June 27, 2021
The week began with a return to painting Grants for my 15mm British North Africa project. Last week I did the first of the three squadrons… indicated by the blue triangle on the turret. This week I completed the last two squadrons of Grants… blue circle and square on turrets. All 15 of these Grants are by Command Decision.
With the Grants completed, I turned my attention to painting the last of my Command Decision Bedford 3-toners and CMP 15 cwt. These are also by Command Decision and bring my British transport force to 24 trucks/lorries. I have more British transports by Flames of War, but they will have to wait while I paint up my Command Decision Crusader IIs. When the Flames of War transports are done, my transports will number 41… more than enough. Regarding the Command Decision Crusader IIs I will say that they seem to go together much better than the Grants or the Bedford lorries. That might be because they are less desired by gamers and therefore their molds are in better shape.
My Firefly/Serenity arrived from the UK in Wednesday’s mail. Pam got it for me for Father's Day. It is a plastic 3d printed model... 20" long. The manufacturer is 3designprintingUK. While it is far from 28mm, it will do for my purposes and I think it will look pretty good with the figures from the Firefly Adventures game. Believe me, it is a big ship. It's a beautiful piece(s); really well done, but despite the fact that I am a pretty skilled model maker, putting it together makes me nervous and excited. It doesn't come with landing gear/legs... it's supposed to be flying, but I think I know how I will solve that with some landing gear from some Action Fleets ships I have... gotten over the years at the swap meet for just such a purpose.
The workbench week ended with the painting of two complete squadrons of British Crusader II tanks and part of a third. Most of these are by Command Decision but a few are by Flames of War (the ones with the hull machine gun turrents).
June 20, 2021
I’ve been painting and building miniatures and terrain for more than 40 years, and yet when it is time to start a new project, especially one in a different scale, I get nervous about whether I can do what is needed to get the project done properly. Sometimes what it takes to get the ball rolling is to do something related to the project but not particularly difficult or different from what I have been doing. That’s where these 15mm stucco buildings come in. These stucco structures are far from dramatic. They are modified Gallia buildings from decades back that I found while I was sorting through my 15mm World War II North Africa collection in preparation for starting that project. I’ll be using them with the North Africa collection, but they are simple and far from demanding in terms of skill. In the past I have tended to do this type of structure in a beige or pale sand color, but this time I decided to give them a little more depth and color… a little more pop. I used the color scheme I used with the buildings in my 28mm Egyptian town, and I think it is going to give me the look I want. I may find myself repainting the other 15mm stucco structures I have used with my Sudan collection… we’ll see.
Two more sets of the Battlefield In A Box Bestial Huts arrived, and once again I took some time to narrow the entrance of the medium size hut by inserting a piece of Evergreen plastic to cover about 2/3 of the opening. I then covered it with Milliput and textured it with an old toothbrush. Initially I was only going to do one more of the medium huts… thinking that five huts is all I will need for the project…but later in the week I decided to do the last of the medium huts as well giving me three small and three medium huts for the project. That’s the last of the Gordon Institute Frozen North Neanderthal huts.
With the huts completed I turned my attention to the first of the vehicles I will be using in my 15mm North Africa (WWII) collection. I am starting with British transport… three packs of Bedford 3 ton 4 x 4s and a pack of Canadian Military Pattern (CMP) 15 cwt trucks. These are all by Command Decision. I used Command Decision simply because with a membership in the Old Glory Army, I get them with a 40% discount, but they are hell to put together… lots of tiny pieces and many of them bent and needing to be worked back into shape. Nonetheless, I got 12 Bedfords and three CMP done this week, and I squeezed in a squadron of Grants (also Command Decision). My painting approach is a black undercoat with dry-brushed color over that. They will look fine on the table.
June 13, 2021
The week began with the painting of my Atlantis command car with roof search light. I’m really happy with the way it came out… it doesn’t look awkward. I’m inclined to say that this is probably the last command car I will do, but the fact is if the price was right I probably would do one more with a roof-mounted loud speaker.
I dropped by Arnie’s trains today to see if there was any possibility they had any Testor’s flat black spray. They did and I bought the last three cans… might be the last three I ever see in a local shop. While there I found a box of Plasticville odds and ends on the bargain table for $3.99. It included a damaged but repairable post office and the antenna from the O scale transmitting station… I really wanted that. As far as I can tell, it was pretty much complete, and it gives me the second radio transmission tower I need for the Gordon Institute’s Frozen North project. As for the other (which was the HO version), I kept the paint simple… flat red and pale sand over a flat black base color. I surrounded the plastic base with Milliput which is covered with snow and painted what remained showing of the plastic base grey to represent concrete.
What I accomplished this week at the Workbench is pretty limited. It really amounted to the closing out of the work on the three Gordon Institute projects I have been working on for the last year… Loch Ness, King Kong and Frozen North. The last half of the week has been spent organizing for the next project which is my 15mm North African Campaign… late 1940 through the first half of 1942/pre-Montgomery. I put this collection together about 17 years ago and bringing together/organizing it in preparation for painting took a lot of time. It’s a huge collection and I needed to go through all of the boxes (had to find them all first after 17 years) and sort them according to nation… Germany, Britain and Italian.
June 6, 2021
This week began with the completion of the Pegasus Gothic Building. I added some Reaper Gargoyles and gave it a paint job.
With the building done I decided to continue with model building and turned my attention to a model I have had stored for years… the Lindberg OA9 Grumman Goose in 1/48 scale. Once again, I set it in a base of Milliput to serve as water and dry brushed the paint on to give it the look of a craft that had been worked hard far from modern civilization. It’s a nice model for use with miniatures because it’s simple, strong and has a very Pulp look.
A few months ago, I purchased a second 1/48 scale SMER Supermarine Walrus. I did the first based in Milliput to serve as water, so I decided to do this one with wheels down. It is a great plane, but not a great model. It is cheap because the plastic is not of the highest quality and the pieces are not easy to bring together when building the model. The biggest problem when doing it with wheels down is that the struts are weak where they connect to both the plane and the wheels so you have to pull them in close to the body of the plane and glue the struts’ shafts to the plane as much as possible… the little connecting piece by itself will break too easily. You also need to glue the wheels to the shaft as well because again the connecting piece will break too easily, and this is a model that will be used with miniatures not just set on a shelf. Like the Grumman Goose and the previous Walrus, I dry brushed this one to give it that worked-hard look of a craft that serves far from modern civilization. That said, it is plane with a design that is the vision of Pulp.
I ended the week returning to Atlantis the Lost Empire and one of my favorite vehicles from that film… the command car. This time I did it with a roof spotlight. I’ll paint it when the workbench returns next week.
