Carving out a river, on a Wednesday afternoon…

My apologies to Eily Beadell and Nell Tollerton!

I started by making a stream/small river, about 45m wide in scale (including banks). A bigger river will be a later project, maybe next summer.

For today, I first took stock of what sheet styrene I had left, which was just going to be enough: . You can see the trusty Olfa cutter there – one of the greatest wargaming terrain/wargaming scenery-making tools you can own.

Next, I had to make two sets of measurements. First, I had to make sure that the lengths I was cutting would fit comfortably in their intended receptacle and then second I had to make sure the river was the right width. These were done by 1) measuring cut lengths against the box that will hold them and 2) using a based infantry team for width. An infantry team is on a 40mm base, which is 40m on the wargaming table. If they cross at a ford, where they can Walk (not Wade), they should be able to get over in one turn. Both of those measurements are being made here: . Ah yes, the A3 Reflex copy paper box. I’d be very inconvenienced without them! They hold my hills, my trees, my buildings, my roads and very soon, my rivers.

Where possible, I used offcuts and previously-cut pieces as templates or “cookie-cutters” to speed up cutting: In that photo, I’m about to use an off-cut from the perfect straight edge to do the cutting for the other bank of the river piece, which is then snapped off as a complete piece. Then that completed whole piece can be laid on the sheet styrene, cut around and snapped off as a second seperate but complete piece! Etc., etc.

As well as straight pieces of different lengths, I made a narrow man-made ford section, a natural ford section, a Y-intersection, curving sections and ‘wobbly’ sections as well as a section that opens into a small swamp or bog before becoming a stream/river again: . Those two at the bottom – the left is meant to be a separate swamp or bog, the right will become a large pond or small/medium lake.

Last, check once again they fit in your receptacle: .

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll get another tube of caulk.

Heat, trucks, guns and scenery

Still 4 weeks of Spring left, but today is the second day of over 30 degrees…in fact, looking at the MelbinYewni real time temperature graph, today got to just over 34! This means it’s time to think about doing lots of wargames terrain / wargames scenery, as there will be the heat to cure and dry everything thoroughly and promptly.

I’ve made a start: the three telegraph posts from an old ESCI Diorama Accessories set have been assembled, based and given some lumpy earth around their bases…ready now for painting.

I finished off a platoon of PaK 36 anti-tank guns with crews, plus that ICM Krupp truck, so that they wouldn’t bother me and so that “Operation Barbarossa” next year will be a reality. The PaK 36s are from Fujimi, the crews are the one worthwhile figure from the Fujimi set the gun comes in, a chap from the  Revell  Fallschirmjägers and one of the two ESCI / Italeri Sd. Kfz. 251/1 crew. Photos: .

Some more comments about the ICM Krupp L2H143 Kfz 70 kit…it turns out pretty well and looks great painted. I opted to have the MG 34 on a pintle mount in the rear tray option, to fit in with the Kubelwagen Type 82 which also had pintle-mounted MG34. I don’t like the decals that ICM provided for this kit, though. There is too much excess clear decal surrounding the rear number plate, and even drybrushing with Kommando Khaki as a coat of dust didn’t help…in fact it made it worse and drew attention to the excess. There was also far too much excess on the front number plate – which is meant to wrap around a front bumper bar which is probably only a milimetre wide. Stupid! It wrapped but wouldn’t glue. I know some modellers add a special glue under any decal they apply, but I don’t have that glue and don’t think it should be necessary. The front number plate decal’s glue didn’t hold and so the whole thing popped off during drybrushing. A shame. Sorry ICM, sorry Roden, but I’m not having much luck with your decals.

Now, Fujimi’s product is meant to be 1/76 scale, but it isn’t. Let me clarify…the house probably is, but the figures and PaK gun supplied with it are definitely 1/72 scale or even larger…possibly even 1/70 scale! Anyway, only one figure from that product is worth using with the anti-tank gun because the others are even worsely sculpted and moulded than the figures Hasegawa provide with their WWII AFVs. Hence why each PaK 36 base I’ve done has figures from other manufacturers to make up the two-man crews that Panzerfaust: Armored Fist requires.

Lastly – a couple of Battlefield Accessories wall sections (enough to make two simple houses) have been assembled and are being painted, along with a Faller German, Austrian or Swiss log cabin that I bought at a model railroad shop.

Oh, and there’s a Wespe and that other Kubelwagen still in Tankoberg…but I’m feeling the time is nigh to make a caulk creek / stream following the laws laid down by Nikolas Lloyd.

 

 

Hills or mountains (or both) – ready for war

This terrain project is finished, and I’m pretty happy with the outcome:

The hills in the above photo haven’t had the pins/tacks removed. I’ve put my 1:72 UM Marder III (h) on the larger, to give you some idea of scale.  The spraying of Scenic Cement yesterday and application of extra coarse turf worked perfectly to plug the spots where the first and second glueing attempts with PVA glue failed to thickly coat the area. I also added a few patches of flock/scatter on top of the Scenic Cement to provide extra texture – that too worked well.

The Marder III(h) above is casting a strong shadow against the smaller hill. I’ve talked in earlier posts about how shadows can reveal an AFV’s location – the above example is a practical demonstration of that. Now it should be evident why, in the latter half of WWII, German AFVs stayed under cover during the day or attached lots of branches and foliage to their AFVs if they had to move during the day…because the hard angles and unnaturally-shaped shadows really are noticeable.

These next two photos are of the hills/mountains with pins/tacks removed from their bases, so they look as if they are being used as scenery in a wargame:

I’ve realised with some previously-made hills, I used a finer grade of talus to represent small rocks which I could have done here…I’ll use them with the next lot of mountains / steep hills that I make.

The BZ-35 Refuellers are coming along well – they are receiving a careful solid coating of Catachan Green, which perfectly models the green the Soviets used on their softskins and AFVs.

I’ve commenced assembly of a 1:72  Sd. Kfz. 250/3 by Italeri (kit No. 7034), which was one of kits I bought at the Model Expo Swap & Sell on the Queen’s Birthday Weekend back in June.  It’ll end up being used as a reconnaissance vehicle for encounter scenario games.

Yesterday I began work on painting up a building (4 inch square walls) from Battlefield Accessories. It’ll have the same paint scheme that I used with the AMRI railway station that I painted up last year, for re-creating the fighting around Mga Railway Station in North-western Russia.

I love the detail, I’ve got to boogie…

Painting the two BZ-35s has commenced…finally.  A front wheel fell off one just when I thought all glueing was finished so I had to do more glueing of axles and I also decided to use to Tamiya Putty (Basic type) to really lock down the wheels on the rear axles.

The finished product is nice to look at, though. Definitely a worthwhile PST kit to get if you want to game the Eastern Front (or Ostfront)…sadly, it seems PST has gone very quiet of late and so you may have to hunt around hobby shops and/or Ebay to get them. It’s really a shame, because I’ve also assembled and painted their Soviet KV-1s and KV-2s (in 1:72 scale, of course) and they turned out very well.

The silly title for this post is because while working on assembling the front of each refuelling truck, the instruction sheet said I had to glue on the radiator caps.

Yes, glue on a tiny radiator cap.

On the sprue, was indeed a tiny little radiator cap.

“Well”, I thought, “that’s detail for you. They could have easily included the radiator cap fixed in place as part of the mould, but to show you how much external detail this kit can have, they’ve given me a radiator cap to glue on”. It goes right where there is a bit of flash that actually looks like a radiator cap already, which just makes it seem even stranger. (Yes, even the kit assembled two years ago also had this radiator cap-shaped piece of flash on it).

I clipped the radiator caps off and glued them in place, which was a little trickier than I expected – the top of the radiator gently curves, so they initially won’t sit flatly.

***

The small hill was finished last sunday, the glue holding the coarse turf on the big one hadn’t fully dried in some patches so I had to re-do it during the week. Today I sprayed it with Scenic Cement to seal it and added some more flock and coarse turf to try to cover up the less successful patches. Tomorrow night I’ll have a look at it – I’m keeping it in a warm room to speed the drying.

Also commenced painting up a shelled house!

Bare earth to living rock: worked on the hills / mountains

Today was warmer than I expected and as I didn’t have any major duties to attend to, I worked on those wargaming hills (or mountains, as I proposed in an earlier post) because of the favourable weather.

Here’s how you too can complete this stage of hill-making:

1. Prepare the area where you’ll be working by laying down lots of newspaper to catch dripping glue and all the modelling materials that won’t stick to the hill(s). If you don’t do this, you’ll have small rocks, flock and other stuff going everywhere. I like to use the Weekend Australian (once I’ve finished reading it, of course):
2. Apply PVA glue/woodworking glue. The majority of your brush strokes should be from the middle of the hill to its base or rim:  and you should also make sure the coat completely covers the whole hill (except underneath);  fills every nook and crevice and lastly is not too thin (I like to apply a thick coat, personally): – it can smooth out hard edges or sharp corners and also plug gaps where polystyrene spheres have popped out during carving or shaping.
3. If you want to have any exposed rocks or gravel, now’s the time to do it. First I sprinkle on larger rocks (Woodland Scenics’ Talus): then the smaller ones: . If any bounce off or fail to stick, then gather them up from the newspaper and sprinkle them on again or press them gently into place with your fingers.
4. To give the hill/mountain the appearance of having been scoured by the winds, I’m going to apply Earth flock to the top. Not too much, though:
5. Then it’s time for my grasses, so on goes a thick coating of Green flock: . If you look closely, you can see that the edge of the base (or rim) hasn’t had any flock stick to the glue. I pick the hill up in my hand and shake on more flock, so that it does get coated by flock. Then I press down with my hands onto the hill, forcing everything into the glue and making sure everything sticks that can. Some flock and some rocks/Talus may be dislodged by this, so get the Green flock and liberally coat the hill one final time. Then leave it to dry.

The bigger hill, which had one big peak and one smaller peak was done a little differently. Its features allowed more detail to be applied.

1. On goes the two different sizes of rocks/Talus:
2. There is a gully betweenthe two peaks. As water would naturally gather there, I emphasise this feature by gluing some bushes there (Woodland Scenics’ Bushes):
3. For wind-scouring, it’s time for Earth flock:
4. Being a bigger hill or mountain, I can model thicker grasses etc. around the lower altitude by using a blend of coarse turf:
5. Lastly, the finer grasses – Green flock:
6. Make sure that the rim gets covered in flock; press down with hands; a final coating of Green flock and then leave it to dry.

I’m going to give them 24 hours to completely dry or cure…24 hours is my usual for nearly everything with modelling, except when doing fine painting.

Many modellers and wargamers will tell you that you don’t have to use all the things I’ve used, and I agree with them. Some people use fishtank gravel or cat litter or stones they’ve found out in Nature – if you also want to do that, do it! It’s your hill and your imagination. If you want to stick on some twigs you’ve found to represent fallen branches or logs, do it! I’ve done that with both my Russian and German infantry bases, to give particulr troops some extra cover. If you want to apply some ashes to represent burn-off or scorching, you could.

I’ve used Woodland Scenics products exclusively today (apart from the PVA glue, which is made locally by Selleys). The particular products I used were:

• Blended Turfs
• Talus
• Bushes
• Coarse Turf

It was a big Sunday

The brewed-up T-34/85 wreck terrain piece is done! Here’s the base that it rests on:

Here’s the inked, drybrushed and matt-varnish-sealed piece that you’ve all been waiting for:

From the above, you’ve now had a good look at the home-made Rust blend that I made, combining Blood Red with Brazen Brass and the Brown Ink (R.I.P.). It doesn’t look so powerful here, because I’ve gone and applied two very heavy washes over it of the new Citadel pre-mixed Wash (or watered-down Inks, curse it), Ogryn Flesh. I should have just used one medium coat of Ogryn Flesh – you can see the Rust has become very brown from the washes. The Ogryn Flesh Wash has helped to take the shiny Bronze edge off the Brass particles, though…I’m tempted to keep this homemade Rust to use for mufflers and the like, where they recommend using a Rust – usually I’ve just used Boltgun Metal washed twice with Flesh Ink (R.I.P.). Have a look at the rear of the T-34/85: I think the rust on those mufflers has worked well.

I remember now where the idea for this terrain piece first came from – I was watching another wargame rules-set being played at NWA one night, where a good friend was learning to play. The objective for both sides was to reach a tank in the middle of the board (an ‘objective marker’). I have blended that idea with photo evidence from various ‘eyewitness’ books of the Eastern Front, where wrecked tanks were used as forward Artillery Observation Posts (because they were safe to be under when you were being shelled).

So, the terrain piece is done, as well as the two Revell Tiger I’s that were done as company command vehicles. Apart from having slightly different numbers on the side, an extra aerial added on the turret and MGs mounted for air defence, they aren’t any different to the four Tigers I’ve already got. This time they are perfect, since I knew what to watch for during construction. The one error I made (and was fixed) was discovered just as I was about to varnish them -  I realised I’d left the Balkenkreusz off both tanks. That set me back two hours.  The numbering advice I’ve used comes from here.

Hills! Yes, more terrain.

I was able to undercoat the two hills you’d seen me prepare previously. First, you need to get some pinboard tacks, ones that don’t go all the way in to the end:

Begin to stick the tacks in, about an inch apart from each other and at least half an inch (or more if your hill has a gentle gradient) apart: I advocate using as many tacks as possible, as some always come out during undercoating or flocking:

If your hills aren’t standing completely free of the surface they rest on, get better tacks and start again:

Now you can begin undercoating. I’m using good old Brown Kayak acrylic from Haymes, painting from the top of the hill downwards: You don’t have to apply it thickly, but you do want to completely cover everything: and it’s best to undercoat while holding them in one hand. When you’ve completely covered all the white, put it down and let dry for 24 hours:

Tonight (monday night) I applied on a second undercoat. This time I applied it quite thickly, but again, I made sure I covered everything – sometimes little air pockets are formed as you apply the first coat and they will be uncovered during the drying – get the brush bristles in there and paint them in well.

Sometime next weekend I’ll begin the flocking.

I also washed a number of sprues in detergent and very warm water, then air dried  them. I use an old coat-hanger, cut and reshaped, to hang them on:

Next weekend (earlier if there’s a good, warm afternoon) I’ll undercoat them – then all these recon units can be commenced.

Bigger post tomorrow…for now, more colour cards and Hob-e-tac

Having searched fairly extensively using my librarian skills to find samples of the new Citadel pre-mixed Washes and failing frustratingly, I bought the three I thought I’d need and made my own colour card, thus:

So, there they are – Devlan Mud, Ogryn Flesh and Gryphonne Sepia. They have been applied in differing layers of thickness – from left to right, one layer, then two, finally three.

My colour card for Citadel’s Chestnut Ink, Brown Ink & Flesh Ink (R.I.P.) :

Guess I’ll have to adapt to the new pre-mixed Washes…but those Inks were good because they were handy both at full strength and watered down! I can’t make those Washes full strength. Might be time to start looking elsewhere for Inks.

Have had a go using Hob-e-tac for some scenery projects (not for WWII, though). I used it in a warm room – followed the instructions to the letter by applying it and then waiting 15 minutes before applying what I wanted to stick down (coarse turf, in this instance). I didn’t use the brush included in the tube, it was far too broad for my project. I used an old fine-gauged paintbrush instead to spread it.

It became tacky exactly as outlined – very tacky! Warning – try not to let it get stuck onto your fingers, or you’ll be carrying little bits of terrain on them across projects. A good soaping and then scrubbing in hot water solved the problem. Today, 24 hours after application, I went back to those projects to prepare them for final sealing tomorrow…that stuff remind me a little of silicone sealant, you can easily carve or scrape away the excess but without disturbing the paint underneath! Nifty.

Tomorrow will be a big update. The destroyed T-34/85 terrain piece will be finished and I’ll also be moving on with those hills I started. I’ll be starting work on those kits I bought at the Swap & Sell earlier this month, too – it’s time to have some scouting/recon units as well as big tanks.

Rust; the Sturmgeschütz

My first home-made pot of Rust colour paint is now sitting in my paintbox. It was an all-Citadel affair and was a blend of Brown Ink, Blood Red and Brazen Brass. I also tried Chestnut Ink, Blazing Orange and Brazen Brass but the result was too orange – and that was even with only using a little bit of Orange. The Brown Ink, Blood Red and Brazen Brass blend is a nice reddish rust – I didn’t want an orange rust or brown rust…I wanted a “stereotypical” red iron rust. I made the two blends up simultaneously on my palette (yes, I bought a cheap plastic one from an art & craft shop – great investment when trying to make a new colour) so I was able to guage hues and get exactly what I wanted.

There was no need to try Chestnut Ink, Blood Red and Brazen Brass as I was completely satisfied with what I’d got on this first attempt. There’s something really important I’ve learned about painting and modelling: IF YOU’RE HAPPY WITH IT THE FIRST TIME YOU PAINT IT, THEN LEAVE IT ALONE! To put it another way, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’! I always seem to stuff it up if I try to improve on what I’ve done – jinxing myself, maybe.

I used Ink as one of the ingredients because this has to be a watery paint – I want it to dribble down the sides of what I’m painting; I want runoff to pool nicely.

This new blend was then liberally applied to my T-34/85 terrain piece. On the wheels; where shell hits had dented but not penetrated; around hatches and at the exhausts. That T-34/85 now looks like an old battlefield wreck, not a recent kill…a good inking with one of the new pre-watered Citadel Inks should complete it.

Since my terrain is modular, I also began painting up the sheet of styrene that goes under this piece – if a sizable base of troops move onto the terrain piece, I simply take away the styrene with the tank and flock on it and there below is a flat piece of painted styrene, exact size, representing the scenery, so troops can be positioned perfectly. Maybe next weekend the whole thing will be completed and ready for the camera? The weather will determine this. If it’s like this weekend’s weather, then I apologise in advance for no photos next weekend.

***

Need a nice website about the Sturmgeschütz assault guns? Have a look at Sturmgeschütze vor! by Tim Keennon. There’s some good information there.

Terrain for WWII wargamers – knocked out tank; terrain for all – hills!

I mentioned below (or click on this link if you don’t want to scroll down) that I was working on another piece of WWII wargaming terrain that is impassable to vehicles – a knocked-out T-34/85 tank.

Here’s a pic:

The piece is ideally representing a group or column of vehicles that have been knocked out / destroyed. This piece may portray the losers of an armoured battle; an armoured column hit by artillery; an armoured column attacked from the air; softskins hit by artillery or from the air…there are plenty of possibilities, if you do some reading!

I’m using up an Eastern Express T-34/85 that I bought but later decided I wasn’t going to ever assemble and use for active gaming.

This piece of terrain should be kept fairly small – as you can see, it only extends a short distance around the circumference of the model. All the paint has been applied – I’ve been wanting to apply washes and inks, to represent mud and also weeping rust, but haven’t had the inks and necessary paints until last night. Hopefully I can apply these this weekend, and then this terrain piece will be complete. Here’s a second pic, from a slightly different angle:

***

Nearly every wargame table benefits from having at least one hill on it. I’ve made hills for both the 15mm scale and for sci-fi wargaming scales in the past and nowadays make hills for 15mm scale and also 20mm scale (1:72).

Having rescued some very thick (80mm) house insulation polystyrene foam that was destined for a rubbish tip last year, I spent a cooler summer day cutting it into the rough shapes for some tall, steep hills (the plan being to use these steep hills to represent the mountainous regions of Romania, Hungary or Italy).

I used a hot wire cutter to get the rough shapes I wanted. This is a dangerous thing to do because:

1. If you’re using an industrial unit like I was, you may scald yourself on the wire;
2. You need to do it where there is plenty of fresh air;
3. You must wear eye protection as the fumes can damage your eyes.

Therefore, do it outside or where you have good airflow; wear tradesmans’ or lab technicians’ safety glasses; wear old clothing and lastly do everything slowly and take plenty of breaks so your concentration remains unwavering.

Two of the end results were these:

On the weekend, deciding to get a few of these hills made for a game while Peter’s busy, I tool out my Olfa snap-blade cutter () and shaved off and smoothed the hard angles and rough edges -                             as you can see here:

Using a Olfa blade, packing knife or anything similar is also quite dangerous. Remember to always cut away from you (always, no getting lazy!); check first that each cut is necessary before making it (don’t just absent-mindedly whittle away) and always retract the blade fully before putting the tool down and check that it was retracted fully before you reach down to pick it up again!

Provided the weather is good (well, not wet and/or frosty) this weekend, I can take these two smoothed, prepared hills and move on to stage 2 – undercoating them with paint.

Bing – worth it? Time will tell

I’ve been alerted through work about the search engine Bing.

I’ve tried it for a few searches, mostly simple “phrase and word” searches like ‘”eastern front” terrain’ and ‘”eastern front” forests’. Then I compared results obtained to results obtained with the same searches in Google.

The results I got in the first 5 or so pages of results in Bing certainly seemed very retail-oriented…not so helpful when I am looking for fact or history-oriented. True, Google also returned many retail-oriented in its first few pages of results but it also yielded plenty of factual results early in results.

I felt even more unhappy with my results when I saw that prominently displayed at the bottom of each results page in Bing is the statement, “Some results have been removed.” Clicking on that link does not let me go in and tell it to show me all results, regardless of adult content or not – frustrating. Why tell me they are removing some results and not let me try to find out why and do something about it?

Doing a bit of research into Bing – I was primarily trying to find Media Releases and the like trumpeting its availability to the world -  I found the follwoing two informative articles which I urge you to read,  “Discovering more about Microsoft’s Bing search engine” from The Guardian and “Microsoft’s bada Bing” from The BBC. The quotation from Shar VanBoskirk in the former is revealing – so much so that I went to the source that The Guardian used and reproduced what I consider the important information here:

* Bing focuses on delivering answers, not Web pages.  Microsoft research shows (and Forrester’s research affirms) that users rely more and more on search engines to deliver solutions…hotel reservations, movie listings, gift ideas, newsclip replays…not just a directory of Web sites.  Bing was developed to help consumers make decisions, not just to catalog content.
* Bing organizes content/results by searcher (not algorithm) relevance.  Using research of what types of results have proven relevant to former searchers, Microsoft has organized its Bing interface to deliver the content users are most likely to value, rather than just content that matches an algorithmic formula.
* Bing filters out results that aren’t relevant.  Instead of giving users an overwhelming volume of results, Bing acts as a concierge to help point users to the results most likely to meet their need.

That comes from the May 28 2009 entry on the Forrester Blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals.

My thoughts? 1) It’s delivering answers – but answers to retail-style questions first and foremost. I’m trying to make decisions – but I need lots of reports, observations, memories, photos and so on first. 2) Bing organises by searcher relevance. Who are these searchers? Why trust their judgement about my results? 3) Filtering by what rules/guidelines? Why can’t I turn them off if I’m not getting results similar to those which Google can?

Darren Waters’ article on the BBC website is also well worth contemplating, especially this quote:

But Microsoft is playing smart and is likely to say that it is trying to compete not with Google, but with Yahoo, currently the number two search engine in the US.

The reason is clear: Microsoft is so far behind Google in search that, in many respects, it is not even in the same race.

While Google enjoys more than 64% of searches in the US, Microsoft trundles along with 8.2%. But Microsoft is at least notionally able to compete with Yahoo, which enjoys 20% of the market.

My thoughts? 1) No wonder I’m not happy with Bing – it’s only trying to beat Yahoo! Search. Google has, in my mind, defeated Alltheweb, which was a serious contender, and until late last year I used it for all my wargaming research. Now I’m using Google because it indexes more content and more obscure yet valuable content, such is it’s power. 2) Bing is Microsoft’s search engine, tweaked and revamped. I never used it previously, because of its limitations – for now I’ll leave it alone, too.

On the plus side, Bing did show me Steven Thomas’ “Balagan” website, where I saw and read about his efforts in making terrain templates. Here is his page -  Modelling: Terrain Templates. I hope you enjoy it and it gives you ideas – I certainly enjoyed it. Well done, Steve!

(This post is one of those job-related, ‘Librarian issues’ posts that occasionally pop up here. Normal modelling/gaming/hobby posts will be resumed very soon!)