (the ship, not the friend). I haven't posted in a long while, but want to get back to it. In the meantime, here's a little taste of what I've been up to recently.

This Reliant was a bit of a mixed bag. It's a resin model, with a lot of good detail, but there were some defects which had to be filled in, mainly bubbles. Some of them were very small, and I missed them until the model was complete (maybe you can spot them...). In addition, there was some deformation of one of the warp nacelles, as well as the front of the saucer, and one of the shuttle bay doors is placed too high. The decals are good, but had some small discrepancies from the sources I found - overall, not bad for the scale.

Winter T-34

2008-04-07T06:24:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to try my hand at a winter whitewash camouflage scheme. The model is a Soviet T-34/85 from UM, a Ukranian model company. The kit itself was a good one, with a photoetch engine grill included, link and length tracks, and vinyl roadwheels. I liked the way the looked, but I’ve heard that vinyl doesn’t hold up well over the long term. We’ll see. The kit fit together well, without any major problems. I did make one mistake in that the radio antenna mount on the right hand side of the body should not have been placed, as this was a later model tank, with the radio antenna mounted atop the turret. I had always thought that Russian tanks did not have radios at all, but it turns out that they did later in the war (the tank with this particular gun was produced in 1944-45).

Winter camouflage was usually painted on with a water-based paint and done with whatever was at hand – brush, rag, broom, whatever. This paint tended to wear very quickly when subjected to combat, harsh weather conditions, etc, so the overall effect was very motley, depending on how much action the vehicle had seen since its last “touch-up.” I achieved this effect by painting a base coat of the standard Russian green. Then over that I airbrushed a not-quite-even white, leaving a lighter coating around panel lines and areas that would see a lot of wear. Then I heightened this effect by drybrushing the green base color on certain areas. I especially wanted the look of a tank which would transport troops into battle, so I hit the engine deck pretty heavily with this. Then I added some scratches and scrapes with small dots or lines of the same base green. Then a thinned white was brushed over some of these areas in a haphazard fashion, imitating the effect of several touch ups done by the crew at the front. Over this mishmash, I did a fairly heavy burnt umber wash, to give the tank a “muddy” look, as well as to tone down the color contrasts. A light dusting of white pastels tied it all together.

The base is my standard sand and white glue mix covered with talc. There was also some darker dirt sprinkled over the track marks, as well as glued onto the wheels and tracks, to simulate mud. From this angle you can see the headlight, which was an aftermarket deal, with a separate lens and reflector. The antenna is made from a nylon paintbrush strand. I had long been too intimidated to try something like this, but it actually turned out to be not as difficult as I had thought. In general, when I do weathering, it seems like too much while I’m doing it, but on the final product it always looks like not enough. On this one, I also worried that I had overdone it, but the great thing about winter camouflage is that it’s almost impossible to overdo. I ended up very pleased with the results – hope you like it too!

A-10 Thunderbolt II

2008-04-02T03:06:00.000-07:00

Here’s another project I finished a little while back. This is an A-10 Warthog in 1/72 scale. The kit is by Academy with some extra details added in. The ordinance was somewhat lacking in fine detail on this kit, so I did some upgrades with Hasegawa AIM-9 missles on a kitbashed launcher (shown on the right) and rocket launchers from the Testors/Italieri NATO aircraft weapons set. There are also some cluster bombs from the Hasegawa set, which are not shown on this angle. If you look closely, you can see that I modified the Maverick missles by scratchbuilding a clear seeker head made from clear sprue. This was done by sanding down the tip of the missle to where the seeker head begins, gluing on clear sprue and sanding it down to the proper shape and size with finer and finer grade sandpaper. The final grade was wet sanded to get a nice finish, then dipped in Future to remove any scratches. The same technique was used on the Pave Penny system mounted on the right hand side of the fuselage beside the cockpit.
I also added aftermarket photoetch cockpit details from Eduard. The HUD even has a clear piece of acetate over it. I was very satisfied with the final look of the cockpit. Another nice thing about this kit was the decals. There were lots of technical markings that added a lot to the kit. All of the decals were included with the kit, no aftermarkets were necessary. This was also my first kit to use MicroSol and MicroSet decal setting solutions, and I have to say that I am sold on these products. Even the lightning bolt decal with the blue background on the vertical stabilizers laid down nicely with this stuff. It took a couple of coats, but ended up looking painted on, with no wrinkles.
These figures are from the Italieri Nato Pilots and Ground Crew set. On this go ‘round I used acrylic base coats with a darker wash and slightly lighter drybrush, then finished with an oil wash of burnt umber to bring out shadows. I also did not paint eyes on this group, and I think they came out looking pretty good. The burnt umber oil wash in the eye sockets left enough of a shadow to look like eyes, even on a fairly close inspection.

You also get a rear end view of some of the ordinance. The Maverick missiles included in the kit also did not have the exhaust detail, so I drilled this out with a pin vise. On the far right of the wing understores is an ECM jamming pod, also from an aftermarket weapons set. The chucks under the wheels are scratchbuilt from sprue and twine.

Bradley M3A2

2007-10-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a my latest project – a diorama of a Bradley M3A2 on a training exercise in Germany. This is the Dragon kit, and it was a nice build. Good surface detail, and everything went together really well. Most of what you see on the model is right out of the box. The only additions I made were the antennae and gluing exposed film for the viewports. The antennae were made from nylon paintbrush strands, and the balls on top of the antennae were done by dipping the ends in gap-filling superglue multiple times.

The diorama base is made from a picture frame. The roadbed is plastic clay, which was actually a little difficult to work with. It laid down fine, but I think I made the roadbed too think, and when it dried, it cracked. The groundworks were made using a technique I found on the Missing Lynx website. (www.missing-lynx.com/articles/dio/dioramabases_robplas/dioramabases_robplas.html) Basically, it involves mixing sand with white glue and water, then sprinkling dirt, grass, etc. on top. In hindsight, I should have probably used more static grass and darker dirt. The deer crossing sign is made from sprue, card, and wire.

The M3 is a cavalry vehicle – the infantry complement is two scouts. These are taken from the Revell Modern US Infantry set. The poses are good, but face detail is lacking. I had read about a technique using salt particles to create the uniform camo pattern, but I couldn’t get it to work, so I just painted it by hand.

For the faces on these figures, I tried two new techniques. First, I used an oil wash to bring out the shadows, which worked out pretty well. I still want to experiment more with oils in the future. My second new technique was on the eyes. I allowed the dark oil wash to pool in the eye sockets of the figure. Then, I painted a black dot in the center of each eye for the iris and pupil, then a bone-colored dot in each corner of the eye to give the impression of whites. It turned out fairly well, I think, but I still haven’t found a great technique for painting eyes in 1/72 scale. Some are of the opinion that the eyes shouldn’t be painted in this scale, but I just can’t not paint eyes on them.

Stuka JU-87 G1

2007-08-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Hey folks! I've been away a while, and don't have a lot of time now, but I did have a finished project to post...my Fujimi Stuka G-1! This kit has been on hold for over 2 years!

One thing I've discovered in the realm of modeling (and I think it also applies to that elusive thing some of us call Real Life), is that most difficulties can be overcome with enough patience and persistence. This kit took both, but I think the final results have been worth the wait.

I still have a couple things to improve in my modeling, such as weathering, and what to do when you get air bubbles under the decals (argh@!), but I'm happy with the final result. Hope you enjoy it.

Once More To The Breach!

2007-06-04T04:07:00.000-07:00

As I said in an earlier post, I’ve started to get into modeling mainly as a spinoff of my miniatures wargaming habit. Well, that habit continues, and every now and again I have an opportunity to play a wargame or two – thanks to a very patient wife (wargaming opponents have been hard to come by here in Khabarovsk). We recently tested out a new set of rules, called “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum!” Lots of fun. Here’s the after-action report.

For the test scenario, we ran a simple hypothetical meeting engagement with two platoons of German Infantry with light mortar support against two platoons of Soviet Infantry with HMG support. The overarching objective for both sides was control of the bridges in the town.

IABSM uses some interesting mechanisms, which add to the unpredictability of the game, and I think add to the interest as well. Firstly, it uses a system of blind movement, whereby units are represented by “blinds,” until those units are spotted or open fire. A blind may be an actual unit (platoon, in this case), or it may be a small recon squad of a few men (basically a “dummy” blind – no combat potential, but able to spot and move). This means you don’t really know what you’re facing, sometimes until you’re right on top of a unit (like in real warfare). In this photo, the Russians advance on the town, using the cover of the buildings and forest to advance practically unnoticed. The dice are used for movement, firing, and spotting, and as your unit loses men, it loses dice, thus reducing it’s effectiveness.

Here, a German platoon with light artillery support is revealed early on, as they advance in the open. Each squad can then move on it’s own, but usually with reduced effectiveness. Blinds receive 4 initiative dice, but each regular Wermacht squad receives only 3 (the squads are represented by 4 figures for ease of play, and due to the lack of figures in sufficient numbers, especially on the Soviet side. Need to do some more painting!).

The Germans advance on the town. The dice next to the unit are it’s reserved dice, which can be used for firing or spotting at any point in the turn.

Here a Soviet platoon takes cover in a ruined building. Note the Maxim HMG in support. The AT rifles are actually substituting f or light MGs – again, need to do some more painting – I only had enough LMGs for one platoon! Another interesting feature of IABSM is the use of a card-based initiative system. Cards representing every unit (as well as some special characteristic cards) are placed in a deck and shuffled. Then they are turned over one at a time, to indicate when those units are activated. There is also a “Tea Break” card, which indicates the end of a turn, when all unit cards are reshuffled. What this means is that unit order is not fixed, and it is possible (even likely) that not every unit will activate every turn! In fact, this HMG unit, after taking up it’s position in the building, never once activated the entire game! Obviously new recruits lacking appropriate supervision.

Here we see the deleterious effects of combat. This German platoon has made it to the bridge – but it was unfortunately as far as they ever got. They tried to advance in the open and received withering fire from the Soviets behind hard cover in the buildings of the town. The white counters represent “wounds,” which reduce the squads’ effectiveness. The black counters represent actual casualties. One more casualty on this squad on the foreground, and they will be down to 1 figure, or 0 initiative dice (I used the number of figures to represent how many dice the squad had +1, since even if a squad has no dice, it still has the potential of action, albeit this action more often than not would be to seek out cover – which the two squads with attached platoon leader in the background have already done).

RUMBLE! Close assault usually proves devastating and decisive, and this was no exception. The assault ended with the two squads of Germans in full retreat. This left the Germans with a squad with Platoon commander in the church, and the second platoon taking cover by the bridge on their left flank. However, they had by this point sustained too many casualties to offer effective resistance, and left the field of battle, regrouping for a counterattack on another day.

Overall, the game was really fun, and while it was unpredictable, this added to the “feel” of the game. The ranges in this game seem rather “short,” meaning lots of ineffective fire until you really get close. Artillery was a mixed bag. In this game, there was no forward observer, but IABSM allows for “blind firing” of light and medium on-table artillery. What happened was the German mortars ended up sitting way back on the table without line of sight to anything, and just fired off of map coordinates. Usually, the fire scattered, but occasionally it was dead on, and there didn’t seem to be any difference in accuracy if the mortar unit could see the impact point or not – perhaps I’m reading the rules wrong, and if so, feel free to correct me. This was a bit of a sticking point for me, but all in all, the mortars did not have an overwhelming effect on the game. Overall, the rules are worth a look-see. Check them out at www.toofatlardies.co.uk.

2007-03-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

My latest project has been a diorama of an IS-2 tank. This was a difficult project, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was very disappointed with the quality of the kit itself. The kit is by PST. I was impressed with the quality of the KV-1 tank I had done by the same company, but this kit for some reason had a lot of problems. There was lots of flash – to the point that I had to actually carve some of the small pieces out of the flash! The handholds on the turret I simply discarded and made my own out of light gauge wire.

The figure is an old pewter German with a Panzerfaust. I’m assuming he’s SS, due to the camouflage smock. I used a pattern from a uniform reproduction website I found. The damaged building and sidewalk came from another kit, an old Revell German armored car kit I picked up. I glued a second story in out of foamboard and used floor textures from paper buildings that I use for wargaming.

I weathered the tracks with pastels, as well as the residue behind the exhaust outlets. The broken in glass on the floor inside the building are cut up pieces of a clear Pepsi bottle, and the broken pieces of rafter are made from a fireplace match.

Finally, the cobblestone street is made from an assortment of dried beans and nuts, with a light brown wash over top, and pastels to even out the look.

Miscellaneous Figures and Models

2007-01-22T13:47:00.001-08:00

I haven't added anything in a while, so I thought I'd show off some work I've done previously. Here are some mongol figures in 1:72nd scale. They are mounted on stands for use with strategic minis games, like Fantasy Rules. These figures are by Zvezda (a Russian model and miniatures company). The figures are good quality, although they could use a bit more variety of poses.

These are also Zvezda figures. They are Samurai, also in 1:72nd scale. I’m not sure if either of these paint jobs are very accurate, but my wife likes them!

Now for WWII. This is a picture of a KV-1 heavy tank, also in 1:72. The model is manufactured by PST, a new company out of Belarus, specializing in Soviet tanks. The figures are 1:72, manufactured by Revell and Esci.

Finishing Touches

2006-10-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

At last, the finished model, shown here with its little brother.

To finish up, I started with a black wash to add a bit of weathering. This part actually ended up being a little tricky. When the base coat dried, it dried very smooth. When I added the wash, it didn’t lay quite right, and had to go over some parts several times. The overall effect came out alright, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

The periscope ports were painted gold, like the driver’s periscope on an Abrams tank, and the pintle MG was painted metallic black. I decided not to do any drybrushing on this model, and go for a more natural look.

For the antenna, I drilled a small hole in the roof, and superglued a single bristle from a long-bristled nylon brush I bought just for this purpose.

Here is the model shown with the miniatures for which it’s intended. These are also Ground Zero Games figures from the NAC army (although in my particular background, they’re UN troops). As you can see, the scale came out quite nice.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed following along on this project with me. I’ll post another picture of the entire platoon, once all four are complete.

Base Coat & Hover Skirt

2006-10-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

Finding a material for the hover skirt was difficult. What I finally found was the rubber insulation around a large gauge wire. I pulled out the wires on the inside, because it was too difficult to work with otherwise. I superglued it around the undercarriage, and it held pretty well.

I had to hold it a while, because it wanted to pull away from the sides, but once the superglue set, it worked fine. I liked the color of it as is, so I decided to paint the base coat of the model before attaching the hover skirt. Small cuts could be seen in the area where the ends of the wire meet, but these can be filled with superglue. I probably will do a light black wash over the hover skirt as well, but I wanted to have to paint it as little as possible.

The Undercarriage

2006-10-23T00:34:00.000-07:00

This is a model to be used for gaming, so some would say, “Why bother with the bottom, you won’t see it anyway?” However, there are some who would say (you know who you are), “If a model is not complete, it can’t be used in a game.” This is a GEV, but there are no visible fans or jets to give forward propulsion, so I had to come up with some way for the vehicle to direct its movement. My theory is that the GEV uses vectored thrust to give direction, and all this is under the hover skirt. With this system, the vehicle could move in any direction, and even spin in place if necessary. The vents would provide the necessary ground effect, as well as direction. I needed something to represent this, so I drew out and etched in vents under the vehicle. The undercarriage needed to be raised away from the bottom of the vehicle by 6mm, so as to allow room for the hover skirt. This piece allows for that space, and also gives a good, solid frame to which I could later attach the hoverskirt.

Fiddly Bits

2006-10-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

Two details merit special attention – the commander’s hatch & cupbola, and the pintle machine gun. The hatch on the original has 8 view ports around the cupbola. To create this effect, I traced the outline of the viewports on a square of plastic, and cut away the unnecessary bits with a hobby knife. It takes a steady hand!

The hatch itself is a wheel cover from a KV-1 kit, and the hinge is that same light gauge wire. Cutting out circles is troublesome, and what I have to do is cut away as much as possible with the hobby knife, and then sand the edges off to get it round.

The machine gun started life as a bit of armor plating which had a little notch in it that looked like an MG breech to me. I cut the piece in two and glued the halves together to make the body of the MG.

I used a barrel of a .30 MG from an old Stuart tank model. There are 5(!) machine guns in the kit. Apparently, two of the MG were not used in combat – not sure what they would be used for, but since most of my models are for gaming, and not for display, there’s no need for parts which won’t be used in combat, so they became barrels for my pintle MG. The trigger guard is a leftover KV-1 piece, and the post, once again, is light gauge wire.

Advanced Detailing

2006-10-19T04:08:00.000-07:00

During the process of detailing, I found that one of the armor panels in my “extras box” of pieces left over from old model kits matched well with one of the armor panels on the side of the APC. From there, I added extra parts, trying to keep things as close to the original as possible. A rectangular panel on the 6mm mini became a tool box, the back of a fuel can was used in the place of a round bit on the original. I also departed a little from the original at this point. I added a periscope viewport for the driver, figuring that, even in the near future they’ll still need to use the old “Mark 1 Eyeball.” The original model also has a rotary cannon mounted on the top, but I didn’t use that. The game that I use this model with is Dirtside (now out of print, but can be downloaded for free from the Ground Zero Games website – well worth the download, if you enjoy 1/300 scale micro-armor games), and in that gaming system, I preferred to arm this APC with an upward-launching guided missile (for 360º arc of fire), and a pintle-mounted machine gun. These are not represented on the 6mm mini, but I decided to model them on the 25mm model. The MG was a little tricky, and will be covered in a later post, but creating the missile launcher was a fairly simple bit of modeling.

I simply cut a bit of sprue (the little plastic “tree” to which the model parts are attached), drilled out a hole with a pin vise and the largest bit I had, then sanded the side at an angle until it sat flush on the side of the APC.

Another nice thing about the Ground Zero Games mini is that it has a fair amount of detail for such a small model, down to the placement of hinges and handles on doors. That meant I needed them on the 25mm model as well. For these details I used small sections of light gauge wire held in place with super glue.

For this I didn’t use the gel type, but the liquid type, placed on the model with a pin. The original mini also has what appears to be a ventilation grille over the driver’s compartment. The pin vise came in handy here also.

I marked out where the grilles should be, drilled the ends of the lines, and then carved the grilles directly into the plastic with a hobby knife, taking care not to cut all the way through the plastic. The view ports/firing ports along the sides of the model were also drilled into rectangles of plastic with the pin vise.

Basic Detailing

2006-10-15T22:38:00.000-07:00

Once the corpus of the APC was built, it was time to add detail. I began by noting the position and size of doors and armor plates on the original, and placed them on the model. Some of the door corners were rounded, and some were square. The rounded corners were easily achieved by sanding. I used a lot of the scrap pieces left over from making the body for hatches, corners, and such. I have to economize as much as possible, since I haven’t been able to find sheet styrene here in Khabarovsk. I travel through Moscow at least once a year, so I use that time to stock up on materials and kits I can’t find. There’s a great hobby shop in Moscow, with lots of photo-etch parts, diorama accessories, etc. available (that’s their website on my links, but it’s all in Russian – be forewarned!).

After basic detailing there was some more advanced detailing to be done, and there were a couple of tricky bits, so I’ll cover that in my next post.

The Driver's Seat

2006-10-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

Once the basic body was built, I proceeded to construct the driver’s compartment. The Ground Zero Games model has an unusual driver’s compartment on the left side of the vehicle. I followed the same basic construction process as the body, cutting out a frame, and then gluing on the top and front.

This is where I ran into my first mistake in the conception process. When I had made the line drawing, I had the front of the compartment extended out over the front of the body (as on the original model) on the side view, but neglected to reflect that on the front view. It worked out fine, however, since I made the sides by laying styrene on the model and working from that, so the mistake corrected itself.

Building the body

2006-10-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

The first step of any project is the plan. Since I already had the 6mm scale mini, I simply measured all the sides and multiplied by 4 (yes, I realize that only gives me a 24mm scale model, not 25mm, but dealing in fractions of millimeters was just too taxing for me). From there, I made a 3D 1:1 scale drawing of the model I was going to make. Some of the measurements required “fudging,” and I found that I had made some conceptual mistakes along the way, but most were easily fixed. One important hint a friend of mine told me a while back was not to worry about measuring the angles, measure the sides. If you measure all the sides correctly and draw them in their correct relationship to one another, the angles draw themselves. This method works well for a “box” design, but doesn’t work for sides which cannot be seen and measured in profile on the 3D drawing. For that, I had to use another method.

I began by creating a basic frame out of styrene. Styrene is my scratchbuilding material of choice, because it’s easy to work with and durable. After measuring the inner struts for the frame, I trimmed off about a millimeter, since the styrene I was using was .8mm in thickness. Another nice thing about styrene is that it can be sanded. I used sandpaper to bevel the inside edges, so that the seams as tight as possible.

After I made the basic frame, I added the sides and front. Since the model has a slight “bulge” at the bottom, I decided to work down from the top of the model, that way any inconsistencies that came about in the construction process would be less visible.

The corners are a little tricky, since they can’t be directly measured from the 3D drawing. Plus, the fact that they are triangular, without any parallel sides makes the “side measuring” method impossible. The way around that I found was to just place the sheet styrene directly over the space to be covered, and marking off the corners. Then, I simply cut the piece to fit, and sanded down the edges. I used this same method to fill in all the corner pieces.

First Project - Gauntlet APC

2006-10-10T23:33:00.000-07:00

I've been getting into scale modeling lately, mostly as an offshoot of my miniatures gaming habit. I've decided to start chronicling projects I'm working on, the first of which is a 25mm scratchbuilt Gauntlet hover APC. I have the model in 6mm scale (shown here in action), and I decided to build a platoon of them from scratch. Sure, I could buy the resin kits directly from Ground Zero Games, but what's the fun in that? Hope you enjoy the project