September 26, 2021
On Sunday one of the vendors at the swap meet that I have known for years gave me a giant plastic plant… probably from a Disney fairies playset of some kind. I did a lot of the plants from those playsets when I put together my Dr. Who and the Dinosaurs collection, but I haven’t seen one in several years, so I decided to repurpose this one as well. I cut off a few pieces I didn’t want and covered other areas with Milliput that did work for me. I think it turned out great.
With the giant plant done, I painted and based about seventy 15mm British infantry for North Africa. I then painted and based British heavy machine gun units and heavy mortar units. With those done I decided to see if I could put together a structure that would work as the mosque that was on the Sidi Rezegh battlefield. I had an old square stucco Mexican or Middle Eastern Building. What I then needed was a dome. For that I used the fat/rounder end of a small plastic egg and covered it with Milliput. I noticed from pictures that the real mosque had a dome that was relatively smooth but uneven, so that was a pretty easy thing to do. It’s far from a perfect match, but it will do the job of representing what I need on that battlefield.
As the week neared its end, I put together and painted my last four 15mm British six pdr. AT guns and crews. They are based, but the bases haven’t been given their detail as of yet. When I went to bed on Friday, I thought the workbench was done for the week, but at the swap meet on Saturday I discovered the McFarlane Toys’ Juggernaut. In order to make it workable as a 28mm steampunk/Victorian Sci Fi war machine, I needed to remove the toy’s large head and replace it with a 28mm driver/controller. The figure I selected for that was the Happy Meal’s Wild Wild West Dr. Arliss Loveless. Cutting the head off and replacing it with Loveless turned out to be more difficult than I thought it would be because the Juggernaut toy is made of some very hard plastic and the compartment that Loveless was being placed in is a very tight area to work in, but in the end I got one head removed and one Loveless inserted. There is still a huge amount of work to do, but this was the essential change that had to be done for the idea to work.
September 19, 2021
This week is bringing to a close my work on the 15mm British vehicles that I have for my WW2 North Africa. Note that I say the vehicles that I have because I do have about 25 more on order (15 Mk VIB from Peter Pig, 6 Quads, and 4 25 pdr. field guns from Command Decision). I began the workbench week painting my LRDG vehicles (3 Chevy’s and 2 jeeps). They are by Flames of War though I’m not sure they are currently in production. I had to add quite a bit to the Chevy’s to give them the well-used look that a LRDG should have… Milliput camo netting and Evergreen plastic covered with facial tissue filled the rear of the Chevy’s. I also modified and moved the crew around to give each vehicle a different look. The jeeps come two to a pack and both are slightly different, so they didn’t need a lot of work in terms of appearance, but attaching the wheels was hell… the wheels and the slots they went in didn’t match at all.
Once the LRDG vehicles were done, I put together and painted a pack of Command Decision British motorcycles with sidecars. They went together pretty well and were pretty easy to paint. I based them for strength and to allow me to add some tufts to give them a more interesting look.
With the motorcycles done, I built and painted a Battle Honours 15 cwt radio truck. I’m not sure where or how I got this. It went together fine except there was no windshield so I used Evergreen plastic to provide a pair of fold-down wind screens.
The last of the vehicles were a mistake. When I bought the pieces for this collection 17 years ago, I apparently convinced myself that the Bishop armored 25 pdr was in service at the time of the first battle of Alamein. In fact, it wasn’t. It began service in North Africa at the time of the second battle of Alamein… oh well.
With the British vehicles done (that I currently have… 25 are on order), I turned my attention to the British infantry. I am keeping the painting simple both in terms of color scheme and detail, but I like the look. It works well with the simple uniform needs of 15mm figures. I’ve got 50 painted and bases for another 33. I have ordered more Renedra 25mm square bases on eBay since Brookhurst Hobbies doesn’t expect to have a restock for several weeks, perhaps a month. The infantry for my WW2 collections is much smaller in numbers than the great regiments of the pre-20th century periods. I expected that the British infantry for North Africa will number little more than a hundred of so figures and that will be true of the Germans and Italians as well. In North Africa, infantry and terrain features will be sparce; equipment will dominate the collection.
My last work of the week focused on the gun crews for my last four British 25 pdr. field guns. With those done I began adding the ground cover to those guns as well as to the bases of the infantry I have completed thus far.
September 12, 2021
Just finished my Flames of War 2 pdr and 6pdr portees. I’ll be using the 2 pdr with Operation Crusader and the 6 pdr for Gazala 1942. They are nice pieces, but apparently no longer among the items FOW is now doing since they went to plastic box sets.
With the portees done, I turned to towed 6 pdr. AT by Old Glory. I got them painted, crewed, and based.
The week ended with work on two Flames of War Morris AA tractors. I got these at Brookhurst for $10 (two in the pack). The very cheap price was due to the fact that they are out of production, missing the cab cover on one, and one has/had a broken fender. Oddly the worst part of this project were the wheels; they simply didn’t fit and needed a lot of playing with to get them on; a real pain. I fixed the fender reasonably well (not perfect, but this has been through the war) with some Milliput. The missing cab cover is done with Evergreen plastic; not perfect, but it will serve, and I closed out the work of the week by giving each Morris a paint job.
September 5, 2021
On Saturday at the swap meet one of the sellers had a pile of cast-off toys. The pile included three Bonker's Toys' flying saucers. He wanted $3 each for them, and while I'm sure they were worth $3, they were made with open cockpits, and I didn't want that so I would have to find a way to give them a dome over the cockpit, and I wasn't sure where I would find one let alone three domes so I passed on the Bonker's Toys. The next day that same seller had those same Bonker's Toys on a table marked 50 cents each. I bought all three. A few stalls down to my great pleasure and surprise I found two soap balls in plastic containers... two halves per soap ball. And they looked like they could be cut to be perfect domes for the Bonker's flying saucers. They were a dollar each; I bought both. The domes worked great. I also later found that these Bonker’s flying saucers tend to be very expensive on eBay… like more than $40 plus shipping for the set of three. I also stopped by my local Heroclix shop to see if it had any figures that would make good crew for the flying saucers in the bargain buckets… I found the Fugitoids and bought five for 5 cents each. I then went on eBay and found another 10 for a dollar each which included shipping.
With the flying saucers repurposed (though not repainted) and crews found, I turned my attention back to my 15mm WW2 North Africa collection. Fortunately, years ago when I was buying miniatures for this collection, I purchased the Flames of War box set of the British 5.5” guns and the Matador tactors that go with them. So far Flames of War has not produced these in plastic, so they are out of production. Luckily I also bought the FOW hero packs for Jock Campbell and Charles Upham… also no longer available; great pieces in both packs.
I ended the week putting together and painting 3 of the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) Austin ambulances. In my opinion these are a nightmare to assemble, but they are the only Austin ambulances I could find that were sized right for what I am doing.
