German Artillery Crew and Grenadiers

Completed a few figures for the German defenders of Brecourt Manor.

Artillery Crew

Grenadiers

The artillery crew are Warlord and the grenadiers are Artizan. I used different colours for the gun crew uniform, more as an experiment. The grenadiers are all painted in pretty much the same uniform colour scheme.

I intend to post up progress on painting these figures by having what will really amount to a photo diary. More for my benefit so I will have an idea how long it takes to paint them all. So apologies in advance for some future boring posts.

Thats it for now more to follow.

Workbench for Brecourt

So here we have the obligatory 'workbench' photos. First up a lot of grenadiers plus a few US airborne...

These figures are all mounted on 2p coins, and represent the last few US Airborne I need to complete and the German Grenadiers I will need to play out the Brecourt Manor scenario. Or potentially will need. I have enough models to represent the infantry who are mentioned as supporting the guns and should be able to replace the gun crew figures with a suitably armed equivalent should it be needed. Next up gun crew and friends.....
    

The gun crew are mounted on 1p coins. I normally use the 2p coin to base individual figures for skirmish games but decided that placing the figures around the gun itself would be easier if they are on smaller bases. The other figures are the MG42's and crews in sustained fire role, for the MG nests. Plus US Airborne .30cal teams in deployed mode. The latter are not really necessary but I believe it will be nice to have the option replace the moving teams with bases representing the MG's deployed. The MG teams will be mounted on suitable larger bases once painted. Whilst on the subject of .30cal teams....

I've used two different colour schemes for these teams. The team on the right is painted in the 'Green Ochre' scheme. The one on the left in  a scheme based around 'US Tan Earth'. Both are Vallejo colours. I originally used to paint the US Airborne M1942 uniform in a scheme based on GW's Desert Yellow. When that colour was withdrawn I changed over to Vallejo Green Ochre which I think is quite a good match for the old GW Desert Yellow. But following a recent suggestion from one of the forum members on LAF, I tried US Tan Earth as an option.

  
I like both and plan to use both colour variations to represent the M1942 uniform. But what do you think?

Quite a bit of painting to do. So that's it for now more to follow.  

  

Brecourt Manor......Part 11

A short update to highlight only a small amount of work completed on the boards. I've added Woodland Scenic's; Coarse Turf and Foliage clusters plus Silflor; Grass Tufts and Flower Tufts to the edge of the hedgerows.  

The intention is to make them a bit more interesting and add a splash of colour. I'm hoping they will make the foliage appear more natural, rather than a blanket colour across the whole boards. I've not gone mad with the tufts and such like, just enough .

The 'gateway' between the fields I've added some tufts to the central ridge of the track way. I was going to use static grass, but decided on using Silflor tufts, mainly because I do not have a applicator for the static grass which apparently should make it stand up better. If anyone has used such an item could they let me know their thoughts, is it worth the expense, does it make a difference applying static grass?

I've also added a small amount of coarse turf to the main board areas just to break up the bleakness of the grass.

I'm probably going to concentrate on cleaning up and basing the figures required to play out the scenario. So may be a slightly longer pause until next update.

That's all for now more to follow.    

It's Green...(or Brecourt Manor Part 10)

Ta Dah!

Finally the boards have some green on them. I've completed the trees, then the hedgerows. Used rubberised horsehair for both. Then added the flock for the grass. It is actually quite green, maybe too green for me. For someone who prefers muted colours the boards look bright. Anyway here are a few more pictures...

There is still work to be done. I need to add more foliage. Particularly along the hedgerows, and tidy up the grass here and there. I then can start to add more detail in and around the gun positions. I'm quite pleased with how the tree line came out in front of the gun positions. The artillery pieces are suitably screened by the flora to hide their position, which is what I was hoping to achieve.

I have also done some more weathering on the wooden flooring and revetments, mainly using washes. I tried Devlan Mud, oils thinned with white spirit but I found that the MIG enamel washes were best. Also added in some more mud. Two different techniques were used for this. Firstly I made a paste of PVA, powdered filler, suitable weathering powder and a small amount of water. This obviously produced clumps of mud, I was attempting to simulate dry mud. I then placed MIG pigment fixer directly onto the wooden flooring, put weathering powder onto an old brush and tapped the brush above the pigment fixer to scatter the powder. I did then add a little more pigment fixer to hold the powder. I haven't gone mad with the mud effect, restricted it to were people would be moving on and off the flooring.

I will now probably concentrate on painting up the guns and figures needed to play out the scenario. Thats it for now more to follow.    

Life after Devlan Mud

Lo, the people of the land were happy. For the Great Lord had brought forth an elixir of plenty. The people cried with joy and praised the High Lord for the benevolence that was bestowed up on them. For this elixir was called...

Yet this joyous time was not to last, for the people were deceived. The Great Lord cast off his benign cloak and revealed a twisted and malevolent form. With a cruelty which only a tormented mind could conjure the minions of the Dark Lord, seized the fabled elixir and took it from the people never to be returned.

A great sadness descended. Those that could, coveted the elixir, seizing all they found for themselves, furtively hoarding the last few precious drops. A madness swept the land. 

Yet hope remained and some took up a journey to find an elixir that could equal the fabled panacea. One who took up this quest found a wise and learned Master (The Source ). Thus spoke the Seer 'Rest weary traveller for I can aid you, search no more'. 

Lo. The truth was revealed, an alternative existed and the traveller cried out in exultation....

Okay this may be old news but I only discovered it about a couple of months ago. So to me its one those best kept secret things but no more. I was mighty happy when I discovered that there was a viable alternative to Devlan Mud. 

I first read about it on 'From the Warp' (follow the link above), and when I Googled about it a bit more it seems the Warhammer communities were well aware that the Army Painter Strong Tone was similar to Devlan Mud and made a good substitute. Here's a little example..

     
For the record Army Painter Dark Tone is equivalent to Badab Black.

Purchased mine from North Star.              
  

Trouble with Trees

It's been one of frustrating times on the wargaming front. Do you ever start a project (or a project within a project?) and it does not go quite according to plan? I decided to start making trees for the Brecourt Manor boards over the weekend and in my minds eye I knew exactly how they would turn out, or so I thought!!!

Now I've mentioned previously I'm using the woodland scenic trees for the bases, for two reasons mainly; I've used them before and I think they are okay; they are easily attainable from local shops should I need more foliage/armatures etc.. Plus of course the tree armature plugs into the base and this meant I was able to adapt them to make them removable from the boards should I so wish. So it begins.....

So I sat down with armatures and clump foliage intending to spend Saturday afternoon making the twenty or so trees I need for the boards. Firstly I decided to apply the clump foliage with superglue. I had previously used Woodland Scenics own Hob-e-Tac glue and was not particularly impressed. It quickly became apparent that the superglue was great for holding the foliage BUT I was going to need a lot of it and it was not very cost effective. So I turned to the Hob-e-Tac. What I produced was this;

Now I was not too happy with the result and since I wanted to build up the amount of foliage on each tree, I was not too sure Hob-e-Tac would be upto the job. So I considered bulking out the tree with a 'packing' material. I considered using steel wool and then gluing extra foliage to that. Now I couldn't find the steel wool but did find a few pieces of rubberised horsehair which I had bought from Antenociti's Workshop a couple of years back. I had intended to experiment with it for making hedgerows but settled on using clump foliage instead. So I added it to a couple of the armatures;

This one had no clump foliage added, but on another a stripped back the clump foliage and added the horsehair over that.

In each case I used PVA glue to stick the horsehair to the armature. Now I had a dilemma. How to stick the foliage to it and what foliage to use. Now if you are UK based (and probably a few who are not will know the company I'm referring to, judging by a few TM posts I read over the weekend), you will be aware of the 'Last Valley' terrain. Never bought any of it myself, but see it quite a lot at shows and the club, 'Wyvern Wargamers', has quite a bit of this terrain. So looking at my trees thats what came to mind. So from what I could remember of that terrain the trees seem to be horsehair covered with flock.

So a hunt on the internet and I found a few references on model making/railway forums to using hairspray to fix the flock to the rubberised horsehair. Then I spotted this which I should have remembered markswargaming-anythingbutaone. Mark's very fine tutorial goes into detail about making some boards for Saga and using hairspray has an adhesive to hold the flock. Can also be found here saga-scenics. So grabbed my can of cheap hairspray (no laughing please, gentleman) and sprayed away. I also used Daler & Rowney fixative (just because I could) and then sprayed the tree with Woodland Scenic Cement glue. I was not entirely convinced hairspray would hold the flock. So I was left with this;

It was rushed and a little bit messy. It will need tidying up. I also did not paint the trunk. Mainly because they are not really noticeable when being used and the area around it will be covered in foliage/flock. But I was not entirely happy, it looked like a clump on a stick. So having already glued rubberised horsehair to four other trees I ripped it all off and started again. This time I was a bit more selective in placement of the horsehair.

I have, after spending a few minutes looking at real trees, placed the horsehair much more carefully on each individual branch rather than covering the whole tree, also painted the trunk though it may not be obvious in the photo. Flock was applied as before but no glue used this time. I did three trees in this fashion and this was the result;

Please ignore detritus in the background.

Now I have been round these trees with a pair of scissors to trim away any straggly pieces of horsehair both before and after flocking.

Now follows a comparison shot the two different types of trees;

See what I mean about the one on the left looking clumpy? The second batch I feel look more realistic, and I'm far happier with them.

Now I hadn't used glue on these three trees since the Woodland Scenic spray cement can be messy. So a further trawl of the internet brought up this trouble at the mill, another excellent tree tutorial but that led me to this Treemendus Models. So I have ordered some of the glue to give it a go, after the good reviews on Trouble at the Mill.

So trees with rubberised horsehair for the foliage it is. A couple of things to mention before I finish. I did spray the horsehair black before applying the tree. The stuff I had was a light brown colour, so I dusted it with black spray paint, rather than smother it. The tree armatures I sprayed grey with Halfords grey primer. Then washed with Devlan Mud, followed by Thaka Green, drybrushed with Rotting Flesh and Catachan Green and a final wash with Badab Black. I'm using up my old GW paints on terrain. I was just trying to achieve the grey/green colour that most bark seems to be (at least in the UK).

Horsehair can be found at these suppliers;

Treemendus models

Antenocitis Workshop

4Dmodelshop

Unless you know a re-upholesterers. Thats it for now, more to follow.

    

Brecourt Manor...Part 9

Not really a full post just a tidy over until I can really move things along. But carrying on from last post, I did add a few more sandbags to the boards. Not very exciting, I'm sorry.

I did not even add that many! I didn't want to spend too long making sandbags out of Milliput once again, so I added a few here and there just to add another feature to terrain. I also decided not to re-paint the other sandbags. What I did do was add a wash of Devlan Mud thinned with Klear and water.

This mixture added a level of griminess which I am happy with and what was lacking from the original sandbag emplacements. I'm not sure if it is evident in the photos.

That should be the last on sandbags. Probably like me you are bored to tears of 'em? More to follow soon.