Tiger I Build Update 1

 

My next diorama is this Tamiya 1/32 scale Mid Production Tiger I. I am giving myself a window of three months to build the kit and assemble the rest of the dio. I have added the Voyager Models PE kit that really ramps up the complexity and of course detail. I also ordered a metal barrel on a friends recommendation. So far resisting the metal tracks but if I struggle with the plastic ones from realism then I will probably go metal. Rather not as that will help ramp up the costs above what I probably can sell it for. The figures are mostly plastic with at least one will be resin, all depends on if I can get more figures that fit with the scene I am planning.

Some of the detail is insane, love the hatch parts, these will be late added items I suspect. Already decided a few parts don't add enough to be included and being stretched with some of the bending and gluing I have done already.

Covers for the exhaust, the bolts are being added to the cover plate which is about 6mm across. 

Plastic rod to replace the Tamiya rods fitted into the exhaust. I missed a trick I should have tap drilled them mounting hole a little deeper to make a more solid fix, lesson learnt.

One of the two finished, well sort of. I need to dial back on the corrosion I think, though they are mostly hidden by the exhaust shrouds so may need to be a bit OTT. I am using ENML binders that allow me to keep going back to it so can change as much as I like.

First real challenge was the two clamps that hold the jack in place on the rear of the Tiger. Two of these parts require folding, took me about an hour and a quarter to get this done.

I invested in a small PE folding vice tool. Already very happy that I did, it's going to get plenty of work on this build.

The wing nuts actually made me smile, lets see if that's the case when I have done a few more. 

I plan to do as much as the basic build as I can before adding as much PE as possible though bits like the metal grill covers needed to be added before some of the other clutter. The PE instructions are rather cluttered and sometimes don't make as much sense as I would like but with a lot of looking and cross referencing I seem to be doing OK.

I will add the wheels close to the end of the build as I want to do a lot of the weathering of the under side of the tank before fitting the wheels and tracks so as to be able to get right into the shadows.

Tracks are going to be such fun, build, paint and weather. Will be adding track sag at least I hope I will.

Between sessions on the Tiger I will be working on the figures and a bunch of other projects just to keep things fresh. As to how many will be wargaming related rather than just painting remains to be seen. However I am in the process of sorting my first game in years so that should provide a spark.

British Paratrooper "Red Devils" Arnhem 1944

Sorry for the lack of blogging recently, I've been painting but just not the stuff that tends to interest my followers. However with games just around the corner maybe just maybe more of a mix of subjects. However I will soon be starting to post about my next diorama this being a 1/32 scale Tiger I that I have mentioned before. 

Still not wargame related really is this FeR miniatures 1/16th resin bust. It's just 4cm tall between top of the beret and bottom of the Denison jacket. Total height including the plinth is 7cm so quite a small chap.

The quality of the casting is superb, loads of detail and a joy to work with. The only drawback really is the cost, set against the price of full size busts it seems rather pricy but has the advantage of not taking up too much room.

I mostly used Andrea paint sets which are lovely paints. I feel I am finally getting the hang of the flesh set and feel this time I got what I was trying to achieve, lets see how that pans out over the next few larger projects shall we.

This fellow has landed on my Etsy page which so far has not attracted much in the way of hits though I now have 13 items listed so I hope to increase the traffic. Recently sold a bunch of stuff on ebay and they have decided to hold the funds for a month due to not having sold anything for awhile. Bought plenty though, another excuse to hold onto funds it seems to me.

 

The Joker And The Thief Bust SOLD

 At last something that is not even remotely linked to wargames or war. This bust is supplied by The Wonder Emporium UK I went for the 75mm tall one and would have loved to have gone for the larger one. 

Very little clean up work required as this is done before sending out. 3D printing has certainly made leaps forward. Plenty of detail and bags of character.

Even the back of the bust has nice detail. I have added a small plinth as it seems like it needed that bit more to set it off. 

I really like the monkey, the sculptor for me got the balance right and he shows life in himself. The jester for me seems rather sad so the lively monkey is his Yang.

I choose yellow as much because I wanted to use the Andrea yellow set on something much bigger than it had been used to this point with yellow being a tricky colour to work with. I was suitably impressed with it's coverage. Painted over a dark grey primer.

Cath thought I should go blue red but as I said I wanted to try the yellow and I think it worked with the green, this time a Scale75 paint set given to me by Dave D. what a gentleman.

6mm Prussian Landwehr by Adler

 With most of my painting time now used for none wargaming projects it was nice to take a step back into an old project and paint up some more Prussians for my 100 Days Prussian Army. I say 100 Days as these did not even show up at Waterloo as I have all those already painted.

As per most of my Landwehr we have Baccus skirmishers and Adler for the main body. A few of the bases also have mounted generals to add interest.

Three battalions leading the way, 4th Westphalia 1st Corp Second Brigade, only nine battalions of the Corp made a showing at Waterloo, though some cavalry and guns did. Of the infantry I only have nine reserve and three Landwehr battalions to complete the infantry as well as a regiment of cavalry and two guns then one Corp is fully finished. 

The 4th Corp just needs four cavalry regiments painting to be finished but that's because most of that Corp was at Waterloo. I have the figures to do most of the remaining units to have the lot painted up. The fact I will never need all these units for any battle remains a mute point now. Given the amount of money needed to get all the units I don't have I simply don't see the point of not doing them all.

The 3rd Elbe Landwehr regiment from the second Corp, 8th Brigade. This needs six battalions of Reserve Infantry three regiments of cavalry and four guns (2 batteries) to complete. Third Corp is the one needing the most work with 21 battalions of Reserve or Landwehr infantry six regiments of cavalry and six guns including a horse battery. These will probably be the ones finished last, well unless Lee suddenly wants to fight a battle that these were in!!!

I know it's kind of pointless painting up all these battalions when in many of the cases I can just sub a different battalion without much chance of being pulled up for using the wrong battalion based on collar or cuff being wrong but at least I can fantasise about using them all in a sweeping campaign.

I also painted up a couple more command bases. At some point I need to check how many I have so to make sure I can supply enough for any battle. Our rule system requires a fair few. Next up for this army is a couple of cavalry regiments but they are being bumped down the list as other projects need work doing on them.

88th Foot Connaught Rangers Bust SOLD

 

This is the second Stormtrooper bust I have painted up but this time it's a new release. Three piece kit, the bust, the pipe and the plume, not a great deal of work to clean up, most of it was on the cloth under the shako. I wanted to do sunburnt skin and faded clothes but in the end chickened out.

The usual wooden plinth and brass rod I tend to use on Napoleonic busts though this time I polished the rod. Oh the fun of owning a dremel. I seem to be getting the hang of the Andrea flesh set, even though I still dodged the sun burn. 

I was disappointed with the washed out image of the cloth covering the back of his head, it's quite a subtle blend of colours, still need to practice with the light tent, dimmer setting next time.

The shako came out fairly well especially the brass plate that I inked and then touched back up. The mottled semi gloss on the peak is supposed to show the wearing off of the shine, not sure it comes off. The pipe comes empty so I filled with crushed tealeaves (post dunking in hot water). 

One area I have struggled with is making the leather look worn but this is my best effort yet, still got a long way to go but I finally was reasonably happy with the results.

I still have a German MG gunner, a French cuirassier  a Red Devil mini bust (started) a Jester (started) and a farmer bust in hand so plenty to keep me going bust wise.

I also have a few miniatures I have bought that do not fit in with the normal fare I paint because I like them as well as the usual pile.

Eddie 'The Trooper' Twin Commission

 I have had little exposure to 3D printed figures up to this point so was not quite sure what I was agreeing to, possibly a good job. These are unfortunately one piece prints so was quite cumbersome and created a few challenges when it came to painting some areas part blocked by arm's swords or staffs etc etc etc.

One of the two at least was simply pained more or less as the singles sleeve, it's also a good representation of said artwork. Of course the detail not shown on the sleeve such as the back etc had to be added by the sculptor and I think they did a really good job of that.

The photo above gives you an idea just how big the figures are. Lots of detail is hidden in the clear resin, I have Vallejo's surface primer German Panzer Grey which is perfect for covering this semi flexible resin.

The Union flag is a bit bastardised, the actual artwork gets it really wrong so I was torn between doing it right and following the artwork. Made more difficult as one of them was going to a ex soldier!

The base is a resin plinth from Model Display Products and I have used cork bark for the stones and a liberal sprinkling of static grass and tufts, so may tufts.

I made good use of my new paint sets from Andrea for the red and blue of this one. The other was mostly Vallejo. Both were for the most part painted at the same time, all excepting the coat and trousers.

The second Eddie was painted in the Royal Engineers colours, well I hope so anyway. Both sword blades were a real pain, breaking off and I reattached them after finishing them. 

The gore on the blade was already there, I simply painted and varnished for the fresh look  ;-)

I was given the test piece for this figure but it lacks the bottom of the staff and I really don't plan on painting him any time soon. That's not to say I did not enjoy painting them but another would be pushing uphill for sure. 

The inspiration and reference material. Hopefully Iron Maiden won't be too upset with the finished product lol. It may not be a surprise that I have moved down a few scales to add more to my own Prussian Napoleonic army.

Fallschrimjager Bust

 

This Fallschrimjager bust is from Mitches Military Models and is a new release. He has not been added to the website as yet so if interested you may have to contact him via the contact me button. It's a one piece casting which makes it a lot easier to work with than many a bust.

I also added a decal to the helmet that is designed with Action Men in mind. This being a 1/10 bust it's the same scale so perfect. The distinctive Splinter camouflage smock was a challenge but helped along by using the Andrea Color set for this camourflarge.

 Still struggling to get leather right, still a long way to go before I am really happy with it. The texture to the helmet makes it look more metal and I used oils to grime it up a little.

Technically by the time this camo was available the crest had stopped being put on the helmets. I claim artists licence and run for the hills. I have a second one of these busts so may paint it up in the earlier uniform variant.