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 aphyon wrote:

I can't decide between weapon loadouts, both look equaliy badass.

One is for anti-tank the other is good at shooting down planes or killing infantry(gatling cannons)

The BF109 is painted as Eric Hartmans distinctive plane. he was the top air combat ace in the luftwaffe(and in history generally), never shot down with 352 air combat kills.

I remember watching a historian on luftwaffe, he did not mentioned Eric Hartman, but talked about the dificulties in calculating accurate casualties numbers from VVS and Luftwaffe.
USSR did not do well against luftwaffe at all, do too almost no prior pilot training, especially in early parts of the war. Things got a bit better for VVS towards 45, but still luftwaffe prooved to be very strong.
That is cool you got a bit of history behind the model!

Chem-tanks on line
And that is NOT a LasCannon, it is a Chem spray nozzle, attached to random bit, from some lego-ish set I think.

Chem tank bands are cut from thin strips of aluminum tape.
Want to paint everything before attaching the tanks and the cables.

Not bad, even if I do say so me self.

Glad to finally put random junk to use.
Greens are sugar crystals, want to see how they'll work.

Happy the way Toxic Walker turned out.

Yakov and the lads

Bend rifle fix attempt with heat worked for a time, but after a while did not hold the shape.
Gluing a papeclip metal piece as a guide\support worked. It was either that or converting a different weapon or a barrel.

Snipers in camo
Just noticed banana clips on the sniper team. Perhaps will hang a machinegun of the backpacks, so things make sense and all.

Beginning work on the weapon teams.
Had to take everything off the platform for mold-line cleanup and painting. Next time will only get the sprue versions.

This model is so POORLY made, the model is bulky, there are large gaps between the parts, the heads stickout like matchheads, and most deceptive thing is the gunner!

Can't tell from the box art, but he is just holding his arms out, and the gun has no controls, no fire button, to grips. I do not even know how to begin to convert this.

It feels like a cheep polyethylene toy.

Unfortunately, I saw the gunner only after painting. Will have to get a bit clever.

1 Drill holes in hands

2 Find bits

3 Drill holes in bit

4 Feed floral wire through the holes

5 Straiten paperclip and strip the rubber jacket off

6 Drop of TrueBlood over white for the screen

7 Wrap exposed floral wire in small pieces of paperclip rubber jacket

8 Now the guy has something to hold on to

Snipers

Close combat squad

Weapon teams
Hailstorm / Red Lightning

When you finally get around to playing a game you will have the best looking army on the table!

 aphyon wrote:
When you finally get around to playing a game you will have the best looking army on the table!

I know right!

____________________________________________________________
Beginning conversion work on MELOR - KV-47 J, Light Combat Repair Walker
Glad to finally find use for all the trash Ive been collecting.

Great project. You just gotta love all those walkers. Very inspiring.

I don't get, though, how something with such a poor quality as the weapons team can become a product. Good job fixing it.

Looking forward to the repair walker.

 Max Moray wrote:
Great project. You just gotta love all those walkers. Very inspiring.

I don't get, though, how something with such a poor quality as the weapons team can become a product. Good job fixing it.

Looking forward to the repair walker.

Looks like one got past quality control. almost everything i have is really good quality. every now and then you find one that's a head scratcher. one of my heavy grenadiers has his belt satchels attached to his arm. and it is on there so good i didn't take it off because i though i might break the arm.

 Max Moray wrote:
Great project. You just gotta love all those walkers. Very inspiring.

I don't get, though, how something with such a poor quality as the weapons team can become a product. Good job fixing it.

Looking forward to the repair walker.

Yep vehicles and walkers are awesome!

I don't know man, because my collection comes from all over and I do not know how old the models are. The weapon teams might be old boxes because I got em years ago from ebay.
The SteelGuard models, walkers and vehicles however are near flawless, and recent boxes do not have the problems, so perhaps that is the reason for poor quality in some.

So every time I point out a problem with sculpting or casting I always keep in mind and try to communicate that perhaps it is an earlier cast.
With that said, the troops for SSU are not as cool as vehicles for sure, and the red lighting weapon team gun is not well designed.

But this is the thing - I only noticed the problem with RedLighting when I took everything off the base and tried to pose them back, before that the overall look of the heavy weapons team looked good to me.

Cheepo disposable sponge pack for 1$uck, perfect for I-beams

Waiting for things to dry.

With painting and terrain challenge out of the way, finally finished this dude!
The arm turned out over the top, and a bit cartoony.

Still, both of them look good together!
Different painting styles.
The one with converted arm was hairspray/chipped, the default one was just painted with home-brew rust paste.

there you go showing off again and making my paintjobs look inferior.

Good thing you don't play at my FLGS i would have to step up my game

 aphyon wrote:
there you go showing off again and making my paintjobs look inferior.

Good thing you don't play at my FLGS i would have to step up my game

What ya talking about! You still got to step up your game!

What do you think of doing a simple black/brown wash over primed models, and just decorate the base, no painting experience needed, just a bit of time.?!

I actually did use a mud wash on them, vallejo makes some great washes, i just didn't do anything with the bases. most everything else i do now i use scenic bases from secret weapon or micro art studio.

 aphyon wrote:
I actually did use a mud wash on them, vallejo makes some great washes, i just didn't do anything with the bases. most everything else i do now i use scenic bases from secret weapon or micro art studio.

So you are already stepped up then!
I like the way dust made their bases. Kinda feel bad for covering them up to be honest.
I figured for the SSU I will have earth base theme.
For the Allies different environment, more metal and concrete, and leave the Dust base texture as is, but brush some metal into it.
And for the Axis something different, like lice or surface of the moon

Great walkers, superb weathering. Gives them such a lovely russian junkyard vibe.

 Max Moray wrote:
Great walkers, superb weathering. Gives them such a lovely russian junkyard vibe.

Ineed! More junk and rust, less painting shortcuts and mistakes noticed!

Took apart everything that I could to ease mold-line clean up and the painting process.
But also that everything could be reattached very easily after painting.

This squad
2 spotter teams
artillery truck with crew
a chopa
and extra weapon options bits

SSU almost finished

Few weeks ago MY NEW LENS CAME IN! (50mm) with new batteries and sd-cards to update me old 6.3 megapixl canon rebel 6041, because 10year old batteries finally crapped out Woop! ! !
and camera broke,........$50 later the repair shop said sub mirror broke and they don't make parts for this ancient camera anymore.
went online, found same camera for $40, used, and just got it today.
MY NEW LENS CAME IN! and new/old camera! .... woop!

With 0.5 experience points in photography, still having fun playing with a new lens!
The main difference that I can see is old standard zoom 18-55mm keeps more depth in focus than the new 50mm.


SSU - medvedi (bears)

Got 2 color schemes going for observer squad and getting base ready for da choppa

Wanted to share a small tip.

I love using Thistle Seed for terrain. Denting small cavern for glue to sit in, helps with whole thing to stay upright by it self while the glue dries. Removing the actual seed is necessary because it will break off on its own anyways, and when it does the tiny hairs lose the coherency and fall apart. Ether bead of glue and roll the pinched end between fingers with the glue until dry, or very carefully break off the seed while holding the hairs together and glue it in place.

Progress on BR 47 tracked artillery - The vehicle it self is awesome, I love the way it looks. The crew however is not, really hope it is from the older moldings. Firstly, the box art show 3 crew men, there are actually 4. Same match stick heads problems, generic poses, the "loader" or "operator" in picture is again positioned so he looks like he is doing something, but from different angle just holdings his fists out in frustration at cruel universe that made him that way. None of the crews could actually be seated at this cool vehicle to drive it, might be interesting heavy conversion for future. Overall I am happy.

Progress on the MIL MI-48 Carrier - Detached all that was easily detached. Super cool that you can remove the pilot! Awesome little unit.